Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

passioned student of literature. It wasn't long before he knew everyonewho counted, and his room at the Residencia became a popularmeeting place for Madrid intellectuals.We liked each other instantly. Although we seemed to have littlein common~I was a redneck from Aragon, and he an elegant Andalusian-wespent most of our time together. (Perhaps our mutualattraction was at least in part due to our differences.) We used to siton the grass in the evenings behind the Residencia (at that time,there were vast open spaces reaching to the horizon), and he wouldread me his poems. He read slowly and beautifully, and throughhim I began to discover a wholly new world.I remember someone once telling me that a man named MartinDominguez, a big man from the Basque country, was spreading therumor that Lorca was a homosexual, a charge I found impossible tobelieve. One day, we were sitting side by side at the president's tablein the Residencia dining room, along with Unamuno, Eugenio d'Ors,and Don Alberto, our director."Let's get out of here," I suddenly said to Federico, after the firstcourse. "I've got something I must ask you."We went to a nearby tavern, and there I told him that I'd decidedto challenge Dominguez to a fight."Whatever for?" Lorca asked.I hesitated a moment, unsure how to put it."Is it true you're a maricon?" I finally blurted out."You and I are finished!" he declared, shocked and hurt. as hestood up and walked away.By evening, we were the best of friends again. There was absolutelynothing effeminate or affected about Federico, and he had notolerance for off-color jokes, particularly about homosexuals. I rememberwhen Aragon came to Madrid several years later to give alecture at the Residencia, and asked the director: "You wouldn'thappen to know an interesting public urinal, would you?" His soleintent was to shock-which he succeeded in doing-but this wasprecisely the kind of display Federico despised.