The Secret Life of Salvador Dali (33 page)

When the inspection was over preparations were made for taking group pictures with the King. An armchair was ordered for the King to sit in, but instead he seated himself on the floor with the most irresistibly natural movement. Thereupon he took the butt of the cigarette he had been smoking, wedged it between his thumb and forefinger and gave it a flick, making it describe a perfect curve and fall exactly into the hole of a spittoon standing more than two metres away. An outburst of friendly laughter greeted this gesture, a peculiar and characteristic stunt of the “Chulos”—that is, the common people of Madrid. It was a graceful way of flattering the feelings of the students, and especially of the domestics who were present. They had seen executed to perfection a
“feat” which was familiar to them and which they would not have dared to perform in the presence of the professors or of the well-bred young gentlemen.

It was at this precise moment that I had proof that the King had singled me out among all the others. No sooner had the cigarette dropped into the hole of the spittoon than the King cast a quick glance at me, with the obvious idea of observing my reaction. But there was something more in this incisive glance; there was something like the fear lest someone discover the flattery he had just proffered to the people—and this someone could be none other than I. I blushed, and when the King looked at me again he must necessarily have noticed it.

After the picture-taking, the King bade each one of us goodbye. I was the last to shake his hand, but I was also the only one who bowed with respect in doing so, even going to the extent of placing one knee on the ground. When I raised my head I perceived a faint quiver of emotion pass across his famous Bourbon lower lip. There can be no doubt that we recognized each other! Nevertheless when, two years later, the same King Alfonso XIII signed the order for my permanent expulsion from the School of Fine Arts of Madrid, he would never have believed that I was the expelled student. Or perhaps, yes—he would have believed it!

The consequences of this royal visit did not end for me that day. My emotion and my repressed tension remained unable to find any outlet; and with my feeling of discomfort further augmented, after the King had left, by the regret at not having denounced the whole farce to him, I continued to hear that inner voice repeat to me, “Dali, Dali! You must do something phenomenal.” I did. And I chose the sculpture class in which to do it. This, then, is what I did. I shall tell you about it, for I am sure it cannot fail to please you.

I happened to choose the sculpture class because in this class there was an abundance of plaster, and I needed a great deal of plaster for what I wanted to do. There were in fact several sacks of it, of the finest sculptor’s plaster. The time I had chosen for this was exactly half past twelve, when everyone would be gone. Thus I would not be bothered by anyone’s presence, and I could do as I pleased. I went into the sculpture class and locked the door behind me. There was a large basin where old pieces of dried clay were usually being softened. I removed the largest pieces, and opened the faucet above it full force. In a few minutes the basin was almost full. Then I emptied one of the sacks of plaster into it, and waited for the resulting milk-white liquid to begin to overflow. My idea was very simple: to cause a great inundation of plaster. I accomplished this without difficulty. I used all the four sacks of plaster that were in the room with this intent, about one sack for every basinful spilled over the floor-tiles. The whole class was inundated with the plaster. As it was greatly diluted with water, the plaster took a long time to dry, and thus was able to flow under the doors. Soon I
could hear the sound of the cascade which my inundation was producing, flowing from the top of the stairway all the way down to the entrance hall. The great well of the stairway began to reverberate with such cataclysmic sounds that I suddenly realized the magnitude of the catastrophe I was producing. Seized with panic I dropped everything and left, ploughing my way through the plaster and getting frightfully bespattered. Everything was unexpectedly deserted, and no one had yet discovered what had happened. The effect of that whole great stairway inundated by a river of plaster majestically pouring down was most startling, and in spite of my fear I was forced to stop to admire this sight, which I mentally compared with something as epic as the burning of Rome, though on a smaller scale. Just as I was about to leave the inner court of the school I ran into a model, called El Segoviano (because he was from Segovia), coming in the opposite direction. As he saw the approaching avalanche of plaster he raised his arms to heaven.

“What in God’s name is that?” he exclaimed in his burly peasant voice.

At this a little spark of humor flashed through my brain. Going over to him I whispered into his ear,

“At least it can’t possibly all be milk!”

I reached the Students’ Residence more daubed with plaster than any mason. I took a shower, changed all my clothes and stretched out on the bed, seized with a mad laughter which gave way little by little to a growing uneasiness. Because of El Segoviano who had seen me leave, it would inevitably be found out that I was the guilty one. However, from the moment I had decided to create the inundation I had not cared whether I was caught or not. This in fact was what I had wanted. I was already pondering the explanation I would give for my action, which was an oblique kind of protest against the disloyal attitude that had been shown toward our King by deceiving him. I had even had the idea of threatening to make a written declaration to this effect, thinking that this would strengthen my position to the point of making me invulnerable. But all these explanations remained vague, imprecise, and dissatisfying to my mind, which was becoming more and more rigorously attached to intelligence. All that could not be resolved in my mind in a lucid and rapid fashion created in me a feeling of deep oppression which often became a real waking nightmare. The motives and the meaning of an action as considerable as the plaster inundation which I had just produced escaped me and continued to resist my attempts at interpretation. This made me more and more uneasy, subjecting my spirit to a frightful moral torture. Was I really mad? I knew that I certainly was not. But then, why had I done this?

Suddenly I solved the enigma. And the solution to the enigma was there before me on an easel, entirely contained within the limits of an absolutely immaculate canvas which I had prepared for painting, and on which my eyes had been riveted since the beginning of this whole imaginative disturbance. As soon as I understood, I got up. I went over and took my large black felt hat, put it resolutely on my head, and placed myself before the wardrobe mirror. Then, with ceremonious gestures imbued with an extreme dignity, I saluted myself; I saluted my intelligence with the maximum of respect. But, finding that my bow was not sufficient, I humbly stooped before my own reflection, modestly lowering my head. Finally I put one knee to the floor, imitating as closely as possible the genuflection I had made that very morning before my own King.

V. Cadaques : An Enchanted Village

“Accomodation of Desires,” painted in 1929, recording visions inspired by a contemplation of pebbles on the beach at Cadaques.

“Sodomy Committed by a Skull with a Grand Piano,” inspired by a dream at Cadaques in the summer of 1997.

Time exposure, during the taking of which I remember having held breath while gazing out the window at the view of Cadaques.

General view of Cadaques, which T consider by far the most beautiful place in the world.

Idyll: with Gala at Cadaques.

Gala’s face in this photo, taken in her youth, seems to me to have the same aura of eternity which glows about Cadaques.

VI. Personal Magic : My Principal Fetiches

“Sphinx Embedded in the Sand,” with a woman’s slipper and a glass of warm milk underneath the skin of her back—the most active fetiches in my life.

Lidia, “la bien plantée,” of Cadaques, godmother to my madness.

My most effective talisman, a piece of wood found in extraordinary circumstances at Cap de Crests in 1933. (Courtesy Eric Schaal-Pix)

Photo of me with the Vicomte de Noailles, my first “Maecenas.”

“Metamorphosis of Narcissus”—my favorite magic flower.

“The Spectre of Sex Appeal,” 1936, erotic bogie of the first order.

I realized that I had been the plaything of a dream, and that this whole episode of the plaster inundation was but an illusion. The remarkable stroke of genius, however, was not this discovery itself, but its interpretation,
²
which sprang to my mind in an almost instantaneous way! Now I remembered everything.

This is what had happened.

After His Majesty the King had left the Academy of Fine Arts I took my street-car and went back to the Students’ Residence. When I got to my room I lay down on the bed, exhausted by the nervous tension in which the royal ceremony had kept me during the whole morning. I remembered very well having looked with pleasure at the two white canvases all prepared and ready to be painted, placed on an easel just at the foot of the bed. After this I had fallen asleep and my sleep, according to my calculations, could have lasted at the most one hour (from half past twelve to half past one), during which I dreamed, with an intensity of realism one rarely experiences, all the vicissitudes of my plaster inundation.

I have noted down several dreams I have experienced in the course of my life which present the same typical development. They always begin by being linked to an actual event. Their argumental vicissitudes culminate exactly at the spot and in the situation in which the sleeper finds himself at the moment of awakening. This fact, greatly augmenting the dream’s verisimilitude, creates a factor that is highly propitious to its confusion with reality, especially when the “manifest content” of the dream does not present (as is the case for the one I shall attempt to analyze) flagrant absurdities, always maintaining itself within the strict limits of the possible. In my own case such dreams have always come during sleep accidentally occurring at unaccustomed hours in the daytime. I believe it is also true as a general rule, as far as my own experience is concerned, that an intense light in the place where sleep occurs is favorable to dreams of a heightened visual intensity. On several occasions I have also been able to observe that sunlight beating directly on my shut eyelids has produced colored dreams.

To return to the analysis of the dream of the plaster inundation, here are some preliminary data for determining the intentional role of certain elements of the preceding waking period—a symbolic role of the first order.
First of all, the two prepared canvases which I have at the foot of my bed and which I look at with self-satisfaction before going to sleep:
these two canvases had previously been two studies executed in the class in what was called “drapery,” which was under the auspices of the painter Cordova Julio Romero de Torres. These studies had been made in very painful circumstances in which my work, encountering the constant obstacles of incomprehension, finally sank into complete failure. The two canvases represented exactly the same subject—a little naked girl covered with a very new and shiny white silk fabric which fell from her shoulders in the form of a cape. The principal subject was this fabric. But it was impossible for me to paint it, for the model not only posed very badly, moving constantly—which made the shadows and the highlights change—but also the little girl would rest every half hour, afterwards attempting to replace the folds in something like the original arrangement, which made it practically impossible for me to go on with my work. For the other pupils who merely derived from the model a very vague general impression, corresponding (as the habitual phrase went) rather to the folds of their temperament than to those of the white silk fabric, which they pretended nonchalantly to look at, these changes were not of the slightest importance. For me, on the contrary, who with my dilated pupils was trying to clutch everything I could of what I saw before me, each of the model’s little movements, even the most imperceptible, glued itself to my attentive impatience like real arrows of torture. My two attempts failed. Discouraged, I left them unfinished and took them home with me, intending to paint something else over them.