This well-known name dispersed Don José's hostility at once, and greeting the newcomer with respect, he desired to know his business in the gipsy camp. Escamillo replied that he had come to see the beautiful young gipsy girl, Carmen, with whom he had fallen desperately in love, and whose favour he now hoped to gain, since he expected she had by this time discarded her last lover, a deserter from the army.
On hearing this, Don José was filled with anger and jealousy, and drawing his dagger, challenged the Toreador to fight; and Escamillo, seeing that he had unwittingly fallen upon a rival, drew his own dagger in defence. But before either could aim a stroke, Carmen, who had heard the shot fired, appeared on the scene with the smugglers, who quickly separated the pair.
Escamillo rushed instantly to the side of Carmen, greeting her with rapture, and rejoicing to find that his advances were now received with answering pleasure; and then, as the smugglers refused to allow him to remain in their midst, he bade them farewell, but invited them all ere he departed to attend the great bull-fight to be held that week in Seville, at which he expected to achieve another triumph.
When he had gone, Don José, who had seen the passionate glances Carmen had bestowed upon her new admirer, began to upbraid her, and to warn her not to torture him too much, lest he did her harm. But the reckless Carmen cared naught for his threats, even though that very day, when reading her fortune by cards, they had foretold her an early death; for the beautiful gipsy was a true fatalist, and, regardless of the future, was willing to accept evil, if evil was in store for her.
Before Don José could expostulate further with Carmen, some of the smugglers came up to him with a struggling girl whom they had just found making her way into their camp; and to his utter astonishment and dismay the young brigadier beheld his foster-sister, Micaela.
The poor peasant girl had journeyed to Seville a second time, bearing another sad message to the man she loved; and on being told of Don José's desertion and of the evil ways into which he had fallen, she had still determined to find him, that she might deliver her message, and, if possible, draw him away from the woman who had enticed him to such wrong-doing.
Having learnt that he was in the gipsy smugglers' camp, she had fearlessly made her way there; and now, on coming face to face with the object of her search, she implored him to return with her to his old home, where his lonely mother was still weeping and waiting for him. Carmen, hoping thus to be rid of her inconvenient lover, also added to this entreaty, saying that he would do well to go away, since a smuggler's life would never suit him; but Don José, stung by her scornful taunt, declared that he would never leave her side, since she only desired his absence that she might pursue her new Toreador lover.
Then Micaela, with tears in her eyes, told the wretched youth that his mother was dying, and that unless he returned with her at once he would be too late to receive her forgiveness and last blessing; and, on hearing this, Don José was distracted with grief, and his filial love overcoming all other feelings for the moment, he bade a hasty farewell to Carmen, declaring that he would be with her again in a few days.
He then went off with Micaela; and the fickle Carmen, now thinking only of Escamillo, whom she already loved, returned next day to Seville with her gipsy friends, who had by this time finished their enterprise and were eager to attend the bull-fight to which they had been invited. The gay Toreador soon found himself an accepted lover; and Carmen, now loving at last with the whole of her passionate nature, was radiantly happy with Escamillo.
On the day of the bull-fight she accompanied him to the arena; and when he had departed for the fight, she was just about to enter the enclosure in order to watch his triumph, when she saw Don José approaching. Her gipsy companions begged her to turn aside, fearing from his dark, gloomy looks that he meant to do her harm; but Carmen was brave, and, reckless of danger, she went forward to meet her discarded lover with a cool and dauntless air.