Carmen. Проспер Мериме

a Frenchman, and your devoted servant. And you, senora, or senorita, you probably belong to Cordova?”

      “No.”

      “At all events, you are an Andalusian? Your soft way of speaking makes me think so.”

      “If you notice people’s accent so closely, you must be able to guess what I am.”

      “I think you are from the country of Jesus, two paces out of Paradise.”

      I had learned the metaphor, which stands for Andalusia, from my friend Francisco Sevilla, a well-known picador.

      “Pshaw! The people here say there is no place in Paradise for us!”

      “Then perhaps you are of Moorish blood—or–” I stopped, not venturing to add “a Jewess.”

      “Oh come! You must see I’m a gipsy! Wouldn’t you like me to tell you la baji?5 Did you never hear tell of Carmencita? That’s who I am!”

      I was such a miscreant in those days—now fifteen years ago—that the close proximity of a sorceress did not make me recoil in horror. “So be it!” I thought. “Last week I ate my supper with a highway robber. To-day I’ll go and eat ices with a servant of the devil. A traveller should see everything.” I had yet another motive for prosecuting her acquaintance. When I left college—I acknowledge it with shame—I had wasted a certain amount of time in studying occult science, and had even attempted, more than once, to exorcise the powers of darkness. Though I had been cured, long since, of my passion for such investigations, I still felt a certain attraction and curiosity with regard to all superstitions, and I was delighted to have this opportunity of discovering how far the magic art had developed among the gipsies.

      Talking as we went, we had reached the neveria, and seated ourselves at a little table, lighted by a taper protected by a glass globe. I then had time to take a leisurely view of my gitana, while several worthy individuals, who were eating their ices, stared open-mouthed at beholding me in such gay company.

      I very much doubt whether Senorita Carmen was a pure-blooded gipsy. At all events, she was infinitely prettier than any other woman of her race I have ever seen. For a women to be beautiful, they say in Spain, she must fulfil thirty ifs, or, if it please you better, you must be able to define her appearance by ten adjectives, applicable to three portions of her person.

      For instance, three things about her must be black, her eyes, her eyelashes, and her eyebrows. Three must be dainty, her fingers, her lips, her hair, and so forth. For the rest of this inventory, see Brantome. My gipsy girl could lay no claim to so many perfections. Her skin, though perfectly smooth, was almost of a copper hue. Her eyes were set obliquely in her head, but they were magnificent and large. Her lips, a little full, but beautifully shaped, revealed a set of teeth as white as newly skinned almonds. Her hair—a trifle coarse, perhaps—was black, with blue lights on it like a raven’s wing, long and glossy. Not to weary my readers with too prolix a description, I will merely add, that to every blemish she united some advantage, which was perhaps all the more evident by contrast. There was something strange and wild about her beauty. Her face astonished you, at first sight, but nobody could forget it. Her eyes, especially, had an expression of mingled sensuality and fierceness which I had never seen in any other human glance. “Gipsy’s eye, wolf’s eye!” is a Spanish saying which denotes close observation. If my readers have no time to go to the “Jardin des Plantes” to study the wolf’s expression, they will do well to watch the ordinary cat when it is lying in wait for a sparrow.

      It will be understood that I should have looked ridiculous if I had proposed to have my fortune told in a café. I therefore begged the pretty witch’s leave to go home with her. She made no difficulties about consenting, but she wanted to know what o’clock it was again, and requested me to make my repeater strike once more.

      “Is it really gold?” she said, gazing at it with rapt attention.

      When we started off again, it was quite dark. Most of the shops were shut, and the streets were almost empty. We crossed the bridge over the Guadalquivir, and at the far end of the suburb we stopped in front of a house of anything but palatial appearance. The door was opened by a child, to whom the gipsy spoke a few words in a language unknown to me, which I afterward understood to be Romany

      1

      The Andalusians aspirate the s, and pronounce it like the soft c and the z, which Spaniards pronounce like the English th. An Andalusian may always be recognised by the way in which he says senor.

      2

      The privileged Provinces, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of Navarre, which all enjoy special fueros. The Basque language is spoken in these countries.

      3

      A café to which a depot of ice, or rather of snow, is attached. There is hardly

1

The Andalusians aspirate the s, and pronounce it like the soft c and the z, which Spaniards pronounce like the English th. An Andalusian may always be recognised by the way in which he says senor.

2

The privileged Provinces, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of Navarre, which all enjoy special fueros. The Basque language is spoken in these countries.

3

A café to which a depot of ice, or rather of snow, is attached. There is hardly a village in Spain without its neveria.

4

Every traveller in Spain who does not carry about samples of calicoes and silks is taken for an Englishman (inglesito). It is the same thing in the East.

5

Your fortune.

5

Your fortune.