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Carmen — обложка книги

Описание

Археолог в 1830 году исследует Андалусию в поисках местоположения битвы Мунда, сталкиваясь с местными бандитами и кочевыми ромами, раскрывая культурные особенности региона и внутренний конфликт между научной честностью и гостеприимством.

Главный конфликт / проблема

Внутренний конфликт автора между соблюдением закона и поддержанием гостеприимства в отношении бандита

Ключевые идеи

  • Путешествие археолога в Андалусию для уточнения местоположения битвы Мунда.
  • Встреча с бандитом Дон Жоао и дилемма между законом и гостеприимством.
  • Этнографическое исследование гипсиков: их внешность, обычаи, язык и взаимодействие с местным населением.
  • Гипсики ценят честность и взаимную помощь, но также известны хитростью и суевериями.
  • Язык романи имеет множество диалектов, корни которого восходят к санскриту и греческому языку.

Вывод

Книга приводит к размышлению о сложных взаимоотношениях между научной честностью, культурным уважением и личной этикой

Кому полезна

  • Историки
  • Антропологи
  • Путешественники
  • Читатели, интересующиеся культурой Испании

Главные темы

  • Культурное наследие и гостеприимство в Андалусии
  • Этические дилеммы исследователя
  • Языковое и этническое разнообразие ромов

Персонажи

  • Автор — Скептически относится к традиционным географическим данным, ищет доказательства своего предположения о местоположении битвы.
  • Дон Жоао — Молодой человек с блондербусом, утверждает, что из Монтией, но на деле является бандитом с наградой в двести дукатов.
  • Антонио — Служит автору, проявляет тревогу по поводу Дон Жоао.
  • Гипсики — Группа ромов, проживающих в Андалусии, Эстремадуре, Мурсии и Каталонии, известная своей хитростью, суевериями и взаимной помощью.
  • Старушка гипсиков — Ведет семью, наблюдает за больным мужчиной, демонстрирует традиционные практики.
  • Больной гипсик — Болезненный мужчина, который находится в изоляции от остальных членов группы.

Цитаты

  • «В Испании дарить и принимать сигарету создаёт связи гостеприимства, похожие на те, что в восточных странах при приёме хлеба и соли.»
  • «Дон Жоао сказал: «Я сам в этом месте, и если позволите, мы поедем вместе.»
  • En retudi panda nasti abela macha.
  • The Andalusians aspirate the s, and pronounce it like the soft c and the z, which Spaniards pronounce like the English th.

Сводка по автору из Wikidata

1803–1870. Prosper Mérimée. французский писатель и переводчик

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The spring and the cool shade were so delightful that I bethought me of certain slices of an excellent ham, which my friends at Montilla had packed into my guide’s wallet. I bade him produce them, and invited the stranger to share our impromptu lunch. If he had not smoked for a long time, he certainly struck me as having fasted for eight-and-forty hours at the very least. He ate like a starving wolf, and I thought to myself that my appearance must really have been quite providential for the poor fellow. Meanwhile my guide ate but little, drank still less, and spoke never a word, although in the earlier part of our journey he had proved himself a most unrivalled chatterer. He seemed ill at ease in the presence of our guest, and a sort of mutual distrust, the cause of which I could not exactly fathom, seemed to be between them.

The last crumbs of bread and scraps of ham had disappeared. We had each smoked our second cigar; I told the guide to bridle the horses, and was just about to take leave of my new friend, when he inquired where I was going to spend the night.

Before I had time to notice a sign my guide was making to me I had replied that I was going to the Venta del Cuervo.

“That’s a bad lodging for a gentleman like you, sir! I’m bound there myself, and if you’ll allow me to ride with you, we’ll go together.”

“With pleasure!” I replied, mounting my horse. The guide, who was holding my stirrup, looked at me meaningly again. I answered by shrugging my shoulders, as though to assure him I was perfectly easy in my mind, and we started on our way.

Antonio’s mysterious signals, his evident anxiety, a few words dropped by the stranger, above all, his ride of thirty leagues, and the far from plausible explanation he had given us of it, had already enabled me to form an opinion as to the identity of my fellow-traveller. I had no doubt at all I was in the company of a smuggler, and possibly of a brigand. What cared I? I knew enough of the Spanish character to be very certain I had nothing to fear from a man who had eaten and smoked with me. His very presence would protect me in case of any undesirable meeting. And besides, I was very glad to know what a brigand was really like. One doesn’t come across such gentry every day. And there is a certain charm about finding one’s self in close proximity to a dangerous being, especially when one feels the being in question to be gentle and tame.

I was hoping the stranger might gradually fall into a confidential mood, and in spite of my guide’s winks, I turned the conversation to the subject of highwaymen. I need scarcely say that I spoke of them with great respect. At that time there was a famous brigand in Andalusia, of the name of Jose-Maria, whose exploits were on every lip. “Supposing I should be riding along with Jose-Maria!” said I to myself. I told all the stories I knew about the hero—they were all to his credit, indeed, and loudly expressed my admiration of his generosity and his valour.

“Jose-Maria is nothing but a blackguard,” said the stranger gravely.

“Is he just to himself, or is this an excess of modesty?” I queried, mentally, for by dint of scrutinizing my companion, I had ended by reconciling his appearance with the description of Jose-Maria which I read posted up on the gates of various Andalusian towns. “Yes, this must be he—fair hair, blue eyes, large mouth, good teeth, small hands, fine shirt, a velvet jacket with silver buttons on it, white leather gaiters, and a bay horse. Not a doubt about it. But his incognito shall be respected!” We reached the venta. It was just what he had described to me. In other words, the most wretched hole of its kind I had as yet beheld. One large apartment served as kitchen, dining-room, and sleeping chamber. A fire was burning on a flat stone in the middle of the room, and the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof, or rather hung in a cloud some feet above the soil. Along the walls five or six mule rugs were spread on the floor. These were the travellers’ beds. Twenty paces from the house, or rather from the solitary apartment which I have just described, stood a sort of shed, that served for a stable.

The only inhabitants of this delightful dwelling visible at the moment, at all events, were an old woman, and a little girl of ten or twelve years old, both of them as black as soot, and dressed in loathsome rags. “Here’s the sole remnant of the ancient populations of Munda Boetica,” said I to myself. “O Caesar! O Sextus Pompeius, if you were to revisit this earth how astounded you would be!”

When the old woman saw my travelling companion an exclamation of surprise escaped her. “Ah! Senor Don Jose!” she cried.

Don Jose frowned and lifted his hand with a gesture of authority that forthwith silenced the old dame.

I turned to my guide and gave him to understand, by a sign that no one else perceived, that I knew all about the man in whose company I was about to spend the night. Our supper was better than I expected. On a little table, only a foot high, we were served with an old rooster, fricasseed with rice and numerous peppers, then more peppers in oil, and finally a gaspacho—a sort of salad made of peppers. These three highly spiced dishes involved our frequent recourse to a goatskin filled with Montella wine, which struck us as being delicious.

After our meal was over, I caught sight of a mandolin hanging up against the wall—in Spain you see mandolins in every corner—and I asked the little girl, who had been waiting on us, if she knew how to play it.

“No,” she replied. “But Don Jose does play well!”

“Do me the kindness to sing me something,” I said to him, “I’m passionately fond of your national music.”

“I can’t refuse to do anything for such a charming gentleman, who gives me such excellent cigars,” responded Don Jose gaily, and having made the child give him the mandolin, he sang to his own accompaniment. His voice, though rough, was pleasing, the air he sang was strange and sad. As to the words, I could not understand a single one of them.

“If I am not mistaken,” said I, “that’s not a Spanish air you have just been singing. It’s like the zorzicos I’ve heard in the Provinces,2 and the words must be in the Basque language.”

“Yes,” said Don Jose, with a gloomy look. He laid the mandolin down on the ground, and began staring with a peculiarly sad expression at the dying fire. His face, at once fierce and noble-looking, reminded me, as the firelight fell on it, of Milton’s Satan. Like him, perchance, my comrade was musing over the home he had forfeited, the exile he had earned, by some misdeed. I tried to revive the conversation, but so absorbed was he in melancholy thought, that he gave me no answer.

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