This right is acquired by the payment of ten dollars a day to city
charities, and produces some fifteen thousand dollars every Carnival. In
these carriages all the society of Madrid may be seen; and on foot,
darting in and out among the hoofs of the horses, are the young men of
Castile in every conceivable variety of absurd and fantastic disguise.
There are of course pirates and Indians and Turks, monks, prophets, and
kings, but the favorite costumes seem to be the Devil and the
Englishman. Sometimes the Yankee is attempted, with indifferent success.
He wears a ribbon-wreathed Italian bandit's hat, an embroidered jacket,
slashed buckskin trousers, and a wide crimson belt,--a dress you would
at once recognize as universal in Boston.
Most of the maskers know by name at least the occupants of the
carriages. There is always room for a mask in a coach. They leap in,
swarming over the back or the sides, and in their shrill monotonous
scream they make the most startling revelations of the inmost secrets of
your soul. There is always something impressive in the talk of an
unknown voice, but especially is this so in Madrid, where every one
scorns his own business, and devotes himself rigorously to his
neighbor's. These shrieking young monks and devilkins often surprise a
half-formed thought in the heart of a fair Castilian and drag it out
into day and derision. No one has the right to be offended. Duchesses
are called Tu! Isabel! by chin-dimpled school-boys, and the proudest
beauties in Spain accept bonbons from plebeian hands.
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