Mary Bacon - Operas Every Child Should Know

"It does not concern me," replies the heroic José.

"It should," Carmen persists.

"Ah!" replies José, noncommittally. This is unsatisfactory to Carmen. However, she is equal to the occasion. When is she so fascinating as when quite preoccupied? – she will try it now. She will sing:

[Listen]

José is disturbed. Carmen is conscious of it. She continues to sing, meanwhile coquetting with him. Before he is aware of his own mood, he has cut the cord that he bound her hands with, and has disgraced himself forever. In the fascination Carmen has for him, he has forgotten that he is a soldier. Presently Zuniga enters. Carmen is to be transferred in charge of José, with a guard detailed to go with him. It is arranged. Carmen also makes some arrangements.

"When we have started, and are about to cross the bridge, I'll give you a push. You must fall – you could not see me locked up – one so young and gay! – and when you fall I shall run. After you can get away, meet me at Lillas Pastia's inn." José seems to himself to be doing things in a dream. He has earned a court-martial already if it were known what he has done. A corporal's guard start under José; the bridge is reached. Carmen makes a leap; down goes José. The others are taken unawares and she rushes at them. They too fall, head over heels, one down the bank. Carmen is up, and off! She flies up the path, laughing at them as they pick themselves up.

"This is a good business, eh?" Zuniga sneers. "On the whole, Don José, I think you will shine rather better under lock and key, in the guard-house, than you will as a soldier at large. Men, arrest him!" he orders sharply, and José has made the first payment on the score Fate has chalked up against him.

Flying to Lillas Pastia's inn, as she had agreed with José, Carmen is joined by her old comrades – smugglers and gipsy girls, chief of whom are Mercedes and Frasquita. It is late at night, and a carouse is in progress. Among those in the inn is Zuniga himself. As a matter of truth, he has fallen in love with Carmen on his own account, and has kept José under arrest in order to have him out of the way. There they are, all together, the gipsies playing on guitars and tambourines. The girls are mostly dancing. Carmen is coquetting with every man present, and the fun becomes a riot, so that the innkeeper has to interfere.

"It is so late, I've got to close up," he says. "You'll all have to clear out." Zuniga looks at Carmen. He wants to have a talk with her.

"Will you go with me?" he asks.

"I've no good reason for going with you," she answers, tantalizingly.

"Perhaps you're angry because I have locked José up," Zuniga suggests. "If you will make yourself agreeable, I don't mind telling you I have had him set free."

"What's that? Not in prison?" she asked. "Well, that's very decent of you, I'm sure," she sneers. "Good-night, gentlemen, I'm off!" she cries, and runs out into the night. Everybody follows her but Zuniga, who knows well enough he cannot trust her. They have no sooner disappeared than Zuniga hears shouts and "hurrahs" outside. He runs to the window and leans out.

"Hello! They are going to have a torch-light procession, eh?" and he leans farther out. "By the great horn spoon," he presently exclaims – or something which is its Spanish equivalent, "it's that bull-fighting fellow, Escamillo, who won that fight in Granada! Hello, out there, old friend! Come in here and have something to drink with me. To your past success and to your future glory!" Motioning to the bull-fighter outside, Zuniga goes toward the door. In he comes, this Escamillo, all covered with the glory of having killed some frisky and dangerous bulls – with all the chances against the bulls, nevertheless. Everybody else enters with Escamillo and all stand ready for refreshments at Zuniga's expense. Carmen comes back, and of course is to be found in the thick of the fun.

"Rah, rah, rah!" everybody yells, calling a toast to the bull-fighter, who is dressed up till he looks as fine as a little wagon. The toast suits him perfectly and he says so. He squares himself and strikes an attitude of grandeur without the least doubt that he is the greatest thing in the world, and while he is singing about it, half the people in the opera house are likely to agree with him. Here he goes:

[Listen]

While Escamillo is singing the refrain of this song he is about the most self-satisfied fellow one ever saw. He hasn't the slightest doubt about himself and neither has any sensible person a doubt about him; but Carmen is not a sensible person.

The bull-fighter has been trying the same trick upon Carmen that she tried upon José. She is not indifferent to his fascinations, but – well, there is trouble coming her way, Escamillo's way, José's way, everybody's way, but it is some comfort to know that they all more or less deserve it.

When Escamillo has finished singing of his greatness, he asks Carmen what she would think of him if he told her he loved her, and for once in a way she is quite truthful. She tells him she would think him a fool.

"You are not over-encouraging, my girl, but I can wait," he returns.

"I am sure there is no harm in waiting," she answers him.

Now Carmen's familiar friends, the smugglers, have an enterprise in hand, and it has been their habit to look to Carmen, Frasquita, and Mercedes for help in their smuggling. When they find an opportunity, they approach Carmen.

"We need your help to-night."

"Indeed! well, you won't get it," she declares.

"What! you won't attend to business?"

"I won't."

"What's the matter now?" El Dancairo, chief of the smugglers, demands.

"If you particularly want to know – why, then, I am in love – for to-night only," she hastens to add, as the smugglers stare at her in disgust.

"Well, we wish you joy; but you'll show better sense to come along with us. If you wait here, your lover is likely not to come, and you'll lose the money in the bargain."

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.