Carmen | Page 4

about to spend the night. Our supper was better than I expected. On a
little table, only a foot high, we were served with an old rooster,
fricasseed with rice and numerous peppers, then more peppers in oil,
and finally a gaspacho--a sort of salad made of peppers. These three
highly spiced dishes involved our frequent recourse to a goatskin filled

with Montella wine, which struck us as being delicious.
After our meal was over, I caught sight of a mandolin hanging up
against the wall--in Spain you see mandolins in every corner--and I
asked the little girl, who had been waiting on us, if she knew how to
play it.
"No," she replied. "But Don Jose does play well!"
"Do me the kindness to sing me something," I said to him, "I'm
passionately fond of your national music."
"I can't refuse to do anything for such a charming gentleman, who gives
me such excellent cigars," responded Don Jose gaily, and having made
the child give him the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment.
His voice, though rough, was pleasing, the air he sang was strange and
sad. As to the words, I could not understand a single one of them.
"If I am not mistaken," said I, "that's not a Spanish air you have just
been singing. It's like the zorzicos I've heard in the Provinces,* and the
words must be in the Basque language."
* The privileged Provinces, Alava, Biscay, Guipuzcoa, and a part of
Navarre, which all enjoy special fueros. The Basque language is spoken
in these countries.
"Yes," said Don Jose, with a gloomy look. He laid the mandolin down
on the ground, and began staring with a peculiarly sad expression at the
dying fire. His face, at once fierce and noble-looking, reminded me, as
the firelight fell on it, of Milton's Satan. Like him, perchance, my
comrade was musing over the home he had forfeited, the exile he had
earned, by some misdeed. I tried to revive the conversation, but so
absorbed was he in melancholy thought, that he gave me no answer.
The old woman had already gone to rest in a corner of the room, behind
a ragged rug hung on a rope. The little girl had followed her into this
retreat, sacred to the fair sex. Then my guide rose, and suggested that I
should go with him to the stable. But at the word Don Jose, waking, as

it were, with a start, inquired sharply whither he was going.
"To the stable," answered the guide.
"What for? The horses have been fed! You can sleep here. The senor
will give you leave."
"I'm afraid the senor's horse is sick. I'd like the senor to see it. Perhaps
he'd know what should be done for it."
It was quite clear to me that Antonio wanted to speak to me apart.
But I did not care to rouse Don Jose's suspicions, and being as we were,
I thought far the wisest course for me was to appear absolutely
confident.
I therefore told Antonio that I knew nothing on earth about horses, and
that I was desperately sleepy. Don Jose followed him to the stable, and
soon returned alone. He told me there was nothing the matter with the
horse, but that my guide considered the animal such a treasure that he
was scrubbing it with his jacket to make it sweat, and expected to spend
the night in that pleasing occupation. Meanwhile I had stretched myself
out on the mule rugs, having carefully wrapped myself up in my own
cloak, so as to avoid touching them. Don Jose, having begged me to
excuse the liberty he took in placing himself so near me, lay down
across the door, but not until he had primed his blunderbuss afresh and
carefully laid it under the wallet, which served him as a pillow.
I had thought I was so tired that I should be able to sleep even in such a
lodging. But within an hour a most unpleasant itching sensation roused
me from my first nap. As soon as I realized its nature, I rose to my feet,
feeling convinced I should do far better to spend the rest of the night in
the open air than beneath that inhospitable roof. Walking tiptoe I
reached the door, stepped over Don Jose, who was sleeping the sleep of
the just, and managed so well that I got outside the building without
waking him. Just beside the door there was a wide wooden bench. I lay
down upon it, and settled myself, as best I could, for the remainder of
the night. I was just closing my eyes for a second time when I fancied I

saw the shadow of a man and then the shadow of a horse