" 'Let us change our life, Carmen,' said I imploringly. 'Let us go away and live somewhere we shall never be parted. You know we have a hundred and twenty gold ounces buried under an oak not far from here, and then we have more money with Ben-Joseph the Jew.'
"She began to smile, and then she said, 'Me first, and then you. Iknow it will happen like that.'
" 'Think about it,' said I. 'I've come to the end of my patience and my courage. Make up your mind--or else I must make up mine.'
"I left her alone and walked toward the hermitage. I found the hermit praying. I waited till his prayer was finished. I longed to pray myself, but I couldn't. When he rose up from his knees I went to him.
" 'Father,' I said, 'will you pray for some one who is in great danger?'
" 'I pray for every one who is afflicted,' he replied.
" 'Can you say a mass for a soul which is perhaps about to go into the presence of its Maker?'
" 'Yes,' he answered, looking hard at me.
"And as there was something strange about me, he tried to make me talk.
" 'It seems to me that I have seen you somewhere,' said he.
"I laid a piastre on his bench.
" 'When shall you say the mass?' said I.
" 'In half an hour. The son of the innkeeper yonder is coming to serve it. Tell me, young man, haven't you something on your conscience that is tormenting you? Will you listen to a Christian's counsel?'
"I could hardly restrain my tears. I told him I would come back, and hurried away. I went and lay down on the grass until I heard the bell.
Then I went back to the chapel, but I stayed outside it. When he had said the mass, I went back to the /venta/. I was hoping Carmen would have fled. She could have taken my horse and ridden away. But I found her there still. She did not choose that any one should say I had frightened her. While I had been away she had unfastened the hem of her gown and taken out the lead that weighted it; and now she was sitting before a table, looking into a bowl of water into which she had just thrown the lead she had melted. She was so busy with her spells that at first she didn't notice my return. Sometimes she would take out a bit of lead and turn it round every way with a melancholy look. Sometimes she would sing one of those magic songs, which invoke the help of Maria Padella, Don Pedro's mistress, who is said to have been the /Bari Crallisa/--the great gipsy queen.
Maria Padella was accused of having bewitched Don Pedro. According to one popular tradition she presented Queen Blanche of Bourbon with a golden girdle which, in the eyes of the bewitched king, took on the appearance of a living snake. Hence the repugnance he always showed toward the unhappy princess.
" 'Carmen,' I said to her, 'will you come with me?' She rose, threw away her wooden bowl, and put her mantilla over her head ready to start. My horse was led up, she mounted behind me, and we rode away.
"After we had gone a little distance I said to her, 'So, my Carmen, you are quite ready to follow me, isn't that so?'
"She answered, 'Yes, I'll follow you, even to death--but I won't live with you any more.'
"We had reached a lonely gorge. I stopped my horse.
" 'Is this the place?' she said.
"And with a spring she reached the ground. She took off her mantilla and threw it at her feet, and stood motionless, with one hand on her hip, looking at me steadily.
" 'You mean to kill me, I see that well,' said she. 'It is fate. But you'll never make me give in.'
"I said to her: 'Be rational, I implore you; listen to me. All the past is forgotten. Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin--it is because of you that I am a robber and a murderer. Carmen, my Carmen, let me save you, and save myself with you.'
" 'Jose,' she answered, 'what you ask is impossible. I don't love you any more. You love me still, and that is why you want to kill me. If Iliked, I might tell you some other lie, but I don't choose to give myself the trouble. Everything is over between us two. You are my /rom/, and you have the right to kill your /romi/, but Carmen will always be free. A /calli/ she was born, and a /calli/ she'll die.'
" 'Then, you love Lucas?' I asked.
" 'Yes, I have loved him--as I loved you--for an instant--less than Iloved you, perhaps. But now I don't love anything, and I hate myself for ever having loved you.'
"I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with my tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together, I offered to continue my brigand's life, if that would please her.
Everything, sir, everything--I offered her everything if she would only love me again.
"She said:
" 'Love you again? That's not possible! Live with you? I will not do it!'
"I was wild with fury. I drew my knife, I would have had her look frightened, and sue for mercy--but that woman was a demon.
"I cried, 'For the last time I ask you. Will you stay with me?'
" 'No! no! no!' she said, and she stamped her foot.
"Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger, and cast it into the brushwood.
"I struck her twice over--I had taken Garcia's knife, because I had broken my own. At the second thrust she fell without a sound. It seems to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me. Then they grew dim and the lids closed.
"For a good hour I lay there prostrate beside her corpse. Then Irecollected that Carmen had often told me that she would like to lie buried in a wood. I dug a grave for her with my knife and laid her in it. I hunted about a long time for her ring, and I found it at last. Iput it into the grave beside her, with a little cross--perhaps I did wrong. Then I got upon my horse, galloped to Cordova, and gave myself up at the nearest guard-room. I told them I had killed Carmen, but Iwould not tell them where her body was. That hermit was a holy man! He prayed for her--he said a mass for her soul. Poor child! It's the /calle/ who are to blame for having brought her up as they did."
