Carmen

by Prosper Merimee

  A Different View

  [T]here entered a lad below medium height, advancing cautiously, with his back to the wall, as if he feared to scrape it. In his submission he seemed to beg pardon in advance for anything that he might do. His eyes shone in the darkness, even as did his strong, white teeth. He approached the light of the oil-lamp and Salvatierra was struck by the coppery color of his face, with the corneas of his eyes, which seemed stained with tobacco, and with his hands—of two colors—the palms pink and the backs of a black that grew blacker still under the nails. Despite the cold, the newcomer wore a summer blouse, a plaited smock, still wet from the rain, and upon his head he wore two hats, one within the other, of distinct color, like his hands. The inner one appeared grayish white, and brand new in the under part of the brim; the upper one was old, of a reddish black, with frayed edges.

  Rafael seized the youth by the shoulder, causing him to waver, and presented him to Salvatierra with mock gravity.

  “This is Alcaparron, of whom you have surely heard,—the most thievish gipsy in all Jerez. If there were anything like justice, he would have been flogged long ago in the square before the prison.”

  Alcaparron tried to wrench himself loose from the steward’s grasp, moving his hands with feminine gestures, and at last making the sign of the cross.

  “Uy! Zeno Rafae, and what a wicked man you are!… Jozu! Such things this fellow says!”

  The steward continued with a frowning countenance and a solemn voice:

  “He has been working at Matanzuela with his family for many years, but he’s a thief, like all the gipsies, and he ought to be in prison. Do you know why he wears two hats? To fill them with chick-peas or kidney beans the moment my back is turned. And he doesn’t know that some fine day I’ll shoot him down for it.”

  “Jozu! Zeno Rafae! But what are you saying?”

  And he wrung his hands desperately, looking at Salvatierra and protesting to him with childish vehemence:

  “Don’t believe him, Zeno; he’s a very bad man and says all this to get my blood boiling. By the health of my mother I swear it’s all a lie.…”

  And he explained the mystery of the two superposed hats that he wore almost upon his ears and which surrounded his roguish face with a nimbus of two colors. The lower one was his new hat, for holidays, and he wore it as his best when he went to Jerez. On work days, he dare not leave it at the farm through fear of his mates, who permitted themselves all sorts of jokes at his expense, because he was “only a poor gipsy,” so he covered it with the old hat lest it lose the gray, silky color that was his pride.

  The steward continued to tease the gipsy with that peasant humor which takes pleasure in goading vagrants and the meek in spirit to fury.

  “Listen, Alcaparron, do you know who this man is?… Well, he’s don Fernando Salvatierra. Didn’t you ever hear speak of him?…”

  The gipsy’s countenance betrayed amazement, and he opened his eyes extraordinarily wide.

  “I should say I have! Over at the workers’ shelter they’ve been speaking for two hours of nothing else! Many years, Zeno! I’m happy to know such a fine, noted person. It’s easy to see that your grace is somebody; you’ve got the face of a ruler.”

  Salvatierra smiled at the fawning obsequiousness of the gipsy. That unfortunate fellow knew no categories; he judged by reputation, and believing the visitor a powerful personage, a man in authority, he trembled, concealing his perturbation behind the flattering smile of races eternally persecuted.

  “Don Fernando,” continued the steward, “you who have so many friends abroad could arrange for Alcaparron’s trip. Then we’d see if he would have as much luck in foreign lands as his cousins have had.”

  And he spoke of the Alcaparronas, dancing gipsies who had attained a great success in Paris and many cities of Russia whose names the steward could not remember. Their pictures figured even upon match boxes; the newspapers mentioned them; they had diamonds galore; they danced in theaters and at palaces, and one of them had made off with a grand duke, an archipampano or something of the sort that slipped Rafael’s mind, and he had taken her to a castle where she lived like a queen.

  “And all this, don Fernando, despite the fact that they are a couple of presumptuous monkeys, as homely and black as their cousin here; a pair of ungainly girls whom I remember as little ones at the farms hereabouts, robbing chick-peas and other seeds; a pair of frisky mice, with nothing more than a gipsy manner and a few shameful habits that make men blush. And is that what these foreign gentlemen so much admire? Really, man, it’s too funny for anything!…”

  And he laughed indeed, to think that these two coppercolored maidens whom he had seen stealing about the fields of Jerez, dirty and scabby, now lived like courtly dames.

  Alcaparron spoke with a certain pride of these first cousins, at the same time bemoaning the different lot of his family. They had become queens, and he, with his poor mother, his little sisters and Mari-Cruz, his poor little sickly cousin, earning two reales at the farm! And many thanks to them for giving them work every year, knowing that they were industrious toilers!… His cousins were a pair of unaffectionate ingrates who never wrote to the family, and never even sent them this much. (And he clicked one of his finger-nails against his horselike teeth.)

  “Zeiio; it seems impossible that my uncle should treat his own relatives so badly, seeing that he’s a cam. And to think how much my poor father loved him!…”

  But far from waxing indignant, he burst into eulogies of his uncle Alcaparron, a man of initiative who, tired of starving at Jerez and ever facing the danger of going to prison every time an ass or a mule went astray, had slung his guitar across his shoulder, taking along all his cattle, as he called his daughters, and hadn’t stopped until he arrived in Paris. And Alcaparron laughed ironically at thought of the simplicity of the gaches—of all those persons who dominate the world and oppress the poor gipsies—recalling certain prospectuses and newspapers that he had seen with the portrait of his worthy uncle, showing his close-cropped cheek-whiskers, and his thievish face, under a conical hat that looked like a belfry, surrounded by columns of text printed in a strange language, in which the mesdemoiselles Alcaparronas were referred to, and their grace and beauty was lauded, with ollel olle! repeated about every six lines.… And his uncle, to add to his dignity, was called captain Alcaparron! Captain of what?… And his cousins the mesdemoiselles had themselves abducted by gentlemen who feared their father, the terrible hidalgo, who had so often thrummed the guitar philosophically in the village inns, while the future mesdemoiselles had hidden themselves with some young men in the most distant rooms. Josti, what a joke!…

  But the gipsy passed rapidly from smiles to tears, with the flighty incoherency of his bird-like soul. Ah, if only his father were alive—his father, who had been an eagle compared to that brother of his that had become so wealthy!…

  “Is your father dead?” asked Salvatierra.

  “Yes, seno: they needed one more in the holy field, and as he was good, he was called by the raven that sits there.”

  And Alcaparron continued his lamentations. If only the poor old man hadn’t died! Instead of his cousins, he and his brothers would be enjoying all that wealth. And he affirmed this in all good faith, discarding as an insignificant detail the difference in sex, and attributing no value to the piquant homeliness of the girls, believing that they owed their fortune to their skill in the cante, in which his poor old mother, his cousin Mari-Cruz, and he were much more expert than all the Alcaparronas that wandered over the earth.

  The steward, seeing how sad the gipsy had become, offered him his protection. His fortune was made. Here was don Fernando, who, with his vast influence had a position already open for him.

  Alcaparron opened his eyes, afraid of a mocking jest. Yet fearing the consequences of a lack of respect toward that gentleman, he showered Salvatierra with fawning speech, while the latter looked at che steward, wondering how far Rafael would carry his joke.

>   “Yes, gacho,” continued Rafael. “There’s a position waiting for you. The gentleman will make you executioner for Seville or Jerez: whichever you choose.”

  The gipsy started, revealing his ludicrous indignation in a deluge of words.

  “Wretch! Villain! May an evil bullet strike you in your black, black entrails, zefio Rafae!”…

  He stopped for a moment in his malediction, seeing that his curses only added to the enjoyment of the steward, and he added, with malignant insinuation:

  “I hope to God that when you go to don Pablo’s vineyard the girl receives you with a long face.”

  Rafael ceased laughing. He feared that the gipsy would speak in don Fernando’s presence of his love affair with his godfather’s daughter, and he hastened to dismiss the fellow.

  “Have a cigarette and be off … ill-omened rascal. Your mother’s waiting for you.”

  Alcaparron obeyed with the docility of a dog. Upon taking leave of Salvatierra he stretched out his tawny hand, repeating that they were waiting for him at the farmhands’ dormitory and that the men and women were all excited to think that so lofty a personage was at Matanzuela.

  When he had gone, the steward spoke to don Fernando of the Alcaparronas and other gipsies of the farm. They were families who had worked years and years upon the same estate, as if they were part of it. They were much easier to manage, both the men and the women, than the other workers. There was no fear of rebellion, strikes or threats from them. They were beggars and a little thievish, but they grew humble before threatening glances with all the submissiveness of a persecuted race.

  Rafael had seen gipsies engage in farm labor only in that part of Andalusia. The enthusiasm of people for horses seemed to have driven them out of this industry, which was theirs the world over, obliging them to seek their living on the farms.

  The women were worth more than the men; they were withered, dark, angular, with men’s trousers under their skirts, bending all day long at their work of weeding the wheat or sowing seed. At times, when they were not being closely watched, their racial indolence overcame them—the desire to remain motionless, gazing toward the horizon, seeing nothing and thinking of nothing. But the moment they divined the proximity of the steward, the alarm signal passed among them in that calo which was their only force of resistance—that which isolated them from the animadversion of their working companions:

  “Cha: currela, que sinela er janibo!”

  “Get to work, there, for the master is looking!” Whereupon every one fell to his task, with such ardor and such comic devotion, that many a time Rafael could not contain his laughter.

  —From La Bodega (1906) by the Spanish novelist Vicente Blaso Ibáñez. This excerpt is from the 1919 E. P. Dutton edition, titled The Fruit of the Vine and translated by Dr. Isaac Goldberg. Ibáñez was the author of a number of novels in the naturalist and costumbrismo traditions that were concerned with the problems of rural Spain and the working classes. His portrait of Gypsies is markedly different from earlier portrayals: the Alcaparronas are conscious marketers of their image, andAlcaparron and the other Gypsies who work the farms of the rich señoritos are made more vulnerable and marginalized by their Gypsy status. Ibáñez’s novel Sangre y arena (“Blood and Sand”) launched Rudolf Valentino’s career when it was made into an immensely successful movie in 1922, with Valentino starring as the matador Juan Gallardo.

  Two Bohemians

  Gypsies Travelling

  The tribe prophetic with the eyes of fire

  Went forth last night; their little ones at rest

  Each on his mother’s back, with his desire

  Set on the ready treasure of her breast.

  Laden with shining arms the men-folk tread

  By the long wagons where their goods lie hidden;

  They watch the heavens with eyes grown wearied

  Of hopeless dreams that come to them unbidden.

  The grasshopper, from out his sandy screen,

  Watching them pass redoubles his shrill song;

  Dian, who loves them, makes the grass more green,

  And makes the rock run water for this throng

  Of ever-wandering ones whose calm eyes see

  Familiar realms of darkness yet to be.

  —A poem by Charles Baudelaire, here translated by James Huneker. “Gypsies Travelling” appeared in Baudelaire’s first and most famous collection, Les Fleurs du Mal, which provoked both admiration and ire on its publication in 1857, and eventually resulted in an obscenity trial—his publisher was fined, and six of the more explicit poems were suppressed from other editions of the book published during Baudelaire’s lifetime.

  Sensation

  On summer evenings blue, pricked by the wheat

  On rustic paths the thin grass I shall tread,

  And feel its freshness underneath my feet,

  And, dreaming, let the wind bathe my bare head.

  I shall not speak, nor think, but, walking slow

  Through Nature, I shall rove with Love my guide,

  As gipsies wander, where, they do not know,

  Happy as one walks by a woman’s side.

  —A poem by Arthur Rimbaud, translated from the French in 1912 by Jethro Bithell. Rimbaud was just fifteen at the time of the poem’s composition in March 1870. Throughout his short and heated poetic career—which he renounced before turning twenty—Rimbaud wrote many poems about an unfettered Gypsy-like existence, including “My Bohemia (Fantasy),” “The Drunken Boat,” and “Vagabonds.”

  4. A GALLERY OF NOTABLE CARMENS

  Carmen

  Slender is Carmen, of lissome guise,

  Her hair is black as the midnight’s heart;

  Dark circles are under her gypsy eyes,

  Her swarthy skin is the devil’s art.

  The women will mock at her form and face;

  But the men will follow her all the day.

  Toledo’s Archbishop (now save His Grace!)

  Tones his mass at her knees, they say.

  Nestled in the warmth of her amber neck

  Lies a massive coil, till she fling it down

  To be a raiment to frame and deck

  Her delicate body from foot to crown.

  Then out from her pallid face with power

  Her witching, terrible smiles compel.

  Her mouth is a mystical poison-flower

  That hath drawn its crimson from hearts in hell.

  The haughtiest beauty must yield her fame,

  When this strange vision shall dusk her sky.

  For Carmen rules, and her glance’s flame

  Shall set the torch to satiety.

  Wild, graceless Carmen!—Though yet this be,

  Savour she hath of a world undreamt,

  Of a world of wonder, whose salt young sea

  Provoked a Venus to rise and tempt.

  —A poem by Théophile Gautier, published in 1852 in his collection Émaux et camées (“Enamels and Cameos”). This translation is by Agnes Lee and first appeared in Volume XXIV of The Complete Works of Théophile Gautier (1903). Gautier’s account of his travels in Spain, Voyage en Espagne (1843), was one the most influential books on Spain of the period; other French travelers to Spain often checked their own impressions against it and quoted it in travelogues and travel guides.

  A watercolor by Mérimée depicting Carmen and Don José, ca. 1845.

  A photograph by Félix Nadar of Célestine Galli-Marié as Carmen in Georges Bizet’s 1875 opera. Galli-Marié was the first to appear in the role of Carmen, and she appeared in productions of it all across Europe for nearly fifteen years, until the final performance of her career in 1890.

  While the opera was in production, Bizet came under pressure from many at the Opéra Comique to tone down the more scandalous aspects of the story and the character of Carmen. Bizet resisted, and Galli-Marié and her costar Paul Lhérie (playing Don José) supported him, threatening to resign if the censorship went forward.

  An advertisemen
t for the 1921 American release of Gypsy Blood, a silent film adaptation of Carmen starring Pola Negri and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Negri, who was born in Poland in 1897 and made her way up through the ranks of the Warsaw and Berlin film industries, was one of the first big Continental stars to be brought to Hollywood. She would go on to star in another Gypsy movie, The Spanish Dancer (1923), along with other roles that traded on her “exotic” otherness. She was also famously involved with Rudolph Valentino until his death in 1926, and there are photos of the two together in full Gypsy garb. Charlie Chaplin, another of Negri’s lovers, also made a silent version of Carmen in 1915, though his version plays the story for laughs.

  Max Ponty’s 1947 poster for Gitanes, the French cigarette company. Smoking and tobacco play a significant role in Carmen; in fact, it’s one of the first books in which a female character is depicted smoking. The association of cigarettes with Spain, Gypsies, and sex dates back to the 1830s, when the habit of smoking began to cross over from Spain to France. In 1845, the year Carmen was published, the French state tobacco monopoly began manufacturing cigarettes, and the Gitane would eventually become a French cultural icon; Serge Gainsbourg used to smoke sixty of them a day.