Plût à Dieu, Would to God

1 7. tous plus horribles les uns que les autres, each more dreadful than the other.

21. un autre nom basque, que ni vous ni moi ne prononcerons jamais, could ever pronounce, because Basque family names are frequently very long and difficult for Spaniards to pronounce. Cf. page 25, line 8.

28. “ petit pendement pien choli,” a quotation from Molière, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, III, iii. It is there spoken by a German Swiss whose barbarous French is ridiculed.

Page 24. — 18. Oserai-je, May I venture. Here, as frequently, the future of oser is equivalent to a form of pouvoir + the infinitive

Page 25. — 14. paume represents pelote, pelota, the Basque national game, a kind of combination of tennis and handball. The ball is hurled with a sort of wicker racket fastened to a leather glove on the player’s hand. It is popular in Cuba under its Basque name of jai alai, ‘ gay feast,’ and is occasionally played under this name in the United States. See the description of a game below, page 117, line 3 ff.

15. nous autres Navarrais. Autres is frequently added to nous and vous for emphasis.

24. manufacture de tabacs. Tobacco being a governmental monopoly, soldiers would be on guard. The building was erected in 1 75 7 (see illustration, p. 27); some 2000 women were employed there recently, but their places are being taken by machines. Guides in Seville today point out the factory to visitors as “ the place where Carmen worked.”

25. vous aurez vu. The future perfect is here used in reference to the past to express probability, as occasionally in English.

Page 26. — 5. Vous saurez = Vous devez savoir, You probably

know.

ii. diner, which originally in Old French meant ‘ breakfast,’ is here used, as it still is in most of the French countryside, for midday meal. In large cities it is used chiefly in its literary sense, ‘ evening meal, dinner.’

13. qui refusent, who will refuse. — les amateurs, à cette pêche-là, n’ont qu’à se baisser pour prendre le poisson, those interested in that sort of fishing have only to stoop down to pick up the fish.

18. sans jupes bleues et sans nattes. “ Costume ordinaire des paysannes de la Navarre et des provinces basques.” ( Author's Note.)

NOTES

23. la gitanilla, the title of one of the Novelas ejemplares of Cervantes, which furnished Mérimée a number of suggestions for Carmen.

Page 28. — 2. haras de Cordoue. See note to page 6, line 32.

4. se signer. The Basques, being very conservative, would have been shocked at such a costume.

12. Compère, me dit-elle à la façon andalouse. In Andalusia the Spanish compadre (= French compère) is still used in this way.

17. épingles were used to mark a pattern upon which certain kinds of lace were made by knitting with a bobbin.

21. de mon âme. Translation of Spanish de mi alma. Render as my dear.

Page 29. — 8. un vacarme à ne pas entendre Dieu tonner, a

noise that would have drowned out God’s own thunder.