Chapter 3 (cont): When trying to escape bullets, Don Jose tried to carry one of the injured, and both Carmen and Garcia (the husband) yelled at him to leave him and get the loot. Later at the campfire, Garcia was playing cards with one of the men while Don Jose lay on the ground thinking of the man he had to leave behind. Carmen sat beside him and kept kissing him "almost" against his will. "You are a devil", I said to her. "Yes," she replied.
Don Jose was sent to meet Carmen in Gibraltar because all the others were too recognizable. He was to ask where the chocolate-seller lives, while posing as a fruit-seller. He took a donkey loaded with oranges and melons. Many people there knew of the chocolate-seller, but said she was either dead or had disappeared. It was two days before he found her. She was shouting to him from a balcony, gold comb in her hair, with a rich Englishman who told him to come up because the lady wanted some oranges. She tells him in Basque to pretend it's the only language he speaks. They quarrel in Basque about the way she is conducting her "gipsy business", how he is silly for being jealous of it, and he threatens to make sure she does no business again if he catches her doing business this way again. She says "What are you, my husband?" and tells him that Garcia is pleased with her behavior. She asks "aren't you happy that you are the only man who can call himself my lover?"Carmen tells the Englishman that he said he was thirsty and would like a drink (lol). She started screaming with laughter at her translation, and when she laughed everyone laughed with her. She tells Don Jose to come back tomorrow with his oranges when the parade starts to find out if she is still his Carmencita. He planned to just leave, but when the parade started, he went to her. She tells him of her plan to get the Englishman to take her to another town where she has "a sister who is a nun" and tells Don Jose to take him down when they get to a particular spot. Then she tells him to let Garcia take the lead, and to fall a little behind so he won't be hurt. He tells her that he doesn't like Garcia, but he is a comrade, and while he might rid her of him someday, he will not do it this way. She accused him of not loving her and told him to go (be off with you), and he couldn't go.
Don Jose goes back to Garcia and the other man, El Dancaire, and suggests they play cards by the campfire. They do, and he accuses Garcia of cheating. They decide to fight it out with their knives. Don Jose kills Garcia. He tell El Dancaire that they couldn't live on together because he loves Carmen and wants to be the only one. They agree to be friends. They took out the Englishman and he won Carmen back. She tells him his day will come, and he says hers will too if she isn't a faithful wife to him. She says "so be it." She tells him she read in the coffee grounds more than once that their lives were to end together. They continue to be smugglers, and eventually she finds a rich man she plans to do the same as the Englishman with, and he carries her off and forces her to stop. She tells him if he's not careful, she'll find someone to do to him what he did to Garcia. Their group was caught by soldiers, most of them died, and he was shot. His only comrade left carried him to a cave and went to fetch Carmen. She came and nursed him and snuck him to Granada. He decided that it was time to change his life, and suggested to Carmen that they should move to America and live honest lives, which made her laugh. She talked him into another smuggling job. She kept talking about a local bullfighter named Lucas, and his comrade Juanito told him that she had been spending a lot of time with this Lucas. When he asks her about it, she tells him that he is useful, they either should take his money or ask him to join their gang. He forbid her to see him, and she told him to be careful because forbidding her to do something would cause her to do it quickly. But the bullfighter leaves town and they forget about him. At this point in time, he meets the gentleman. Carmen stole the gentleman's watch, wanted to take his money and his "magic" ring. Don Jose struck her and she cried, the first time he ever saw her do so. He begged her to forgive him, but she was very upset for a few more days, and then she was fine and they were like honeymoon lovers. She told him there was a festival in Cordova that she would go see, so she could point out to him the people coming away with money.
He realized by the festival plans and change in her temper that she must have already avenged herself. He found out that there would be bullfighting in Cordova, and he went to find Lucas, and Carmen was there. The bull attacked Lucas, and Carmen disappeared. At 2 am she returned, surprised to see Don Jose. They traveled together all night, and in the morning he told her he would forget everything like it didn't happen if she would go to America with him and live there quietly. She refuses, and he tells her it's because she wouldn't be near Lucas who might not recover anyway, and that he's tired of killing her lovers and will kill her this time. She tells him that she always knew he would kill her. He begs her to go with him, asks if she still loves him. He tells her to make up her mind. He asks a priest to say a mass for the soul of someone who will soon be dead. Then he returned to find Carmen scrying. He asks her to come with him, and they get on the horse. He asks if she is still ready to follow him, and she says she will follow him even to death, but won't live with him anymore. They arrive at a spring, and she suggests he brought her there to kill her. He tells her the past is forgotten, and she tells him it is over between them because she doesn't love him anymore. He asks if she loves Lucas, and she says she did, for even less time than she loved Don Jose. She tells him he has the right as her husband to kill his wife, but that "Carmen will always be free." She refuses all that he offers. He draws his knife and she still declines, throwing his ring in the bushes. It is Garcia's knife, and he killed her with it. He laid there with her for an hour, then dug her a grave and buried her in the woods with the ring beside her. Then he turned himself in. The mass the priest said was for her soul, not Jose's.
Chapter 4: Background on gipsies - highly invested in marriage, indifferent about religion. Most gipsy women tell fortunes, sell charms, and use incantations.
Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. Web Source.
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