Free Maniac Eyeball by Salvador Dalí Page B

Fine Arts School, signed by King Alfonso XIII. I had seen how the King, when visiting the school during my first year there, had adeptly flicked his cigarette butt into the spittoon over two meters away, just like any Madrileño street urchin. Now he disposed of me in the same manner. Need I confess I had been hoping that luck would vouchsafe that kind of experience to me, so I might make a full break with a life that was becoming as unbearable in the monotony of its fake enchantment as the uninterrupted daily routine in the life of a petit bourgeois? By now I knew what a guttersnipe adolescence was like. Well and good. I could leave again for Figueras, hands in my pockets, leaving my luggage behind at the Residence and using my last bit of legal tender to buy a bouquet of gardenias as a gift to an old beggar woman.
    When I got home, my father was in the middle of writing the preface to a logbook he was planning to keep as a record of my worldly successes! He was trying to console himself for the mishap that spelled finis to his hopes of seeing me get into an official career as a teacher. It was a real heartwarmer to see how broken up he was over it. I made a faithful drawing of him, with my sister, in lead pencil, and it is true that he had a leaden complexion, his eyes heavy with angst and uncertainty; I devoted a great deal of talent to immortalizing his discomfiture. With a somewhat asinine application, he was trying to paste the pieces of his dream together again. I had no need of such childish paste-ups to convince me of my genius.
    I now had solid teachings and a technical mastery that allowed me, like a piano virtuoso, to play everything available on my keyboard, in the noblest classical tradition, while permitting the most secret elements of my subconscious to express themselves. I had developed an unquenchable thirst for knowing and imagining. I had been able to test the hold I could have over the most varied kinds of audiences. I had made everyone accept my singularity. I had exaggerated my persona to every kind of theatrical excess, each time quite capable of perfectly entering into it.
    I had spurred on all of my inner contradictions, my wildest tendencies, my maddest imaginings, savoring each time to intoxication the feeling of being alive right out to the tips of my emerging mustache. Now all I lacked was love, glory, and money. And I knew my destiny held triumph in store for me.
     
    How Dalí Lived Through His Military Service
    I did nine months’ military service. It was de luxe service generally referred to as “per diem” – with permission to eat out, wear a tailor-made uniform, and sleep at home. There was a small group of us, theoretically not subject to any duty roster, although a few irritated and jealous noncoms missed no opportunity to ride us, which led some of my comrades to react. For my part, I gladly acceded to all of their demands.
    Nothing suited me better than latrine duty, and the stinking regimental toilet bowls were made to shine like brand new living-room vases. I saluted everything in uniform, even firemen: I was a model soldier, and took simplistic sensual pleasure in this easy submission to slavery and constraint. To submit to things of one’s own free will: what could be more delightful!
    But, since I hated to stand guard at the prison at night, out of laziness and especially fear (for there were sometimes desperate escapes), I pretended to be subject to nervous fits, while affecting to do all I could to control them, but making sure that each one was seen by some officer. The ruse worked. I was exempted, even when I volunteered. My skill at deception was proving itself once again. That left me a lot of time to think about the future.
     
    “I HAVE HAD THE GIFT FOR PAINTING SINCE THE CRADLE. I HAD A CRIB WITH TWO WOODEN SIDEBARS – SO I WOULD NOT FALL OUT – AND THEY WERE BLACKENED WITH MY DRAWINGS. DRAWINGS THAT WERE ALWAYS REPRESENTATIVE OF HIGHLY IMAGINATIVE FIGURES.