It grew dark in the matador's brain, and the sea
swallowed up five corks together with the bottles
in which mysterious S.O.S. messages were written
on the ox-tongue. And at night one could hear sighs
of Mr. Bull's self from the castle stable. Yesterday
he managed to obtain victory by begging, tomorrow
he will be the only foreigner in Jerusalem, when he is
handled by butchers. We will never find out on whose
plate will his balls dance the fandango, what kind of
bolero is going on between his thighs, and who will
play pavan at his funeral. The still sleeping matador
has never confided it to his mistress, let alone to the
bull. The bull is therefore depressed and gloomily pale.
But all of a sudden his mother's advice crosses his mind:
"Take a lock of a red-haired woman's hair, three pubic
hairs of a fifteen year old virgin, the underwear of a
Ukrainian whore, put them all in a pot of water, pepper
it, bring it to the boil and stir it well. You will get an
elixir of eternal youth which will lead you to new
temptations. Then slap the matador's hat on your horns
and bang your head aganist the wall, so that in your
dizziness a deep thought becomes clear. And you will
realize how eternal we cattle can be, although we are
not a sacred Hindu thing, a picador's madness or elder
blossoms in a corrida. You will hear how we coincide
with the absolute, although at the very end they cut out
our Spanish hearts.
translated from the Slovene by Vesna Tomič
Stemnilo se je v matadorjevih možganih, morje pa je vase
pogoltnilo pet plutovinastih zamaškov s steklenicami vred,
znotraj katerih so bila na govejem jeziku vrisana skrivnostna
S.O.S. sporočila. In ponoči so slišali iz grajskega hleva
vzdihovati samega gospoda bika. Včeraj si je še priprosil
zmago, jutri pa bo edini tujec v Jeruzalemu, ko ga bodo
v klavnici obdelali mesarji. Nikoli ne izvemo, na čigavem
krožniku zaplešejo fandango njegova jajca, kakšen bolero
poteka med njegovimi stegni in kdo bo igral pavano na
njegovem pogrebu. Še speči matador ni nikoli tega zaupal
svoji ljubici, kaj šele biku. Bik je zato melanholičen in
otožno bledikav. Tedaj pa se spomni nasveta matere krave:
"Vzemi šop rdečelaskinih las, tri sramne dlake petnajstletne
device, spodnje perilo ukrajinske kurbe, vse skupaj postavi
v lonec z vodo, nasuj malo popra, pogrej do vrelišča in
dobro premešaj. Dobil boš eliksir večne mladosti, ki te
popelje novim skušnjavam naproti. Takrat si povezni
matadorjev klobuk na roge in se zabadaj v zid, da se ti
v omotici razbistri globokoumna misel. In spoznal boš,
kako večna smo lahko goveda, čeprav nismo hindujska
svetost, pikadorjeva blaznost ali bezgovo cvetje na koridi.
Slišal boš, kako sovpadamo z absolutnim, čeprav nam
naposled izrežejo špansko srce."
