Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

Having had a good bit to drink, I got to my feet and marchedover to their table."My friends and I have come to see this girl dance," I announced."You make her look ridiculous. Do me a favor and go dance withsomebody else!"Then I turned on my heel and started back to our table, expectinga bottle to be broken over my head at any moment (such customswere rather widespread at the time), but nothing happened. TheDoctor sat there openmouthed, then rose to his feet and rushed away.Back at my table, I was horrified and thoroughly embarrassed bywhat I'd done, so I got up again and went over to La Rubia like apenitent approaching a priest."Please forgive me," I begged. "What I just said was inexcusable.My dancing is even worse than his!"Which was true; but despite my apologies, I never did get upenough courage to dance with her.Another example of chu/erla manifested itself during the summer,once the natives had gone off on vacation and the hordes of Americanprofessors descended on the Residencia, accompanied by their oftenbeautiful wives, to brush up their Spanish. The college arranged allsorts of lectures and excursions for them; notices like "Tomorrow-Trip to Toledo with Americo Castro" were forever appearing on thebulletin board in the hall.One day, a notice announcing "Tomorrow-Trip to the Pradowith Luis Buhuel" appeared. Much to my surprise, a large contingenthad signed up, which provided me with my first direct experienceof American Innocence. I kept up a steady stream of perfectly seriouscommentary as I led them through the rooms of the PradoÑGoyaI told them, was a toreador who'd been involved in a secret andfinally fatal liaison with the Duchess of Alba; Berruguete's Auto-dafiwas a superb painting because it had a hundred and fifty charactersin it, and, as everyone knows (I added ingenuously), the value of apainting depends to a certain extent on the number of people in it.The Americans listened attentively. A few protests were lodged with