While Carmen sings, her eyes do not leave Don José, and he is watching her in spite of himself. The racket continues till the factory bell rings to call the crowd back to work. Carmen goes reluctantly, and as she goes, she throws a flower at José.
|
This little flower gave me a start Like a ball aimed fair at my heart! |
he says, half smiling, half seriously, as he picks it up. While he stands thus, looking toward the factory, holding the flower, thinking of Carmen, Michaela comes back into the square. They espy each other, and a sudden warmth and tenderness come upon José: after all, he loves her dearly—and there is his old mother! His better self responds: José, in imagination, sees the little house in the hills where he lived as a boy before he went soldiering. He recalls vividly for the first time in months, those who are faithful to him, and for a moment he loves them as they love him. They speak together. Michaela gives him the note from his mother. There is money in it: she has thought he might be in debt, or in other trouble and need it. José is surprised by the tears in his own eyes—it is a far cry from gay Seville to the little house among the hills!
"Go back to mother, Michaela, tell her I am going to get leave as soon as I can and am coming back to her and you. I am going to play fair. There's not much in life, otherwise. Go home and tell her I am coming, and I mean to make you both as happy as once I meant to."
His sudden tenderness enraptures the young girl, and kissing him she sets out to leave Seville with a glad heart. José, left alone, on guard, his life and thought interrupted by this incident of home and faithfulness, leans thoughtfully upon his musket.
"It hasn't been quite right, and I am not happy. We'll change all this," he meditates.
As the afternoon sun grows hot the citizens begin to creep within doors for the siesta, as all Spanish life seems to grow tired and still in the burning day. Suddenly the silence is broken by a scream from over the way. José starts up and looks across.
"Hey, there! what the devil!" Zuniga shouts from the guard-house, and runs out. "Hello, hello! José, look alive there! What's gone wrong?—what the——" And the men start to run across the square.
"Help, help!" comes from the factory. "Will no one come? We're being killed—the she-devil—look out for her—Carmen! Look out for her—she has a knife!" Every one is screaming at once and trying each in his own way to tell what has happened.