ipsy girls are often sent for to
private houses, to dance their special dance, the _Romalis_, and often,
too, for quite other purposes.

"Carmen recognised me, and we exchanged glances. I don't know why, but
at that moment I should have liked to have been a hundred feet beneath
the ground.

"'_Agur laguna_,'* said she. 'Oficial mio! You keep guard like a
recruit,' and before I could find a word in answer, she was inside the
house.

* Good-day, comrade!

"The whole party was assembled in the _patio_, and in spite of the crowd
I could see nearly everything that went on through the lattice.* I
could hear the castanets and the tambourine, the laughter and applause.
Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her head as she bounded upward with her
tambourine. Then I could hear the officers saying many things to her
which brought the blood to my face. As to her answers, I knew nothing
of them. It was on that day, I think, that I began to love her in
earnest--for three or four times I was tempted to rush into the _patio_,
and drive my sword into the bodies of all the coxcombs who were making
love to her. My torture lasted a full hour; then the gipsies came out,
and the carriage took them away. As she passed me by, Carmen looked at
me with those eyes you know, and said to me very low, 'Comrade, people
who are fond of good _fritata_ come to eat it at Lillas Pastia's at
Triana!'

* In most of the houses in Seville there is an inner court
surrounded by an arched portico. This is used as a sitting-
room in summer. Over the court is stretched a piece of tent
cloth, which is watered during the day and removed at night.
The street door is almost always left open, and the passage
leading to the court (_zaguan_) is closed by an iron lattice
of very elegant workmanship.

"Then, light as a kid, she stepped into the carriage, the coachman
whipped up his mules, and the whole merry party departed, whither I know
not.

"You may fancy that the moment I was off guard I went to Triana; but
first of all I got myself shaved and brushed myself up as if I had been
going on parade. She was living with Lillas Pastia, an old fried-fish
seller, a gipsy, as black as a Moor, to whose house a great many
civilians resorted to eat _fritata_, especially, I think, because Carmen
had taken up her quarters there.

"'Lillas,' she said, as soon as she saw me. 'I'm not going to work any
more to-day. To-morrow will be a day,