полная версия

Проспер Мериме
Carmen

“I asked her when I should see her again.

“‘When you’re less of a simpleton,’ she retorted, with a laugh. Then, in a more serious tone, ‘Do you know, my son, I really believe I love you a little; but that can’t last! The dog and the wolf can’t agree for long. Perhaps if you turned gipsy, I might care to be your romi. But that’s all nonsense, such things aren’t possible. Pshaw! my boy. Believe me, you’re well out of it. You’ve come across the devil—he isn’t always black—and you’ve not had your neck wrung. I wear a woollen suit, but I’m no sheep.²⁶ Go and burn a candle to your majari,²⁷ she deserves it well. Come, good-by once more. Don’t think any more about La Carmencita, or she’ll end by making you marry a widow with wooden legs.‘²⁸

“As she spoke, she drew back the bar that closed the door, and once we were out in the street she wrapped her mantilla about her, and turned on her heel.

“She spoke the truth. I should have done far better never to think of her again. But after that day in the Calle del Candilejo I couldn’t think of anything else. All day long I used to walk about, hoping I might meet her. I sought news of her from the old hag, and from the fried-fish seller. They both told me she had gone away to Laloro, which is their name for Portugal. They probably said it by Carmen’s orders, but I soon found out they were lying. Some weeks after my day in the Calle del Candilejo I was on duty at one of the town gates. A little way from the gate there was a breach in the wall. The masons were working at it in the daytime, and at night a sentinel was posted on it, to prevent smugglers from getting in. All through one day I saw Lillas Pastia going backward and forward near the guard-room, and talking to some of my comrades. They all knew him well, and his fried-fish and fritters even better. He came up to me, and asked if I had any news of Carmen.

“‘No,’ said I.

“‘Well,’ said he, ‘you’ll soon hear of her, old fellow.’

“He was not mistaken. That night I was posted to guard the breach in the wall. As soon as the sergeant had disappeared I saw a woman coming toward me. My heart told me it was Carmen. Still I shouted:

“‘Keep off! Nobody can pass here!’

“‘Now, don’t be spiteful,’ she said, making herself known to me.

“‘What! you here, Carmen?’

“‘Yes, mi payllo. Let us say few words, but wise ones. Would you like to earn a douro? Some people will be coming with bundles. Let them alone.’

“‘No,’ said I, ‘I must not allow them through. These are my orders.’

“‘Orders! orders! You didn’t think about orders in the Calle del Candilejo!’

“‘Ah!’ I cried, quite maddened by the very thought of that night. ‘It was well worth while to forget my orders for that! But I won’t have any smuggler’s money!’

“‘Well, if you won’t have money, shall we go and dine together at old Dorotea’s?’

“‘No,’ said I, half choked by the effort it cost me. ‘No, I can’t.’

“‘Very good! If you make so many difficulties, I know to whom I can go. I’ll ask your officer if he’ll come with me to Dorotea’s. He looks good-natured, and he’ll post a sentry who’ll only see what he had better see. Good-bye, canary-bird! I shall have a good laugh the day the order comes out to hang you!’

“I was weak enough to call her back, and I promised to let the whole of gipsydom pass in, if that were necessary, so that I secured the only reward I longed for. She instantly swore she would keep her word faithfully the very next day, and ran off to summon her friends, who were close by. There were five of them, of whom Pastia was one, all well loaded with English goods. Carmen kept watch for them. She was to warn them with her castanets the instant she caught sight of the patrol. But there was no necessity for that. The smugglers finished their job in a moment.

“The next day I went to the Calle del Candilejo. Carmen kept me waiting, and when she came, she was in rather a bad temper.

“‘I don’t like people who have to be pressed,’ she said. ‘You did me a much greater service the first time, without knowing you’d gain anything by it. Yesterday you bargained with me. I don’t know why I’ve come, for I don’t care for you any more. Here, be off with you. Here’s a douro for your trouble.’

“I very nearly threw the coin at her head, and I had to make a violent effort to prevent myself from actually beating her. After we had wrangled for an hour I went off in a fury. For some time I wandered about the town, walking hither and thither like a madman. At last I went into a church, and getting into the darkest corner I could find, I cried hot tears. All at once I heard a voice.

“‘A dragoon in tears. I’ll make a philter of them!’

“I looked up. There was Carmen in front of me.

“‘Well, mi payllo, are you still angry with me?’ she said. ‘I must care for you in spite of myself, for since you left me I don’t know what has been the matter with me. Look you, it is I who ask you to come to the Calle del Candilejo, now!’

“So we made it up: but Carmen’s temper was like the weather in our country. The storm is never so close, in our mountains, as when the sun is at its brightest. She had promised to meet me again at Dorotea’s, but she didn’t come.

“And Dorotea began telling me again that she had gone off to Portugal about some gipsy business.

“As experience had already taught me how much of that I was to believe, I went about looking for Carmen wherever I thought she might be, and twenty times in every day I walked through the Calle del Candilejo. One evening I was with Dorotea, whom I had almost tamed by giving her a glass of anisette now and then, when Carmen walked in, followed by a young man, a lieutenant in our regiment.

“‘Get away at once,’ she said to me in Basque. I stood there, dumfounded, my heart full of rage.

“‘What are you doing here?’ said the lieutenant to me. ‘Take yourself off—get out of this.’

“I couldn’t move a step. I felt paralyzed. The officer grew angry, and seeing I did not go out, and had not even taken off my forage cap, he caught me by the collar and shook me roughly. I don’t know what I said to him. He drew his sword, and I unsheathed mine. The old woman caught hold of my arm, and the lieutenant gave me a wound on the forehead, of which I still bear the scar. I made a step backward, and with one jerk of my elbow I threw old Dorotea down. Then, as the lieutenant still pressed me, I turned the point of my sword against his body and he ran upon it. Then Carmen put out the lamp and told Dorotea, in her own language, to take to flight. I fled into the street myself, and began running along, I knew not whither. It seemed to me that some one was following me. When I came to myself I discovered that Carmen had never left me.

“‘Great stupid of a canary-bird!’ she said, ‘you never make anything but blunders. And, indeed, you know I told you I should bring you bad luck. But come, there’s a cure for everything when you have a Fleming from Rome²⁹ for your love. Begin by rolling this handkerchief round your head, and throw me over that belt of yours. Wait for me in this alley—I’ll be back in two minutes.

“She disappeared, and soon came back bringing me a striped cloak which she had gone to fetch, I knew not whence. She made me take off my uniform, and put on the cloak over my shirt. Thus dressed, and with the wound on my head bound round with the handkerchief, I was tolerably like a Valencian peasant, many of whom come to Seville to sell a drink they make out of ‘chufas.‘³⁰ Then she took me to a house very much like Dorotea’s, at the bottom of a little lane. Here she and another gipsy woman washed and dressed my wounds, better than any army surgeon could have done, gave me something, I know not what, to drink, and finally made me lie down on a mattress, on which I went to sleep.

“Probably the woman had mixed one of the soporific drugs of which they know the secret in my drink, for I did not wake up till very late the next day. I was rather feverish, and had a violent headache. It was some time before the memory of the terrible scene in which I had taken part on the previous night came back to me. After having dressed my wound, Carmen and her friend, squatting on their heels beside my mattress, exchanged a few words of ‘chipe calli,’ which appeared to me to be something in the nature of a medical consultation. Then they both of them assured me that I should soon be cured, but that I must get out of Seville at the earliest possible moment, for that, if I was caught there, I should most undoubtedly be shot.

“‘My boy,’ said Carmen to me, ‘you’ll have to do something. Now that the king won’t give you either rice or haddock³¹ you’ll have to think of earning your livelihood. You’re too stupid for stealing a pastesas.³² But you are brave and active. If you have the pluck, take yourself off to the coast and turn smuggler. Haven’t I promised to get you hanged? That’s better than being shot, and besides, if you set about it properly, you’ll live like a prince as long as the minons³³ and the coast-guard don’t lay their hands on your collar.’

“In this attractive guise did this fiend of a girl describe the new career she was suggesting to me,—the only one, indeed, remaining, now I had incurred the penalty of death. Shall I confess it, sir? She persuaded me without much difficulty. This wild and dangerous life, it seemed to me, would bind her and me more closely together. In future, I thought, I should be able to make sure of her love.

“I had often heard talk of certain smugglers who travelled about Andalusia, each riding a good horse, with his mistress behind him and his blunderbuss in his fist. Already I saw myself trotting up and down the world, with a pretty gipsy behind me. When I mentioned that notion to her, she laughed till she had to hold her sides, and vowed there was nothing in the world so delightful as a night spent camping in the open air, when each rom retired with his romi beneath their little tent, made of three hoops with a blanket thrown across them.

“‘If I take to the mountains,’ said I to her, ‘I shall be sure of you. There’ll be no lieutenant there to go shares with me.’

“‘Ha! ha! you’re jealous!’ she retorted, ‘so much the worse for you. How can you be such a fool as that? Don’t you see I must love you, because I have never asked you for money?’

“When she said that sort to thing I could have strangled her.

“To shorten the story, sir, Carmen procured me civilian clothes, disguised in which I got out of Seville without being recognised. I went to Jerez, with a letter from Pastia to a dealer in anisette whose house was the smugglers’ meeting-place. I was introduced to them, and their leader, surnamed El Dancaire, enrolled me in his gang. We started for Gaucin, where I found Carmen, who had told me she would meet me there. In all these expeditions she acted as spy for our gang, and she was the best that ever was seen. She had now just returned from Gibraltar, and had already arranged with the captain of a ship for a cargo of English goods which we were to receive on the coast. We went to meet it near Estepona. We hid part in the mountains, and laden with the rest, we proceeded to Ronda. Carmen had gone there before us. It was she again who warned us when we had better enter the town. This first journey, and several subsequent ones, turned out well. I found the smuggler’s life pleasanter than a soldier’s: I could give presents to Carmen, I had money, and I had a mistress. I felt little or no remorse, for, as the gipsies say, ‘The happy man never longs to scratch his itch.’ We were made welcome everywhere, my comrades treated me well, and even showed me a certain respect. The reason of this was that I had killed my man, and that some of them had no exploit of that description on their conscience. But what I valued most in my new life was that I often saw Carmen. She showed me more affection than ever; nevertheless, she would never admit, before my comrades, that she was my mistress, and she had even made me swear all sorts of oaths that I would not say anything about her to them. I was so weak in that creature’s hands, that I obeyed all her whims. And besides, this was the first time she had revealed herself as possessing any of the reserve of a well-conducted woman, and I was simple enough to believe she had really cast off her former habits.

“Our gang, which consisted of eight or ten men, was hardly ever together except at decisive moments, and we were usually scattered by twos and threes about the towns and villages. Each one of us pretended to have some trade. One was a tinker, another was a groom; I was supposed to peddle haberdashery, but I hardly ever showed myself in large places, on account of my unlucky business at Seville. One day, or rather one night, we were to meet below Veger. El Dancaire and I got there before the others.

“‘We shall soon have a new comrade,’ said he. ‘Carmen has just managed one of her best tricks. She has contrived the escape of her rom, who was in the presidio at Tarifa.’

“I was already beginning to understand the gipsy language, which nearly all my comrades spoke, and this word rom startled me.

“What! her husband? Is she married, then?’ said I to the captain.

“‘Yes!’ he replied, ‘married to Garcia el Tuerto³⁴—as cunning a gipsy as she is herself. The poor fellow has been at the galleys. Carmen has wheedled the surgeon of the presidio to such good purpose that she has managed to get her rom out of prison. Faith! that girl’s worth her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to contrive his escape, but she could do nothing until the authorities took it into their heads to change the surgeon. She soon managed to come to an understanding with this new one.’

“You may imagine how pleasant this news was for me. I soon saw Garcia el Tuerto. He was the very ugliest brute that was ever nursed in gipsydom. His skin was black, his soul was blacker, and he was altogether the most thorough-paced ruffian I ever came across in my life. Carmen arrived with him, and when she called him her rom in my presence, you should have seen the eyes she made at me, and the faces she pulled whenever Garcia turned his head away.

“I was disgusted, and never spoke a word to her all night. The next morning we had made up our packs, and had already started, when we became aware that we had a dozen horsemen on our heels. The braggart Andalusians, who had been boasting they would murder every one who came near them, cut a pitiful figure at once. There was a general rout. El Dancaire, Garcia, a good-looking fellow from Ecija, who was called El Remendado, and Carmen herself, kept their wits about them. The rest forsook the mules and took to the gorges, where the horses could not follow them. There was no hope of saving the mules, so we hastily unstrapped the best part of our booty, and taking it on our shoulders, we tried to escape through the rocks down the steepest of the slopes. We threw our packs down in front of us and followed them as best we could, slipping along on our heels. Meanwhile the enemy fired at us. It was the first time I had ever heard bullets whistling around me and I didn’t mind it very much. When there’s a woman looking on, there’s no particular merit in snapping one’s fingers at death. We all escaped except the poor Remendado, who received a bullet wound in the loins. I threw away my pack and tried to lift him up.

“‘Idiot!’ shouted Garcia, ‘what do we want with offal! Finish him off, and don’t lose the cotton stockings!’

“‘Drop him!’ cried Carmen.

“I was so exhausted that I was obliged to lay him down for a moment under a rock. Garcia came up, and fired his blunderbuss full into his face. ‘He’d be a clever fellow who recognised him now!’ said he, as he looked at the face, cut to pieces by a dozen slugs.

“There, sir; that’s the delightful sort of life I’ve led! That night we found ourselves in a thicket, worn out with fatigue, with nothing to eat, and ruined by the loss of our mules. What do you think that devil Garcia did? He pulled a pack of cards out of his pocket and began playing games with El Dancaire by the light of a fire they kindled. Meanwhile I was lying down, staring at the stars, thinking of El Remendado, and telling myself I would just as lief be in his place. Carmen was squatting down near me, and every now and then she would rattle her castanets and hum a tune. Then, drawing close to me, as if she would have whispered in my ear, she kissed me two or three times over almost against my will.

“‘You are a devil,’ said I to her.

“‘Yes,’ she replied.

“After a few hours’ rest, she departed to Gaucin, and the next morning a little goatherd brought us some food. We stayed there all that day, and in the evening we moved close to Gaucin. We were expecting news from Carmen, but none came. After daylight broke we saw a muleteer attending a well-dressed woman with a parasol, and a little girl who seemed to be her servant. Said Garcia, ‘There go two mules and two women whom St. Nicholas has sent us. I would rather have had four mules, but no matter. I’ll do the best I can with these.’

“He took his blunderbuss, and went down the pathway, hiding himself among the brushwood.

“We followed him, El Dancaire and I keeping a little way behind. As soon as the woman saw us, instead of being frightened—and our dress would have been enough to frighten any one—she burst into a fit of loud laughter. ‘Ah! the lillipendi! They take me for an erani!’ ³⁵

“It was Carmen, but so well disguised that if she had spoken any other language I should never have recognised her. She sprang off her mule, and talked some time in an undertone with El Dancaire and Garcia. Then she said to me:

“‘Canary-bird, we shall meet again before you’re hanged. I’m off to Gibraltar on gipsy business—you’ll soon have news of me.’

“We parted, after she had told us of a place where we should find shelter for some days. That girl was the providence of our gang. We soon received some money sent by her, and a piece of news which was still more useful to us—to the effect that on a certain day two English lords would travel from Gibraltar to Granada by a road she mentioned. This was a word to the wise. They had plenty of good guineas. Garcia would have killed them, but El Dancaire and I objected. All we took from them, besides their shirts, which we greatly needed, was their money and their watches.

“Sir, a man may turn rogue in sheer thoughtlessness. You lose your head over a pretty girl, you fight another man about her, there is a catastrophe, you have to take to the mountains, and you turn from a smuggler into a robber before you have time to think about it. After this matter of the English lords, we concluded that the neighbourhood of Gibraltar would not be healthy for us, and we plunged into the Sierra de Ronda. You once mentioned Jose-Maria to me. Well, it was there I made acquaintance with him. He always took his mistress with him on his expeditions. She was a pretty girl, quiet, modest, well-mannered, you never heard a vulgar word from her, and she was quite devoted to him. He, on his side, led her a very unhappy life. He was always running after other women, he ill-treated her, and then sometimes he would take it into his head to be jealous. One day he slashed her with a knife. Well, she only doted on him the more! That’s the way with women, and especially with Andalusians. This girl was proud of the scar on her arm, and would display it as though it were the most beautiful thing in the world. And then Jose-Maria was the worst of comrades in the bargain. In one expedition we made with him, he managed so that he kept all the profits, and we had all the trouble and the blows. But I must go back to my story. We had no sign at all from Carmen. El Dancaire said: ‘One of us will have to go to Gibraltar to get news of her. She must have planned some business. I’d go at once, only I’m too well known at Gibraltar.’ El Tuerto said:

“‘I’m well known there too. I’ve played so many tricks on the crayfish³⁶—and as I’ve only one eye, it is not overeasy for me to disguise myself.’

“‘Then I suppose I must go,’ said I, delighted at the very idea of seeing Carmen again. ‘Well, how am I to set about it?’

“The others answered:

“‘You must either go by sea, or you must get through by San Rocco, whichever you like the best; once you are in Gibraltar, inquire in the port where a chocolate-seller called La Rollona lives. When you’ve found her, she’ll tell you everything that’s happening.’

“It was settled that we were all to start for the Sierra, that I was to leave my two companions there, and take my way to Gibraltar, in the character of a fruit-seller. At Ronda one of our men procured me a passport; at Gaucin I was provided with a donkey. I loaded it with oranges and melons, and started forth. When I reached Gibraltar I found that many people knew La Rollona, but that she was either dead or had gone ad finibus terroe,³⁷ and, to my mind, her disappearance explained the failure of our correspondence with Carmen. I stabled my donkey, and began to move about the town, carrying my oranges as though to sell them, but in reality looking to see whether I could not come across any face I knew. The place is full of ragamuffins from every country in the world, and it really is like the Tower of Babel, for you can’t go ten paces along a street without hearing as many languages. I did see some gipsies, but I hardly dared confide in them. I was taking stock of them, and they were taking stock of me. We had mutually guessed each other to be rogues, but the important thing for us was to know whether we belonged to the same gang. After having spent two days in fruitless wanderings, and having found out nothing either as to La Rollona or as to Carmen, I was thinking I would go back to my comrades as soon as I had made a few purchases, when, toward sunset, as I was walking along a street, I heard a woman’s voice from a window say, ‘Orange-seller!’

“I looked up, and on a balcony I saw Carmen looking out, beside a scarlet-coated officer with gold epaulettes, curly hair, and all the appearance of a rich milord. As for her, she was magnificently dressed, a shawl hung on her shoulders, she’d a gold comb in her hair, everything she wore was of silk; and the cunning little wretch, not a bit altered, was laughing till she held her sides.

“The Englishman shouted to me in mangled Spanish to come upstairs, as the lady wanted some oranges, and Carmen said to me in Basque:

“‘Come up, and don’t look astonished at anything!’

“Indeed, nothing that she did ought ever to have astonished me. I don’t know whether I was most happy or wretched at seeing her again. At the door of the house there was a tall English servant with a powdered head, who ushered me into a splendid drawing-room. Instantly Carmen said to me in Basque, ‘You don’t know one word of Spanish, and you don’t know me.’ Then turning to the Englishman, she added:

“‘I told you so. I saw at once he was a Basque. Now you’ll hear what a queer language he speaks. Doesn’t he look silly? He’s like a cat that’s been caught in the larder!’

“‘And you,’ said I to her in my own language, ‘you look like an impudent jade—and I’ve a good mind to scar your face here and now, before your spark.’