Vladimir Orlov - Danilov the Violist

"He's not sleeping as soundly now," Danilov noted. "But what do I care? I'm really sick of this bull."

At one in the morning he was awakened by the phone. "Natasha!" Danilov thought. But it was Klavdia.

"Danilov," she said. "I saw you. Near the bull. What were you asking the policeman?"

"I was looking for the bathroom," Danilov said grimly.

"That's not like you...Did you see the bull?"

"No!" Danilov was ready to slam down the receiver. "I was in the John."

"You missed the best part! Our people brought out another bull, educated and painted green with white stripes, so that Vaska would take him for one of his own and obey him. And that little bull, almost pathetic, got Vaska to -- "

"Enough. Good-bye. I have a toothache!" Danilov said harshly and hung up.

He didn't have a toothache, but Klavdia could give you one. "Why did I choose such an idiotic pelt?" Danilov scolded himself again. "And why did she say a little bull, a pathetic one? ..." As he fell back asleep, he remembered how pleasant it had been to walk around the snowy racetrack as a gigantic bull...

18

"Where am I?" Karmadon asked as his eyelids fluttered open the next morning.

"My place," Danilov answered curtly. "You've got five days left of your vacation. You can tell yourself that you've spent your time as a bull."

"I'm covered with the Booteian stuff again..."

He took his pills and resumed human form.

"Still didn't get enough sleep?" Danilov asked.

"I slept?" Karmadon asked, goggling at Danilov.

"No, you strolled around Spain with a guitar," Danilov said. "You're an ace, after all!"

"I shouldn't have said that," Danilov thought. "Why be mad at him? So he's been a little trouble for me; I was supposed to spend time on him."

"I slept!" Karmadon brought down his fist in despair. "I'm getting soft!"

"Don't be upset," Danilov said with a certain tenderness for Karmadon. "Big deal, so you slept..."

"The shame of it! The shame! Some ace I am! I'm a weakling!"

Karmadon groaned with suffering.

"I don't think you're exactly displaying the strongest side of your character right now," Danilov noted.

"You're right," Karmadon said and calmed down. "I'm being a weakling now."

"You mean you didn't feel anything and you don't remember anything?"

"I have a vague recollection. Like a dream ... I was led somewhere. Made to do something. I shied away from them ... to different parts of the globe... What a shame!" The phone rang. Danilov heard Natasha's voice.

What a bad break! If only Karmadon would go out for a second, for cigarettes at least, or the mail, but no, there he sat, wan and sleepy, in the chair. Danilov listened to Natasha's dear voice but was afraid to use her name. He spoke curtly and elliptically, as if he wanted to get rid of her.

"What's the matter with you, Volodya?" Natasha asked. "Aren't you happy I called?"

"No, I've really been waiting for it," Danilov said, and then looked over his shoulder at Karmadon. "I'm in a hurry right now..."

"Well, excuse me, then," Natasha said and hung up.

"Wait!" Danilov wanted to shout.

"Who was that?" Karmadon asked.

"No one," Danilov said grimly. "Just a ..."

"Well, maybe it's for the best that Natasha called now," thought Danilov. "I'll find her and apologize five days from now..."

"The coffee's ready," Danilov said. "Here's some cheese sandwiches. What are you planning to do today?"

"I don't know," Karmadon said with a drawl.

"Well, don't do anything foolish," Danilov said. "Stay at home. Turn on the TV. Read the newspaper articles about the bull."

"All right," Karmadon said with a frown.

Danilov, as usual in the mornings, was ironing his black bow tie for the orchestra pit. From the kitchen came Karmadon's loud groans over the daily papers. Danilov went in.

"Not only didn't I sleep," Karmadon said sadly, looking up, "but they didn't even let me sleep. We can only dream of peace..."

"Who told you that?"

"I figured it out myself..."

He was almost in tears. Was this the demon who had come to Earth from his distant and stormy life on Bootes? There he had been tired but mighty, he believed in himself and in his achievements to come. Then he was a volcano, and now he was a plastic ashtray with dead butts.

" 'The blue bull was an imp...' That's really too much!

Danilov, could that really have happened? Even in my sleep?"

"How can I put it? ..." Danilov began cautiously.

Karmadon threw the newspaper onto the floor; Danilov thought, this is the way reviews are flung: once it's been established they're bad, there is no further interest in the gory details. Karmadon was looking at Danilov now, and Danilov knew that Karmadon was hoping he would say that the newspaper was shameless.

"You know, there was something -- " Danilov said.

"The horror!" Karmadon shut his eyes and threw back his head. "And I had dreamed so much of being a blue bull!"

"Calm down," Danilov said.

"No, I won't calm down after this article! I might as well not go back after my vacation...Do you have dumbbells?"

"Yes," Danilov said. "Ten-pounders."

"Fine. I'll begin with a workout."

"Go ahead... Then go down to the steam baths. Either Sanduny or the Maryinsky."

"I will. I'll overcome my weaknesses."

"He will," thought Danilov.

But when he got back from the theater that night, Danilov saw that Karmadon was glum again. Danilov found a strange newspaper on the kitchen table. It was dirty and crumpled, with the remains of a snack upon it. And there were unfamiliar smells in the kitchen, too.

"You were drinking with someone?" Danilov asked.

"Yes. I met two fellows at the baths."

"Who?"

"From your building. One's a plumber, Kolya. The other's from your theater. A violinist, Zemsky. Nikolai Borisovich."

"Yes," said Danilov with a nod. "Zemsky was out sick today. Lumbago. What was he warming at the baths? His ass?"

"No, higher up."

"And how did you introduce yourself to them?"

"As your friend. We were in the same orphanage. Now I live in Siberia. A molybdenum specialist."

"Siberia's a big place."

"That's just what the old woman who sits downstairs here said to me. If I were you, I would have turned that old woman into a plant a long time ago. I told her I was from Irkutsk."

"You're in a bad mood again?"

"Ah!" Karmadon said in embarrassment. "Maybe it's all because of my knowledge..."

"What's because of your knowledge?"

"Well..." Karmadon hemmed and hawed. "All these strange incidents ..."

"I don't understand."

"Maybe my impotence comes from excessive knowledge?"

There was sadness in Karmadon's eyes, as if he had just discovered that some incurable illness would turn the rest of his life into relendess suffering. "He's so meek today," Danilov thought. A quiet compassion for Karmadon arose in Danilov again. He forgave Karmadon for Natasha hanging up on him.

"Why because of your knowledge?" Danilov asked, not for his own information but to give Karmadon the opportunity to doubt his own diagnosis.

"Danilov, haven't you observed our scholars and theoreticians? They're bald, toothless, and impotent with knowledge!"

"What do their teeth have to do with it?" Danilov really wanted to know. "And then, you -- that is, people like us aren't exactly oppressed by knowledge. We don't need it. We're practical, we have work, our crises, our feelings, we're too busy... Theoreticians, thinkers, specialists -- that's why they're theoreticians, because they're impotent in the first place... I'm not talking about baldness. That's another issue ... Thinkers and specialists have to acquire knowledge and think as part of their jobs. They are given the time and space, all time stops for them, while here ..." Danilov almost added that those theoreticians and thinkers probably have time to eat a hot meal every day, but he stopped himself.