Operas Every Child Should Know. Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
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here, your lover is likely not to come, and you'll lose the money in the bargain."
When any sly intrigue is weaving,
Whether for thieving,
Or for deceiving,
You will do well if you provide,
To have a woman on your side —
they sing – which shows what the smugglers think of their sisters and their cousins and their aunts.
When they insist upon knowing for whom Carmen is going to wait at the inn, she finally tells them she is waiting for José, and pretends to some very nice sentiments indeed, on his account; says he got her out of prison, has been locked up for her sake, and of course she must treat him nicely.
"Well, all we have to say about it is that you had better have a care. Very likely he'll not come, and – " El Dancairo is interrupted by a song in the hills. It is José's voice signalling to Carmen.
"Think not?" she asks, nonchalantly.
When José enters, she really is glad to see him: he is very handsome indeed. After her comrades have gone outside the inn, she tells José of her regret that he has suffered for her, and starts to entertain him.
There, in the dingy inn, she begins a wonderful dance, shaking her castanets and making herself very beautiful and fascinating once more to José. In the midst of the dance they hear a bugle call. José starts up.
"Carmen, it is my squad going back to camp. It is the retreat that has sounded. I must go."
"Go?" she stares at him. Then, realizing that he is going to desert her for duty, she flies into a rage, throws his shako after him and screams at him to go and not come back. This puts José in a bad way, because he has been able to think of nothing but Carmen ever since she escaped and he went to prison in her place. Meantime, she raves about the inn, declaring that he doesn't love her, whereupon he takes the flower she once threw him, now dead and scentless, from his pocket, and shows it to her. He has kept it safely through all that has happened to him.
"That is all very well, Don José, but if you truly loved me, you would leave this soldiering which takes you away, and go live with me and my companions in the mountains. There, there is no law, no duties, no – " Don José nearly faints at the idea.
"Disgrace my uniform!" he cries.
"Let your uniform go hang," she answers. She never was any too choice in her language. Poor José! poor wretch! he buries his face in his hands, and cries several times, "My God!" and looks so distracted that one almost believes he will pull himself together, take his shako, and go back to his men. Presently he decides that he will go, and starts toward the door, when there comes a knocking.
"What's that?" he whispers, pausing; but almost at the moment, Zuniga, looking for Carmen, opens the door.
"Fie, Carmen! Is this your taste?" the captain laughs, pointing to José. José is only a corporal, while Zuniga, being a captain, feels in a corporal's presence like a general at the very least.
"Come on, get out," he demands of José.
"No," José answers. "I think not," and there is no doubt he means it. Then the men begin to fight. Carmen, desiring to have one of them to torment, throws herself between them. Her screams bring the gipsies and smugglers.
"Seize the captain," she cries, and Zuniga is seized and tied. He roars and fumes and threatens, but the smugglers carry him off. This puts José in a truly bad way. How can he return and tell Zuniga's men what has happened? and then when Zuniga is free he will be tried by court-martial and suffer the worst, beyond doubt.
"Now then, José. What about it? You can't go back to your company, eh?"
"This is horrible," he tells her. "I am a ruined man."
"Then come with us and make the best of it," she cries, and Fate scores again.
Disgraced, there is nothing left for José but to go away to the smugglers' retreat in the mountains. There, in a cave looking out to sea, well located above the valley for smuggling operations, all the gipsies and the smugglers, headed by El Dancairo, lie waiting for the hour when they can go out without being caught. There, too, is Don José, sitting gloomily apart, cut off from all that is good, dishonoured and so distressed that he is no longer a good companion. Carmen looks at him, and feels angry because he seems to be indifferent to her.
"What do you see, that you sit staring down there into the valley?" she asks.
"I was thinking that yonder is living a good, industrious old woman, who thinks me a man of honour, but she is wrong, alas!"
"And who is this good old woman, pray?" Carmen sneers.
"If you love me do not speak thus," he returns, "for she is my mother."
"Ah, indeed! Well, I think you need her. I advise you to return to her." Don José needed her more than he knew.
"And if I went back – what about you?"
"Me? What about me, pray? I stay where I belong – with my friends."
"Then you expect me to give you up, for whom I have lost all that I had in life!" Realizing that he has given so much for so little, his bitterness becomes uncontrollable, and though he says nothing, Carmen surprises a horrid look on his face.
"You'll be committing murder next, if you look like that," she laughs. "Well, you are not very good company. Hello, there! Mercedes, Frasquita – anybody instead of this fool – let's amuse ourselves. Get the cards. Let us tell our fortunes, eh?" The three girls gather about the table; the other two shuffle and cut. The cards turn out well for them. Carmen watches them. After a moment she reaches for the pack. She is very nonchalant about it, and glances at José as she shuffles the cards. Then she sits half upon the table and cuts. A glance! a moment of sudden fear! she has cut death for herself! The blow has come to her in her most reckless moment. After an instant's pause she sings with a simple fatalism in voice and manner:
In vain to shun the answer that we dread.
She cuts the cards again and yet again. Still her dreadful fate appears.
"There is no hope," she murmurs to herself, as El Dancairo starts up and cries:
"'Tis time to be off. The way is clear. Come."
The others, headed by Remendado and El Dancairo, file down the path, leaving Don José alone in the cave. It is a dismal scene: the loneliness of José, the menace of death in the air!
While José sits with bowed head, a girl's figure rises behind the rocks, and almost at the same moment there appears the form of a man, as well. José hears the rolling of the stones beneath their feet and starts up, musket in hand. Just as he rises, he sees the man's head. The girl cries out as he fires upon the man, and misses him; then she crouches down behind the rock. It is Michaela, come to find José wherever he may be. She knows of his disgrace; it is killing his mother. The lonely old woman is dying. Michaela has come to fetch him, if he has not lost all memory of gentler hours. As José fires, the man shouts.
"Hey, there! what are you about?"
"What are you about? What do you want up here?"
"If you were not so ready with your gun, my friend, you are more likely to find out. I'm Escamillo the Toreador."
"Oh, well, then come up. I know you and you are welcome enough, but you run a fearful risk, let me tell you. You haven't sought very good company, I suppose you know."
"I don't care particularly; because, my friend, I am in love, if you want to know."
"Do you expect to find her here?"
"I am looking for her," Escamillo returns, complaisantly.
"These women are all gipsies."
"Good enough: so is Carmen."
"Carmen!" José cries, his heart seeming to miss a beat.
"That's her name. She had a lover up here – a soldier who deserted from his troop to join her – but that's past history. It's all up with him