Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

wreathed in fog. When I was a child and going to San Sebastih forvacation, I used to marvel at the ferns, and the moss that grew onthe tree trunks. Russia and Scandinavia were magical places for me;I remember writing a story when I was seven that took place on thesnow-covered steppes of Trans-Siberia. Then, too, no sound is lovelierthan that of the rain. There are times when I can hear it, if Iwear my hearing aid, but it's not quite the same, of course.And I really love the cold. When I was young, I never wore acoat, even in the coldest weather. It's not that I didn't feel the cold;it's just that I enjoyed resisting it. My friends used to call me "elsinabr;'gol'-thecoatless one. In fact, there's a picture of me somewherestanding stark naked in the snow. I remember one winter in Pariswhen it was so cold that the Seine had begun to freeze over. I waswaiting for Juan Vicens to arrive from Madrid at the Gare d'Orsay,and it was so cold I had to run back and forth on the platform tokeep from freezing. Despite the exercise, however, I came down witha good case of pneumonia, and when I could finally get out of bed,the first thing I did was to go out and buy the first warm clothes Iever owned.The corollary to all this is that I hate warm climates, and if I livein Mexico, it's only by accident. I don't like the desert, the beach,the Arab, the Indian, or the Japanese civilizations, which makes medistinctly unmodern. To be frank, the only civilization I admire isthe one in which I was raised, the Greco-Roman Christian.On the other hand, I love travel books about Spain, particularlythe ones written by English and French travelers in the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries. And I adore the picaresque novel, especiallyLazariIIo de T m , de Quevedo's La vida del Buscon, and even GilBias, which, although written by the Frenchman Lesage, was elegantlytranslated by Father Isla in the eighteenth century and hasbecome a Spanish classic. It paints a stunning picture of Spain, andI think I've read it at least a dozen times.Now, like most deaf people, I don't much like the blind. Oneday in Mexico City I was struck by the sight of two blind men sitting