* Maria Padella was accused of having bewitched Don Pedro.  According to one popular tradition she presented Queen Blanche of Bourbon with a golden girdle which, in the eyes of the bewitched king, took on the appearance of a living snake.  Hence the repugnance he always showed toward the unhappy princess.

“‘Carmen,’ I said to her, ‘will you come with me?’ She rose, threw away her wooden bowl, and put her mantilla over her head ready to start.  My horse was led up, she mounted behind me, and we rode away.

“After we had gone a little distance I said to her, ’So, my Carmen, you are quite ready to follow me, isn’t that so?’

“She answered, ’Yes, I’ll follow you, even to death—­but I won’t live with you any more.’

“We had reached a lonely gorge.  I stopped my horse.

“‘Is this the place?’ she said.

“And with a spring she reached the ground.  She took off her mantilla and threw it at her feet, and stood motionless, with one hand on her hip, looking at me steadily.

“‘You mean to kill me, I see that well,’ said she.  ’It is fate.  But you’ll never make me give in.’

“I said to her:  ’Be rational, I implore you; listen to me.  All the past is forgotten.  Yet you know it is you who have been my ruin—­it is because of you that I am a robber and a murderer.  Carmen, my Carmen, let me save you, and save myself with you.’

“‘Jose,’ she answered, ’what you ask is impossible.  I don’t love you any more.  You love me still, and that is why you want to kill me.  If I liked, I might tell you some other lie, but I don’t choose to give myself the trouble.  Everything is over between us two.  You are my rom, and you have the right to kill your romi, but Carmen will always be free.  A calli she was born, and a calli she’ll die.’

“‘Then, you love Lucas?’ I asked.

“’Yes, I have loved him—­as I loved you—­for an instant—­less than I loved you, perhaps.  But now I don’t love anything, and I hate myself for ever having loved you.’

“I cast myself at her feet, I seized her hands, I watered them with my tears, I reminded her of all the happy moments we had spent together, I offered to continue my brigand’s life, if that would please her.  Everything, sir, everything—­I offered her everything if she would only love me again.

“She said: 

“‘Love you again?  That’s not possible!  Live with you?  I will not do it!’

“I was wild with fury.  I drew my knife, I would have had her look frightened, and sue for mercy—­but that woman was a demon.

“I cried, ‘For the last time I ask you.  Will you stay with me?’

“‘No! no! no!’ she said, and she stamped her foot.

“Then she pulled a ring I had given her off her finger, and cast it into the brushwood.

“I struck her twice over—­I had taken Garcia’s knife, because I had broken my own.  At the second thrust she fell without a sound.  It seems to me that I can still see her great black eyes staring at me.  Then they grew dim and the lids closed.