The whole thing is essentially Oriental, and it needs only the glance of an eye or the turn of a hand to convert the graceful movements of ladies in a drawing-room into an exposition of sensuality.
One understands therefore why Spanish ladies are so careful how they allow their daughters to dance even the apparently harmless seguidillas with men instead of girls for their partners.
The usual form of concerted performance is for the men to sing the coplas and the girls to dance between each of them; and when Carmencita had finished her performance, the guitarists struck up the rattling chords that preface the Peteneras. After much pressing on the part of the girls, Carmencita’s eldest brother Paco, otherwise Francisco, was induced to sing, and here is a translation of his first and last verses, which he sang to the strange quavering air without tune or rhythm, and full of the odd intervals and curious turns and flourishes peculiar to this kind of music, while the spectators accompanied him with a fusillade of hand-clapping and shouts of applause which burst out at every pause.
“My novia has deserted me,
Child of my heart;
Thinking that I should grieve for her,
Child of my heart.
I am not sure whether I shall take another sweetheart now,
Or wait and look about me through the summer.
When I am on my death-bed,