Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

who believed in God and who later produced my Mexican Bus Ride.The group was constantly erupting in passionate and interminablearguments, many of which concerned whether we should just actspontaneously or try to organize ourselves. As usual, I was tombetween my intellectual (and emotional) attraction to anarchy andmy fundamental need for order and peace. And there we sat, in alife-anddeath situation, but spending all our time constructing theories.Franco continued to advance. Certain towns and cities remainedloyal to the Republic, but others surrendered to him without astruggle. Fascist repression was pitiless; anyone suspected of liberaltendencies was summarily executed. But instead of trying to forman organization, we debatedÑwhil the anarchists persecuted priests.I can still hear the old cry: "Come down and see. There's a deadpriest in the street." As anticlerical as I was, I couldn't condone thiskind of massacre, even though the priests were not exactly innocentbystanders. They took up arms like everybody else, and did a fairbit of sniping from their bell towers. We even saw Dominicans withmachine guns. A few of the clergy joined the Republican side, butmost went over to the Fascists. The war spared no one, and it wasimpossible to remain neutral, to declare allegiance to the utopianillusion of a tercera Espak.Some days, I was very frightened. I lived in an extremely bourgeoisapartment house and often wondered what would happen if awild bunch of anarchists suddenly broke into my place in the middleof the night to "take me for a walk." Would I resist? How could I?What could I say to them?The city was rife with stories; everyone had one. I rememberhearing about some nuns in a convent in Madrid who were on theirway to chapel and stopped in front of the statue of the Virgin holdingthe baby Jesus in her arms. With a hammer and chisel, the mothersuperior removed the child and carried it away."We'll bring himback," she told the Virgin, "when we've wonthe war."