Salvador Dali. The parson always christens his own child first

A Spanish artist Salvador Dali confidently reached the summit of his fame in the fifties of the last century and since then nothing has changed – his creative work is still on the peak and it never goes down. Salvador made up his mind to write memories right during that period of worldwide recognition. He thought: why not describe a hard path of the great man for future generations? Among a lot of others Salvador didn’t forget about Luis Bunuel, his childhood and youth friend, now a great Spanish too. His friend was a famous and quite talented stage director who settled down in France. They both had loved the same woman and this had separated them a long time ago. Thus, Gala became Dali’s beloved wife, and Bunuel moved to France settled down there, reached fame and received universal recognition.

It all happened long ago, at the beginning of thirties. Twenty years is quite a long period in life. The former friends grew old, they were not so young, full of life and prospering as they used to be. That was why they didn’t feel anything bad about each other, there was no deep-seated rancour left. They became more kind-hearted and in fact they were inclined to forgive each other. Having read Dali’s recently published memoirs, Bunuel called him and suggested they should meet and remember the old days. ‘Let’s meet, my friend Salvador, let’s have a bottle of red wine, and reminisce about the good old days’. Dali answered with a smile: ‘It is a great idea, Luis, I really think so. I’m glad you called, you did the right thing. You can’t even imagine who happy I am to hear you again!’ They met in Paris, and as they were sitting next to each other, drinking red wine, smoking their cigars and admiring the great view of the city, they went back to the past and remembered their bright youth. After Bunuel read Dali’s memoirs, there was a question left – a question that kept torturing his mind. Finally he risked to ask it: ‘Well, my dear Salvador, you wrote a wonderful book. I read it and I got added evidence just one more time that you are a true genious in everything, and that you had deserved the right to be called great and famous. You earned the fame that you’ve got now. But still I can’t figure out one thing, so I’m going to ask – why did you make me look so disgusting in your book?’ Such direct and straightforward question didn’t seem to embarrass the artist much. He seemed to be a little puzzled. Salvador smiled gently and told his friend, touching sharp gilded corners of his famous extravagant moustache with his little finger: ‘Well, I can’t believe that you don’t know the reason of writing memoirs. No, I don’t think that such a smart person as you are can’t understand the simple fact that I wrote my book to become more famous myself, and not to make someone else famous.’