Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

jokes.
Fifteen years ago Leist had come to Tiflis as a young man, learned Georgian, and with
Ilia Chavchavadze’s help, had translated Shota Rustaveli’s The Knight in the Panther Skin, the
Georgian national epos, into German. On a subsequent sojourn he had hopelessly fallen in
love with Georgia, had decided to settle in Tiflis permanently and devote himself entirely to the
translation of Georgian classical literature and to studies of the Georgian languages and
customs. Konrad was completely taken in by this congenial man. He could not have found a
better guide and teacher.
As the coach rattled south the entire chain of the Caucasus, of which Konrad had
dreamed for years, lit up. For a few minutes the icy peaks topped by the mighty cap of Mt.
Kazbeg rose cold, pink and lemon-yellow before a turquoise sky. The rising sun quickly
extinguished the colors and flooded the glaciers with a blinding, white light. The icy peaks
seemed to float on thin transparent clouds above the dark-blue hills.
The Caucasus rose like a wall, five-thousand meters high, directly from the Southern-
Russian plains. Between Mt. Kazbeg, higher than Montblanc, and the peaks of Khevsureti
further east, only one road crossed the range, the Caucasian Military Road.
The rug merchant, obviously a veteran of many such trips, had pulled his bowler hat
over his eyes and slept soundly in his corner of the carriage, undaunted by the shaking and
rocking on the rutted road. Leist read a time-worn Alexander Dumas novel. The child had put
her head into her napping mother’s lap.
Mail coach on the Georgian Military Road, 1896 (Ermakov/Wiki)
The carriage labored up the Terek Valley. Numerous medieval watchtowers crowned
the bare rocks on both sides, and after an hour the coach and the roaring river disappeared
between steep rock walls.
Leist put down his book, waved his hand at the passing scenery, and said. "Now begins
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