Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Dream and Reveries 97ground, it's only because fifty years later, in Mexico City, I suddenlydreamed of Gala. She was sitting in a box at the theatre with herback to me. I called her softly, she turned around, stood up, andkissed me lovingly on the lips. I can still smell her perfume and feelthe incredible softness of her skin. In fact, I was more surprised bythis dream than by any other, including the one about the Virgin.Since we're on the subject of dreams, I remember a curious anecdoteI heard in Paris in 1978 which concerned my friend Gironella,a wonderful Mexican painter who had come to France with his wife,Carmen Parra, a stage designer, and their seven-year-old child. Theyseemed to be having trouble with their marriage, and at a certainpoint Carmen returned to Mexico while Gironella stayed on in Paris.Three days later he received a telegram announcing that she hadbegun divorce proceedings. When he asked why, her lawyer's answerwas: "Because of a dream." They were divorced a short time later.I suppose it's nothing exceptional, but one of the strange thingsabout dreams is that in them I've never been able to make love in atruly satisfying way, usually because people are watching. They'restanding at a window opposite our room; we change rooms, andsometimes even houses, but the same mocking, curious looks followus wherever we go. Or sometimes, when the climactic momentarrives, I find the woman sewn up tight. Sometimes I can't find theopening at all; she has the seamless body of a statue.In waking dreams, on the other hand, if the erotic adventure isprepared for meticulously enough, the goal can, with the properdiscretion, be achieved. When I was very young, I indulged inendless reveries about the beautiful queen of Spain, the wife of AlfonsoXIII. When I was fourteen, I fantasized a scenario that waseventually expanded into Viridlana. The queen retires to her bedchamber,her servants help her undress, she gets into bed. Whenthe maids have left, she drinks a glass of milk into which I've poureda powerful narcotic, and an instant later she falls into a heavy sleep.At that point, I slip into her royal couch and accomplish a sensationaldebauching.