PROSPER MÉRIMÉE

Carmen

Novelist, archaeologist, essayist, and in all three departments one of the greatest masters of French style of his century, Prosper Mérimée was born in Paris on September 23, 1803. The son of a painter, Mérimée was intended for the law, but at the age of twenty-two achieved fame as the author of a number of plays purporting to be translations from the Spanish. From that time until his death at Cannes on September 23, 1870, a brilliant series of plays, essays, novels, and historical and archaeological works poured from his fertile pen. Altogether he wrote about a score of tales, and it is on these and on his "Letters to an Unknown" that Mérimée's fame depends. His first story to win universal recognition was "Colombo," in 1830. Seventeen years later appeared his "Carmen, the Power of Love," of which Taine, in his celebrated essay on the work, says, "Many dissertations on our primitive savage methods, many knowing treatises like Schopenhauer's on the metaphysics of love and death, cannot compare to the hundred pages of 'Carmen.'"

I.--I Meet Don José

One day, wandering in the higher part of the plain of Cachena, near Cordova, harassed with fatigue, dying of thirst, burned by an overhead sun, I perceived, at some distance from the path I was following, a little green lawn dotted with rushes and reeds. It proclaimed to me the neighbourhood of a spring, and I saw that a brook issued from a narrow gorge between two lofty spurs of the Sierra de Cabra.

At the mouth of the gorge my horse neighed, and another horse that I did not see answered immediately. A hundred steps farther, and the gorge, suddenly widening, revealed a sort of natural circus, shaded by the cliffs which surrounded it. It was impossible to light upon a place which promised a pleasanter halt to the traveller.

But the honour of discovering this beautiful spot did not belong to me. A man was resting there already, and it my entrance, he had risen and approached his horse. He was a young fellow of medium height, but robust appearance, with a gloomy and haughty air. In one hand he held his horse's halter, in the other a brass blunderbuss. The fierce air of the man somewhat surprised me, but not having seen any robbers I no longer believed in them. My guide Antonio, however, who came up behind me, showed evident signs of terror, and drew near very much against his will.

I stretched myself on the grass, drew out my cigar-case, and asked the man with the blunderbuss if he had a tinder-box on him. The unknown, without speaking, produced his tinder-box, and hastened to strike a light for me. In return I gave him one of my best Havanas, for which he thanked me with an inclination of the head.

In Spain a cigar given and received establishes relations of hospitality, like the sharing of bread and salt in the East. My unknown now proved more talkative than I had expected. He seemed half famished, and devoured some slices of excellent ham, which I had put in my guide's knapsack, wolfishly. When I mentioned I was going to the Venta del Cuervo for the night he offered to accompany me, and I accepted willingly.

As we rode along Antonio endeavoured to attract my attention by mysterious signs, but I took no notice. Doubtless my companion was a smuggler, or a robber. What did it matter to me? I knew I had nothing to fear from a man who had eaten and smoked with me.

We arrived at the venta, which was one of the most wretched I had yet come across. An old woman opened the door, and on seeing my companion, exclaimed, "Ah, Señor Don José!"

Don José frowned and raised his hand, and the old woman was silent at once.

The supper was better than I expected, and after supper Don José played the mandoline and sang some melancholy songs. My guide decided to pass the night in the stable, but Don José and I stretched ourselves on mule cloths on the floor.

Very disagreeable itchings snatched me from my first nap, and drove me to a wooden bench outside the door. I was about to close my eyes for the second time, when, to my surprise, I saw Antonio leading a horse. He stopped on seeing me, and said anxiously, "Where is he?"

"In the venta; he is sleeping. He is not afraid of the fleas. Why are you taking away my horse?"

I then observed that, in order to prevent any noise, Antonio had carefully wrapped the animal's feet in the remains of an old sack.

"Hush!" said Antonio. "That man there is José Navarro, the most famous bandit of Andalusia. There are two hundred ducats for whoever gives him up. I know a post of lancers a league and a half from here, and before it is day I will bring some of them here."

"What harm has the poor man done you that you denounce him?" said I.

"I am a poor wretch, sir!" was all Antonio could say. "Two hundred ducats are not to be lost, especially when it is a matter of delivering the country from such vermin."

My threats and requests were alike unavailing. Antonio was in the saddle, he set spurs to his horse after freeing its feet from the rags, and was soon lost to sight in the darkness.

I was very much annoyed with my guide, and somewhat uneasy; but quickly making up my mind, returned to the inn, and shook Don José to awaken him.

"Would you be very pleased to see half a dozen lancers arrive here?" I said.

He leapt to his feet.

"Ah, your guide has betrayed me! Your guide! I had suspected him. Adieu, sir. God repay you the service I am in your debt for. I am not quite as bad as you think. Yes, there is still something in me deserving the pity of a gentleman. Adieu!"

He ran to the stable, and some minutes later I heard him galloping into the fields.

As for me, I asked myself if I had been right in saving a robber, perhaps a murderer, from the gallows only because I had eaten ham and rice and smoked with him.

I think Antonio cherished a grudge against me; but, nevertheless, we parted good friends at Cordova.

II.--My Experience with Carmen

I passed some days at Cordova searching for a certain manuscript in the Dominican's library.

One evening I was leaning on the parapet of the quay, smoking, when a woman came up the flight of stairs leading to the river and sat down beside me. She was simply dressed, all in black, and we fell into conversation.

On my taking out my repeater watch she was greatly astonished.

"What inventions they have among you foreigners!"

Then she told me she was a gipsy, and proposed to tell my fortune.

"Have you heard people speak of La Carmencita?" she added. "That is me!"

"Good!" I said to myself. "Last week I supped with a highway robber; now to-day I will eat ices with a gipsy. When travelling one must see everything."

With that I escorted the Señorita Carmen to a café, and we had ices.

My gipsy had a strange and wild beauty, a face which astonished at first, but which one could not forget. Her eyes, in particular, had an expression, at once loving and fierce, that I have found in no human face since.

It would have been ridiculous to have had my fortune told in a public café and I begged the fair sorceress to allow me to accompany her to her domicile. She at once consented, but insisted on seeing my watch again.

"Is it really of gold?" she said, examining it with great attention.

Night had set in, and most of the shops were closed and the streets almost deserted as we crossed the Guadalquiver bridge, and went on to the outskirts of the town.

The house we entered was by no means a palace. A child opened the door, and disappeared when the gipsy said some words to it in the Romany tongue.

Then the gipsy produced some cards, a magnet, a dried chameleon, and other things necessary for her art. She told me to cross my left hand with a piece of money, and the magic ceremonies began. It was evident to me that she was no half-sorceress.

Unfortunately, we were soon disturbed. Of a sudden the door opened violently, and a man entered, who denounced the gipsy in a manner far from polite.

I at once recognised my friend Don José, and greeted him cheerfully.

"The same as ever! This will have an end," he said turning fiercely to the gipsy, who now started talking to him in her own language. She grew animated as she spoke, and her eyes became terrible. It appeared to me she was urging him warmly to do something at which he hesitated. I think I understood what it was only too well from seeing her quickly pass and repass her little hand under her chin. There was some question of a throat to cut, and I had a suspicion that the throat was mine.

Don José only answered with two or three words in a sharp tone, and the gipsy, casting a look of deep contempt at him, retired to a corner of the room, and taking an orange, peeled it and began to eat it.

Don José took my arm, opened the door, and led me into the street. We walked some way together in the profoundest silence. Then, stretching out his hand, "Keep straight on," he Said, "and you will find the bridge."

With that he turned his back on me, and walked rapidly away. I returned to my inn a little crestfallen and depressed. Worst of all was that, as I was undressing, I discovered my watch was missing.

I departed for Seville next day, and after several months of rambling in Andalusia, was once more back in Cordova, on my way to Madrid.

The good fathers at the Dominican convent received me with open arms.

"Your watch has been found again, and will be returned to you," one of them told me. "The rascal is in gaol, and is to be executed the day after to-morrow. He is known in the country under the name of José Navarro, and he is a man to be seen."

I went to see the prisoner, and took him some cigars. At first he shrugged his shoulders and received me coldly, but I saw him again on the morrow, and passed a part of the day with him. It was from his mouth I learnt the sad adventures of his life.

III.--Don José's Story

"I was born," he said, "at Elizondo, and my name--Don José Lizzarrabengoa--will tell you that I am Basque, and an old Christian. If I take the don, it is because I have the right to do so. One day when I had been playing tennis with a lad from Alava I won, and he picked a quarrel with me. We took our iron-tipped sticks, and fought, and again I had the advantage; but it forced me to quit the country. I met some dragoons, and enlisted in the Almanza regiment of cavalry. Soon I became a corporal, and they were under promise to make me sergeant when, to my misfortune, I was put on guard at the tobacco factory at Seville.

"I was young then, and I was always thinking of my native country, and was afraid of the Andalusian young women and their jesting ways. But one Friday--I shall never forget it--when I was on duty, I heard people saying, 'Here's the gipsy.' And, looking up, I saw her for the first time. I saw that Carmen whom you know, in whose house I met you some months ago.

"She made some joke at me as she passed into the factory, and flipped a cassia flower just between my eyes. When she had gone, I picked it up and put it carefully in my pocket. First piece of folly!

"A few hours afterwards I was ordered to take two of my men into the factory. There had been a quarrel, and Carmen had slashed another woman with two terrible cuts of her knife across the face. The case was clear. I took Carmen by the arm, and bade her follow me. At the guard-house the sergeant said it was serious, and that she must be taken to prison. I placed her between two dragoons, and, walking behind, we set out for the town.

"At first the gipsy kept silence, but presently she turned to me, and said softly, 'You are taking me to prison! Alas! what will become of me? Have pity on me, Mr. Officer! You are so young, so good-looking! Let me escape, and I will give you a piece of the loadstone which will make all women love you.'

"I answered her as seriously as I could that the order was to take her to prison, and that there was no help for it.

"My accent told her I was from the Basque province, and she began to speak to me in my native tongue. Gipsies, you know, sir, speak all languages. She told me she had been carried off by gipsies from Navarro, and was working at the factory in order to earn enough to return home to her poor mother. Would I do nothing for a country-woman? The Spanish women at the factory had slandered her native place.

"It was all lies, sir. She always lied. But I believed her at the time.

"'If I pushed you and you fell,' she resumed, in Basque, 'it would not be these two conscripts who would hold me.'

"I forgot my order and everything, and said, "'Very well, my country-woman; and may our Lady of the Mountain be your aid!'

"Suddenly Carmen turned round and dealt me a blow on the chest with her fist. I let myself fall backwards on purpose, and, with one bound, she leapt over me, and started to run. There was no risk of overtaking her with our spurs, our sabres, and our lances. The prisoner disappeared in no time, and all the women-folk in the quarter favoured her escape, and made fun of us, pointing out the wrong road on purpose. We had to return at last to the guard-house without a receipt from the governor of the prison.

"The result of this was I was degraded and sent to prison for a month. Farewell to the sergeant's stripes, I thought.

"One day in prison the jailor entered, and gave me a special loaf of bread.

"'Here,' he said, 'see what your cousin has sent you.'

"I was astonished, for I had no cousin in Seville, and when I broke the loaf I found a small file and a gold piece inside it. No doubt then, it was a present from Carmen, for a gipsy would set fire to a town to escape a day's imprisonment, and I was touched by this mark of remembrance.

"But I served my sentence, and, on coming out, was put on sentry outside the colonel's door, like a common soldier. It was a terrible humiliation.

"While I was on duty I saw Carmen again. She was dressed out like a shrine, all gold and ribbons, and was going in one evening with a party of gipsies to amuse the colonel's guests. She recognised me, and named a place where I could meet her next day. When I gave her back the gold piece she burst into laughter, but kept it all the same. Do you know, my son,' she said to me when we parted, 'I believe I love you a little. But that cannot last. Dog and wolf do not keep house together long. Perhaps, if you adopted the gipsy law, I would like to become your wife. But it is nonsense; it is impossible. Think no more of Carmencita, or she will bring you to the gallows.'

"She spoke the truth. I would have been wise to think no more of her; but after that day I could think of nothing else, and walked about always hoping to meet her, but she had left the town.

"It was some weeks later, when I had been placed as a night sentinel at one of the town gates that I saw Carmen. I was put there to prevent smuggling; but Carmen persuaded me to let five of her friends pass in, and they were all well laden with English goods. She told me I might come and see her next day at the same house I had visited before.

"Carmen had moods, like the weather in our country. She would make appointments and not keep them, and at another time, would be full of affection.

"One evening when I had called on a friend of Carmen's the gipsy entered the room, followed by a young man, a lieutenant in our regiment.

"He told me to decamp, and I said something sharp to him. We soon drew our swords, and presently the point of mine entered his body. Then Carmen extinguished the lamp, and, wounded though I was, we started running down the street. 'Great fool,' she said. 'You can do nothing but foolish things. Besides, I told you I would bring you bad luck.' She made me take off my uniform and put on a striped cloak, and this with a handkerchief over my head, enabled me to pass fairly well for a peasant. Then she took me to a house at the end of a little lane, and she and another gipsy washed and dressed my wounds. Next day Carmen pointed out to me the new career she destined me for. I was to go to the coast and become a smuggler. In truth it was the only one left me, now that I had incurred the punishment of death. Besides, I believed I could make sure of her love. Carmen introduced me to her people, and at first the freedom of the smuggler's life pleased me better than the soldier's life. I saw Carmen often, and she showed more liking for me than ever; but, she would not admit that she was willing to be my wife.

IV.--The End of Don José's Story

"One becomes a rogue without thinking, sir. A pretty girl makes one lose one's head, one fights for her, a misfortune happens, one is driven to the mountains, from smuggler one becomes robber before reflecting.

"Carmen often made me jealous, especially after she accepted me as her husband, and she warned me not to interfere with her freedom. On my part I wanted to change my way of life, but when I spoke to her about quitting Spain and trying to live honestly in America, she laughed at me.

"'We are not made for planting cabbages,' she said; 'our destiny is to live at the expense of others.' Then she told me of a fresh piece of smuggling on hand, and I let myself be persuaded to resume the wretched traffic.

"While I was in hiding at Granada, there were bullfights to which Carmen went. When she returned, she spoke much of a very skilful picador, named Lucas. She knew the name of his horse, and how much his embroidered jacket cost him. I paid no heed to this, but began to grow alarmed when I heard that Carmen had been seen about with Lucas. I asked her how and why she had made his acquaintance.

"'He is a man,' she said, 'with whom business can be done. He has won twelve hundred pounds at the bullfights. One of two things: we must either have the money, or, as he is a good horseman, we can enroll him in our band.'

"'I wish,' I replied, 'neither his money nor his person, and I forbid you to speak to him.'

"'Take care,' she said; 'when anyone dares me to do a thing it is soon done.'

"Luckily the picador left for Malaga, and I set about my smuggling. I had a great deal to do in this expedition, and it was about that time I first met you. Carmen robbed you of your watch at our last interview, and she wanted your money as well. We had a violent dispute about that, and I struck her. She turned pale and wept. It was the first time I saw her weep, and it had a terrible effect on me. I begged her pardon, but it was not till three days later that she would kiss me.

"'There is a fête at Cordova,' she said, when we were friends again. 'I am going to see it, then I shall find out the people who carry money with them and tell you.'

"I let her go, but when a peasant told me there was a bull-fight at Cordova, I set off like a madman to the spot. Lucas was pointed out to me, and on the bench close to the barrier I recognised Carmen. It was enough for me to see her to be certain how things stood. Lucas, at the first bull, did the gallant, as I had foreseen. He tore the bunch of ribbons from the bull and carried it to Carmen, who put it in her hair on the spot. The bull took upon itself the task of avenging me. Lucas was thrown down with his horse on his chest, and the bull on the top of both. I looked at Carmen, she had already left her seat, but I was so wedged in I was obliged to wait for the end of the fights.

"I got home first, however, and Carmen only arrived at two o'clock in the morning.

"'Come with me,' I said.

"'Very well, let us go,' she answered.

"I went and fetched my horse; I put her behind me, and we travelled all the rest of the night without speaking. At daybreak we were in a solitary gorge.

"'Listen,' I said to Carmen, 'I forget everything. Only swear to me one thing, that you will follow me to America, and live there quietly with me.'

"'No,' she said, in a sulky tone, 'I do not want to go to America. I am quite comfortable here.'

"I implored her to let us change our way of life and Carmen answered, 'I will follow you to death, but I will not live with you any longer. I always thought you meant to kill me, and now I see that is what you are going to do. It is destiny, but you will not make me yield.'

"'Listen to me!' I said, 'for the last time. You know that it is for you I have become a robber and a murderer. Carmen! my Carmen, there is still time for us to save ourselves,' I promised anything and everything if she would love me again.

"'José,' she replied, 'you ask me for the impossible. I do not love you any more. All is over between us. You have the right to kill me. But Carmen must always be free. To love you is impossible, and I do not wish to live with you.'

"Fury took possession of me, and I killed her with my knife. An hour later I laid her in a grave in the wood. Then I mounted my horse, galloped to Cordova, and gave myself up at the first guard-house.... Poor Carmen! it is the gipsies who are to blame for having brought her up like that."