Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Madrid-The Raidencia ( I 9 I 7- I 92')) 59I shall be speaking of Ramon Gomez de la Serna again, becauseit was with him, some years later, that I failed in my debut as acinkte.At this time, I was more or less connected to a movement calledthe Ultraists, which claimed to represent Spain's avant-garde. Wewere admirers of Dada, Cocteau, and Marinetti. (Surrealism had notyet come into being.)The most important literary cafes in Madrid were the Cafe Gijon(which, miraculously, is there still), the Granja del Henar, the CafeCastilla, the Fornos, the Kutz, and the Cafe de la Montana, whosemarble-topped tables finally had to be replaced because they'd beenso covered with artists' graffiti. I used to go there alone to work,after my classes in the afternoon. At the Cafe Pombo, where de laSerna held court every Saturday night, we used to arrive, greet eachother, and order a drink-usually coffee, and a lot of water-untila meandering conversation began about the latest literary publicationsor political upheavals. We loaned one another books and foreignjournals, and gossiped about our absent brothers. Sometimes anauthor would read one of his poems or articles aloud, and Ramonwould offer his opinion, which was always respected and sometimesdisputed. The time passed quickly. Afterwards, small groups wouldcontinue the discussions as they roamed the streets of the city in themiddle of the night.The world-famous neurologist and Nobel Prizewinner, SantiagoRamon y Cajal, one of the most learned men of his time, used tospend part of every afternoon at a table at the back of the Cafe delPrado. A few tables away sat a pefia of Ultraist poets, to which Ibelonged. To illustrate the Ultraist spirit, let me tell you the storyabout the journalist and writer Araquistan, whom I encountered laterduring the Civil War when he was Spain's ambassador to Paris. Oneday in the street he ran into Jose-Maria Carretero, a six-and-a-halffoot-tallthird-rate novelist who signed his works "El Caballero Audaz"-theAudacious Knight. When they bumped into each other,Carretero grabbed Araquistan by the collar, insulted him, then beganscreaming at him for writing an unfavorable (but absolutely accurate)