Carmen by Prosper Mérimée

even made me swear all sorts of oaths never to say anything abouther. I was so weak before that creature that I obeyed all her whims. Moreover, it was the first time that she had exhibited herself to me with the reserve of a virtuous woman, and I was simple enough to believe that she had really corrected herself of her former manners.
    “Our troop, which consisted of eight or ten men, seldom met except at critical moments; ordinarily we were scattered about by twos and threes, in different towns and villages. Each of us claimed to have a trade; one was a tinker, another a horse-dealer; I was a silk merchant, but I seldom showed my face in the large places because of my unfortunate affair at Seville.
    “One day, or rather one night, our rendezvous was at the foot of Veger. Dancaïre and I arrived there before the rest. He seemed in very high spirits.
    “ ‘We are going to have another comrade,’ he said. ‘Carmen has just played one of her best tricks. She has managed the escape of her
rom
, who was at the presidio at Tarifa.’
    “I was already beginning to understand the gypsy tongue, which almost all my comrades spoke, and that word
rom
gave me a shock.
    “ ‘What’s that? her husband! is she married?’ I asked the captain.
    “ ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘to Garcia the One-Eyed, a gypsy, as sharp as herself. The poor fellow was at the galleys. Carmen bamboozled the surgeon at the presidio so successfully that she has obtained her
rom
’s liberty. Ah! that girl is worth her weight in gold. For two years she has been trying to manage his escape. Every scheme failed until they took it into theirheads to change surgeons. With the new one she seems to have found a way to come to an understanding very soon.’
    “You can imagine the pleasure that that news afforded me. I soon saw Garcia the One-Eyed; he was surely the most loathsome monster that ever gypsydom reared; black of skin, and blacker of heart, he was the most unblushing villain that I have ever met in my life. Carmen came with him; and when she called him her
rom
in my presence you should have seen the eyes she made at me and her grimaces when Garcia turned his head. I was angry, and I did not speak to her that night. In the morning we had made up our bales and were already on the march, when we discovered that a dozen horsemen were at our heels. The braggart Andalusians, who talked of nothing but massacring everybody, made a most pitiful show. It was a general save himself who could. Dancaïre, Garcia, a handsome fellow from Ecija whom we called the Remendado, and Carmen, did not lose their heads. The rest had abandoned the mules, and had plunged into the ravines, where horses could not follow them. We could not keep our animals, and we hastily unpacked the best of our booty and loaded it on our shoulders, then tried to escape down the steep slopes of the cliffs. We threw our bundles before us and slid down on our heels after them as best we could. Meanwhile the enemy were peppering us; it was the first time that I had ever heard the whistle of bullets, and it didn’t affect me very much. When one is under the eye of a woman, there is no merit in laughing at death. We escaped, all except the poor Remendado, who received a shot in the loins. I dropped my bundle and tried to carry him.
    “ ‘Fool!’ shouted Garcia. ‘What have we to do with carrion? Finish him and don’t lose the stockings!’
    “ ‘Drop him!’ Carmen called to me.
    “Fatigue forced me to place him on the ground a moment, behind a rock. Garcia stepped up and discharged his blunderbuss at his head.
    “ ‘It will be a clever man who will recognise him now,’ he said, glancing at his face, which was torn to shreds by a dozen bullets.
    “Such, señor, was the noble life I led. That night we found ourselves in a copse, utterly worn out and ruined by the loss of our mules. What does that infernal Garcia do but pull a pack of cards from his pocket and begin to play with Dancaïre