Chapter 3 - Don Jose tells the gentleman of his history. His family wanted him to go into the church. He studied but didn't like the work. he would rather just play tennis.He had to leave his town due to a quarrel with someone, so he became a soldier and moved up the ranks. He was told to guard the Seville Tobacco Factory. About 500 women work in the factory. Don Jose was afraid of the Andalusian women, so he didn't pursue them like the other men did. One night he heard a bystander shout "Here comes the gitanella (the gypsy)" and when he looked up he saw Carmen. She was wearing a short skirt with an off the shoulder top and had an acacia blossom in the corner of her mouth. All of the men paid her bold compliments. He didn't like her looks at first and continued to work. "But she, like all women and cats, who won't come if you call them, and do come if you don't call them, stopped short in front of me, and spoke to me."
She asked him for his chain to put the key to her strong box on, and he told her it was for his priming-pin. She teased him that she must make lace if he wants pins. She threw the blossom at him and it hit him in between the eyes, and felt like a bullet had struck him. When she went inside the factory, he picked up the blossom and put it in his jacket. He was still thinking about her a few hours later when a porter rushed in ab told the guards that a woman was stabbed in the cigar room. Don Jose took two men and they found 300 women stripped to their shifts, screaming and yelling. One was laying on her back streaming with blood, and X cut on her face by a knife. Opposite her, Carmen was being held by 5 or 6 others as the wounded woman yelled "a confessor, I am killed!" and Carmen said nothing. The injured girl had boasted that she had enough money in her pocket to buy a donkey at the market. Carmen asked why she couldn't do it with a broom, and the girl told her she knew nothing of brooms and that Carmen would meet her donkey when she took it out with 2 lackeys to keep the flies off. Carmen said "I'll make troughs for the flies to drink out of on your cheeks", and she slashed the girl's face with the knife. Don Jose told her to come with him, and she covered her head with her mantilla (lace veil). He told her he was taking her to prison, and she begged him to have pity on her, while complimenting his looks. She whispered that if he let her go, she would give him a loadstone that would make every woman fall in love with him. He told her to stop talking nonsense. Carmen could tell he was from the provinces and started speaking Basque. She was from a district four hours from him, and had been taken to Seville by the gipsies. Don Jose knew that she was lying and told the gentleman that she always lies. He was becoming drunk on her and when she suggested that she could knock him down and get away from the other two men, he told her to try for it. She punched him in the chest and he intentionally fell backwards and she ran for it. He blocked the other men with his lance, then ran after her with them following. She disappeared. The other men told their boss that she had spoken Basque to them and that it had been suspicious, so he lost is corporal's stripes and was put in prison for a month. He would have to work ten times as hard to get back into good graces. He still couldn't stop thinking of her. A loaf of bread was delivered to him from his "cousin". When he cut into it he found a file and 2 coins, a gift from Carmen. He chose not to escape.
When he was released, he was posted at the door of a young colonel who had many visitors. Carmen arrived in a carriage, dressed up and carrying a tambourine. She was with two other gipsy women and a man with a guitar. She recognized him, and he could see the whole performance on the patio from his post, and could hear the things the men were saying to her. He thought he began to love her that night as he kept almost driving his sword through the men. On her way out, she said he should go eat at a restaurant in Triana. He cleaned himself up and went. When he arrived she told her boss she wasn't going to work anymore for the day, and went for a walk with him. He tried to return the coins she had given him in the bread, and she decided they should go spend them. They bought food and wine and sweets, then went to a gipsy house. They spent the day together. He told her he had to get back for roll call, and she called him silly. She talked him into staying, then in the morning suggested that he leave. He asked when he would see her again, and she said he was too much of a simpleton, that she believed she loved him a little but wouldn't marry him because he wasn't a gipsy, and threatened to make him marry a window with wooden legs (the gallows) if he thought about her again.
He couldn't stop thinking of her, and her boss told him she had moved away. It was a lie, and one night she approached where he was guarding. He told her that no one could pass there. She told him not to be spiteful, and she asked him to let some people pass. He said he couldn't because it was his orders, and she mentioned that he didn't consider orders the night they spent together. He agreed to let the gipsies pass if she met him later. She was annoyed that he didn't just do what she wanted and tried to pay him off. He was angry and left, walking around town, going to church and crying hot tears in the corner. Carmen showed up and asked if he was still angry with her. She said she still wanted to come with him. They made up, and she promised to meet him, but didn't, and her boss again lied about her leaving the country. He looked for ever every day, and one day she walked into the restaurant with a young lieutenant in his regiment. She told him to go away in Basque, and the lieutenant told him to go away, and he felt paralyzed. They drew their swords and fought over her. He ended up running, and she ran with him. She found him peasant clothes and brought him to another gipsy house to have his wounds tended to. They told him that he would have to leave town as soon as he was well or he would be shot. Carmen tells him to go to the coast and become a smuggler to earn his keep. He was persuaded easily as it was the only job he could do. He also thought it would bring them closer together. He became a smuggler, and Carmen secretly was his mistress. He eventually found out that a gypsy man was her husband. She had been trying to get him out of prison for 2 years and finally succeeded.
Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. Web Source.
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