The cookery at Enescu’s, too, is perhaps the best in the Roumanian capital. Next to it is the restaurant of the Boulevard, where at luncheon there is a table set apart for the diplomats, and is always occupied by the various young attachés and secretaries. After that, comes Capsa’s. The feminine element in the restaurants at dinner is much the same as it is at home, except that one often sees a mother and two, or even three, daughters dining alone—dining in public, so that they may be seen by some stray swain who is desirous of marriage. One night at Enescu’s, at the table next to us, sat an Italian duchess of ancient lineage married to a Roumanian aristocrat, with her three pretty dark-eyed daughters of varying ages, eating solemnly, the mother ever watchful to see whether any man had his eye upon them. We afterwards saw them near midnight at a café solemnly sipping sirops and looking mournful and woebegone. A diplomat who was with me told me that her Grace had been in Bucharest staying at an hotel for the past six months, trying to get her daughters off her hands, and was now beginning to be disgusted at her non-success.
The Roumanian has a great hatred of the Jew. Perhaps it is because his extravagance brings him so often into their hands. But the country is full of Hebrews. The capital is not over-burdened with them, but in some towns in Northern Moldavia Jews are in the majority. Indeed, their total number in the united provinces exceeds 300,000, or about one-twentieth of the entire population, a larger ratio than in any other country in the world. In most provincial towns they have the monopoly of selling strong drinks, and are of course ever ready to lend money to the peasant-proprietors. Were it not for the fact that the law forbids any Jew from holding landed property—or any foreigner, for the matter of that—half the soil would probably soon be in their hands. The Moldavian Jews speak a different language, wear a different dress, and keep themselves aloof from their neighbours, just as do the picturesque cabmen of Bucharest.
Roumania can boast one artist who is really great, whose name is N. J. Grigoresco. I was shown some of his works, the property of Mr. Ernest Goodwin, of the Roumanian Bank, and found that they were of the Barbizon school, which is very natural, as he was a fellow-worker with Millet. Without exception the work was excellent, and I believe there is some idea of having an exhibition of it in London.
In Bucharest there is none of the laziness or languor of the Orient. Everyone is bent on business or upon pleasure, and life for the idler is perhaps even more pleasant there than in any other capital of Europe. Yes, Bucharest of to-day astounds one in many ways.
CHAPTER II
ROUMANIA’S AIMS AND INTENTIONS
Monsieur Take Jonesco, Minister of Finance—The smartest man in Roumania—An interview with General Lahovary, Minister of Foreign Affairs—Secret aims of Roumania—A better frontier wanted—Germany’s insincerity—Some plain truths—The question of a Balkan Federation—Oil wells waiting to be exploited by British capital.
I had a number of interviews with the members of the Roumanian Cabinet,[[2]] General Jacques Lahovary, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and M. Take Jonesco, Minister of Finance, being both particularly helpful to me in my inquiries regarding Roumania’s political aims and aspirations.
[2]. Since this volume has been completed the Roumanian Cabinet has resigned on account of the recent peasant rising, which, by the way, was greatly exaggerated by the Austrian press.