Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

cafes. I went to La Rotonde almost every day, the way I used to goto cafes in Madrid, and sometimes I'd walk Unamuno back to hisapartment near the Etoile, a distance that gave us a good two hours'worth of conversation.Scarcely a week after my arrival, I met a medical student namedAngulo at La Rotonde. He took me to his hotel-the Saint-Pierreon the rue de 1'Ecole de M6dicine~just a moment away from theboulevard St.-Michel. It was simple and friendly, and right nextdoor to a Chinese cabaret. I moved in immediately.The next day I caught the flu and had to stay in bed. In theevenings, I heard the drums from the cabaret through the walls ofmy room. Across the street was a Greek restaurant, which I couldsee from my window, and a cafe. Angulo recommended champagnefor my flu, a treatment I was happy enough to follow; but I was lesshappy to discover why the right wing felt such animosity towardmeliques. The recent, and drastic, devaluation of the franc meant thatanyone with foreign currency, particularly pesetas, could live like aking. The champagne I drank to coddle my cold cost me elevenfrancs, the equivalent of one peseta a bottle. While French buseswere covered with posters warning people not to waste bread, therewe were, drinking Met et Chandon as if it were water.One evening, when I'd recovered, I went to the Chinese cabaret.One of the hostesses sat down at my table and began to talk; thiswas her job, of course; but, much to my surprise, her conversationwas both natural and stimulating. She talked about wine and Parisand the details of daily French life, but with such an absence ofaffectation that I was dumbfounded. Through a hostess in a Chinesenightclub, I'd discovered a new relationship between language andlife. I never slept with this woman, I never even knew her name;but she was still my first real contact with French culture.There were other cultrral surprises, like couples kissing in thestreet and unmarried men and women living together. The abyssbetween Spain and France widened with every passing day. At thistime, Paris was considered the capital of the artistic world. I remem-