Free Maniac Eyeball by Salvador Dalí

having my hair cut, I thought I would faint at being shorn of the signs of my singularity, but I stuck to it. I bought a sky-blue silk shirt, a pair of sapphire cufflinks, ordered a fashionable suit, and to top it off plastered my hair with a coat of picture varnish that turned it into a plaque as flexible as galalith, giving me a veritable black helmet. In my hand I nonchalantly twirled a bamboo cane, and took my place on the terrace of the Café Regina. It was the start of a new era...
    This era was marked by two revelations: alcohol and the all-powerfulness of money. The effect of cocktails on my stomach was explosive. Vermouths, champagnes, martinis opened a new world to me as in olden days the Pichots’ cut-glass carafe stopper had shown me an “Impressionist” universe. We spent our days and nights in discussions, eating and drinking in the midst of laughter and shouting. With the wee morning hours we wondrously discovered jazz at Rector’s Club. We swore all kinds of pacts, sealed in champagne. (One of my friends from those days still has a hunk of cardboard with our six signatures, swearing we would all meet again in the same place fifteen years hence. I had clean forgotten that childishness.) Of course, we needed money for drinks, gardenias, meals, and the sumptuous tips that turned waiters into slaves. I signed notes to the Bursar of the University Residence, to be honored by my father, being only too happy to make things as disagreeable as possible for him.
    In October, the Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona showed some of the students’ works. I exhibited a jug that scored quite a hit, but I never got time to enjoy it.
    After one particularly hard-drinking night, when I had thrown up everything in me, I had to take to my bed, unable to keep food down. When I got back to school the following day, I found things in a tizzy. A contest was being held to name a new professor of painting, on the basis of one free work and one obligatory subject. The works of all the candidates had just been exhibited, and all the students agreed that Daniel Vázquez Díaz had submitted the most remarkable pictures.
    But there were backstage maneuvers we were perfectly well aware of, which eliminated him and substituted an old fogey we wanted no part of. The students wanted me to be their spokesman in the revolt.
    Everything happened as foreseen. The president of the jury announced the result, meaning we had lost. I rose and stalked out without a word. I did not come back until the next day, but then found out that after I left the students had insulted and manhandled the jury, and then barricaded themselves, making it necessary to call in the police. Since my departure, though wordless, had been the apparent signal for the fight, I was the obvious suspect as leader. I was given a year’s suspension. And, as if that were not enough, as soon as I got back to Figueras, the police came to arrest me and move me to Gerona, where I spent a month in jail. That gave me time to ponder the success, the glory, and the popularity that lay before me.
     
    How Dalí Acted In Adversity
    My freedom meant the start of a wondrous vacation. Catalonia had been shaken by the tremors of an abortive uprising that General Primo de Rivera (whose son José Antonio was to be founder of the Falange) put down with an iron hand. Obviously, it was these circumstances that accounted for my arrest and detention. I went back to Figueras, where everyone treated me as a local celebrity. Without waiting, I got back to work as if I were in a hurry to make up for all the time lost in my nights of wild carousing.
    I saw Nuñez again and developed a passion for engraving. My father even had a press set up in one of the rooms at home. I was soon up on all the techniques and in addition developed a few of my own.
    Garcia Lorca came to stay with me for a long visit at Cadaqués. He read us extracts of Mariana Piñeda, the play he had just finished writing, for which I was to