Idle loungers passing these patriarchal groups, on
their way to a vapid French breakfast at a restaurant, catch the
fragrance of the olla and the chatter of the family, and envy the
dinner of herbs with love.
There is no people so frugal. We often wonder how a Washington clerk can
live on twelve hundred dollars, but this would be luxury in expensive
Madrid. It is one of the dearest capitals in Europe. Foreigners are
never weary decrying its high prices for poor fare; but Castilians live
in good houses, dress well, receive their intimate friends, and hold
their own with the best in the promenade, upon incomes that would seem
penury to any country parson in America. There are few of the nobility
who retain the great fortunes of former days. You can almost tell on
your fingers the tale of the grandees in Madrid who can live without
counting the cost. The army and navy are crowded with general officers
whose political services have obliged their promotion. The state is too
much impoverished to pay liberal salaries, and yet the rank of these
officers requires the maintenance of a certain social position. Few of
them are men of fortune. The result is that necessity has taught them to
live well upon little, I knew widows who went everywhere in society,
whose daughters were always charmingly dressed, who lived in a decent
quarter of the town, and who had no resources whatever but a husband's
pension.
The best proof of the capacity of Spaniards to spread a little gold over
as much space as a goldbeater could is the enormous competition for
pub-lic employment. Half the young men in Spain are candidates for
places under government ranging from $250 to $1000. Places of $1500 to
$2000 are considered objects of legitimate ambition even to deputies and
leading politicians. Expressed in reals these sums have a large and
satisfying sound. Fifty dollars seems little enough for a month's work,
but a thousand reals has the look of a most respectable salary. In
Portugal, however, you can have all the delightful sensations of
prodigality at a contemptible cost. You can pay, without serious damage
to your purse, five thousand reis for your breakfast.
It is the smallness of incomes and the necessity of looking sharply to
the means of life that makes the young people of Madrid so prudent in
their love affairs. I know of no place where ugly heir-esses are such
belles, and where young men with handsome incomes are so universally
esteemed by all who know them. The stars on the sleeves of young
officers are more regarded than their dancing, and the red belt of a
field officer is as winning in the eyes of beauty as a cestus of Venus.
A. subaltern offered his hand and heart to a black-eyed girl of Castile.
She said kindly but firmly that the night was too cloudy.
