25 Gabriela Mistral survived in Madrid in substantial part by drawing on her savings: Gabriela Mistral, letter to Carmela Echenique, 25 Jan. 1934, in Vuestra Gabriela: Cartas inéditas de Gabriela Mistral con los Errázuriz Echeñique Tomic, Luis Vargas Saavedra (ed.), Santiago, Zig-Zag, 1995, 2529, rpt. Vargas Saavedra, op. cit., 76-77. Those savings subsequently lost half their value over that year, with the fall of the dollar: Gabriela Mistral (signing as "Lucila Godoy"), letter to Pedro Aguirre Cerda, 10 Dec. 1934, in Magda Arce and Gastón von demme Bussche (eds.), Proyecto preservación y difusión del legado literario de Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Zig-Zag, 1993, 152-153.
