The Music of Spain

by Carl Van Vechten

"The Zincali" was translated into several languages, among others into French, and among those influenced and affected by it was Prosper Mérimée; indeed it now seems probable that without the spur of this suggestive book Mérimée would never have written "Carmen," assuredly not in its present form. Here are the facts: Mérimée visited Spain in 1830 and it was during this tour that the Condessa de Teba related to him a story of jealousy and murder, substantially that of "Carmen," in which, however, the gipsies played no part. This material offered scant inspiration for the production of a masterpiece. Mérimée, indeed, seems to have dropped the idea out of his mind entirely until Borrow's books appeared, reviving his interest in the gipsies and suggesting to him the possibility of transferring the Condessa's tale into a gipsy setting. Borrow's translation of the Gospel of Luke into Caló was issued in 1837. There is evidence that Mérimée read it. "The Zincali" came out in London in 1841; "The Bible in Spain" in 1842. "Carmen" first appeared, without the final chapter on the gipsies, in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for October 1, 1845. The proofs of Mérimée's indebtedness to Borrow are manifold; one of the best is his own admission in his correspondence with his Inconnue: "You asked me the other day where I had obtained my acquaintance with the dialect of the gipsies. I had so many things to tell you that I forgot to reply. I got it from Mr. Borrow; his book is one of the most curious I have read." But the internal evidence is even stronger: all but two of the gipsy proverbs in "Carmen" are to be found in "The Zincali" as is many a detail in plot and description. Professor George T. Northup of the University of Toronto has traced a number of such resemblances and you may find his account of them in "Modern Philology" for July, 1915. "When he (Mérimée) set out to manufacture local colour he seldom dispensed with literary aid. He did indeed frequently dispense with direct observation," writes Professor Northup. "In his study of the Gipsies Borrow was Mérimée's important, although not his sole, literary guide; and of that a careful comparison of the two works leaves not the slightest doubt."

On one point, however, Mérimée is at variance with Borrow, and this is a most important point, so important, indeed, that the French author, in spite of (perhaps because of!) his obligation to the Englishman, points the finger of scorn at him in the added chapter (largely made up of facts to be found in "The Zincali"!) of "Carmen." Here is the passage: "M. Borrow, missionaire anglais, auteur de deux ouvrages fort intéressants sur les bohémiens d'Espagne, qu'il avait entrepris de convertir, aux frais de la Societé biblique, assure qu'il est sans exemple qu'une Gitana ait jamais eu quelque faiblesse pour un homme étranger à sa race." Borrow does not say sans exemple: "The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred." Let us continue with Mérimée: "Il me semble qu'il y a beaucoup d'exagération dans les éloges qu'il accorde à leur chasteté. D'abord, le plus grand nombre est dans le cas de la laide d'Ovide: Casta quam nemo rogavit. Quant aux jolies, elles sont comme toutes les Espagnoles, difficiles dans le choix de leurs amants. Il faut leur plaire, il faut les mériter."

This is what Borrow has to say about the matter in "The Zincali": "There is a word in the Gipsy language to which those who speak it attach ideas of peculiar reverence, far superior to that connected with the name of the Supreme Being, the creator of themselves and the universe. This word is Lácha, which with them is the corporeal chastity of the females; we say corporeal chastity, for no other do they hold in the slightest esteem; it is lawful amongst them, nay praise-worthy, to be obscene in look, gesture, and discourse, to be accessories to vice, and to stand by and laugh at the worst abominations of the Busné (Busno is the term used by the Spanish gipsies for the Spaniard or indeed any person not a gipsy), provided their Lácha ye trupos, or corporeal chastity remains unblemished. The Gipsy child, from her earliest years, is told by her strange mother, that a good Calli need only dread one thing in this world, and that is the loss of Lácha, in comparison with which that of life is of little consequence, as in such an event she will be provided for, but what provision is there for a gipsy who has lost her Lácha? 'Bear this in mind, my child,' she will say, 'and now eat this bread, and go forth and see what you can steal.'

"A Gipsy girl is generally betrothed at the age of fourteen to the youth whom her parents deem a suitable match, and who is generally a few years older than herself. Marriage is invariably preceded by betrothment.... With the Busné or Gentiles, the betrothed female is allowed the freest intercourse, going whither she will, and returning at all times and seasons. With respect to the Busné, indeed, the parents are invariably less cautious than with their own race, as they conceive it next to an impossibility that their child should lose her Lácha by any intercourse with the white blood; and true it is that experience has proved that their confidence in this respect is not altogether idle. The Gitanas have in general a decided aversion to the white men; some few instances, however, to the contrary are said to have occurred."

The gitanas, Borrow goes on to explain, are never above exciting passion in the Busné which, however, they refuse to satisfy. Their dances for the most part are lascivious and obscene. They often act as procuresses. But let no Busno presume from these facts that he may count on a more intimate acquaintanceship. Richard Ford in "Gatherings from Spain" in his description of the romalis supports Borrow in his theory: "However indecent these dances may be, yet the performers are inviolably chaste, and as far at least as ungipsy guests are concerned, may be compared to iced punch at a rout; young girls go through them before the applauding eyes of their parents and brothers, who resent to the death any attempt on their sisters' virtue."

Mérimée refers to the matter in a letter to the Inconnue: "What he (Borrow) relates of the gipsies is perfectly true, and his personal observations are entirely in accord with mine save on a single point. In his capacity of clergyman (sic), he may very well have deceived himself where I, in my capacity of Frenchman and layman, was able to make conclusive experiments." In spite of the weight of Mérimée's personal experience it may be noted that the majority of Spanish writers are in accord with Borrow, who was not a clergyman. And, as Professor Northup slyly points out, the man who taught Isopel Berners of Mumpers Dingle to conjugate the verb "to love" in Armenian may not have been so naïve an observer after all.

Whether gipsies are corporeally chaste or not[1] is, however, a matter of the slightest moment in relation to the masterpiece that Mérimée based on the theory that they are not. As Havelock Ellis so precisely puts it: "Art is in its sphere as supreme over fact as Science in its sphere is supreme over fiction. The artist may play either fast or loose with Science, and the finest artist will sometimes play loose." It may be remarked that in general Borrow was more inclined to play loose than Mérimée.

It is interesting enough to realize that "The Bible in Spain," in itself a masterpiece, was the inspiration for another masterpiece, one of the great short stories of all literature. Curiously enough still a third masterpiece emerged from the activities of the British Bible Society, Carmen, the opera. In transferring the story to the stage Messrs. Meilhac and Halévy, in searching for dramatic emphasis, have thrown overboard a good deal of the wild and wanton atmosphere, the calid passion, the brutal austerity of the original tale. Carmen, in their version, becomes a mixture of Spanish gipsy and Parisian cocotte. In certain scenes, such as that of the Seguidilla and the duet in the last act a good deal of Mérimée's feeling has been preserved but the scene of the quintet in which the other gipsies taunt Carmen with being amoureuse is probably essentially Parisian. So, too, perhaps, is the scene of the Habanera. Spaniards have long protested against the work because, as nearly as I can discover, they consider it an idealization. Spanish women as a rule make the worst Carmens, although they have often achieved notable successes in another Spanish character, Rosina in The Barber of Seville.[2] An understanding of the French opéra-comique form is essential to a fine interpretation of this gipsy heroine; even a good deal of the music is not essentially Spanish. If it were it would probably not be great because Bizet was a Frenchman and must perforce in writing French opera hear Spain with French ears.... Nevertheless I see no reason why a singer should not go to Mérimée for many hints; indeed I think she might even go farther and study Borrow's conception of the Spanish gipsy character. One line alone in Mérimée would suggest a new interpretation to an actress capable of realizing it. José is speaking: "Monsieur, quand cette fille-là riait, il n'y avait pas moyen de parler raison. Tout le monde riait avec elle." But an actress must conceive any part in terms of her own personality and this effect could be made only by a very complete charmeuse.

In the original story the bull-fighter, Lucas, scarcely appears and he is a picador not an espada as he becomes in the opera under the new name of Escamillo. Why was this name changed? I have a theory, unsupported by any evidence, that Bizet asked his librettists to furnish him with a name which would fit the music of the marvellous duet in the last act. He probably had achieved the phrase which now accompanies Ah! je t'aime, Escamillo, only to discover that it could not be married to the name Lucas. Jealousy remains the motive for the murder of Carmen although the scenes are quite differently arranged in the tale and in the lyric drama.... Micaela is new. The only suggestion of her in Mérimée's story is the following line of José's: "J'étais jeune alors; je pensais toujours au pays, et je croyais pas qu'il y eût de jolies filles sans jupes bleues et sans nattes tombant sur les épaules." Carmen's second meeting with José does not take place at Lillas Pastia's but the third does, and ever so many details such as the "chaine avec du fil de laiton," the cassia which the hussy removes from her lips to toss at José's feet, the rejected ring, etc., are incidents from Mérimée. Why, one wonders, does not some interpreter remember that the original Carmen broke a plate and from the pieces fashioned castanets to play while she danced the romalis for José?... The brutal García le Borgne, Carmen's rom, disappears completely. He is not essential to the intrigue devised by the librettists. They have also blotted out Carmen's very diverting adventures with the Englishman at Gibraltar.

Carmen was produced at the Paris Opéra-Comique March 3, 1875. The first performance was coldly received. Charles Pigot (Bizet's biographer) informs us that the prelude to the second act was repeated; the air of the Toreador and the quintet were applauded: that was all. The curtain fell on each act to complete indifference. The discouragement of the composer seems to have been deep. We do not wonder at it. Vincent d'Indy told Edmond Galabert that after the first act he and a group of young musicians met Bizet on the sidewalk near the stage entrance of the theatre and felicitated him on the life and colour in the music. Bizet responded: "Vous êtes les premiers qui me disiez ça, et je crains bien que vous ne soyez les derniers." Carmen was a failure. The reviews were bad. There were, curiously enough, many charges of immorality. Pigot assures us that Camille du Locle, the director of the theatre, who never believed in Carmen, was more or less responsible for these. To a minister who wrote in asking for a loge for the first night he replied that it would perhaps be better if he came to the general rehearsal to see if he found the piece sufficiently respectable for his wife and daughters!... Possibly these charges of immorality awakened curiosity. At any rate it is certain that after the fifth performance the receipts rose and the apathy of the audiences became less marked. The piece was given for the thirty-seventh time on June 13, just before the theatre closed for the summer. Bizet had died June 3. In the fall Carmen was revived and given thirteen representations; then not again in Paris until 1883.