Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

"Is this not all that is needed in our love?" she said aloud.
A catalogue of related questions, unanswerable for the time being, presented
themselves to her: Could one have an extra-corporeal experience independently of dying?
Could one learn to fly at will by separating one’s "soul" from one’s body? Probably this would
be dangerous. Unless one had a sister to call one back, as in Vladimir’s case, or a newborn’s
cry as in hers, one could easily drift off and not return to one’s body.
And why would one want to try to dissociate one’s innermost being in the first place, why
risk the dangers of flying?
To fly around! To spy on other people! To experience the sensual pleasure of flying! Her
own experiences had every time given her an immense pleasure.
"To fly around! To fly around!" she sang.
She laughed.
A sure way to acquire the knowledge of a jadukali, a sorceress!
Otto cried. She picked him up and took him into her arms and showed him the lights that
were flying by. She gently returned him to his bed and sang a Georgian song until he fell
asleep.
She looked at Otto, Konrad’s child, her child, and a wild physical desire overcame her.
She wanted another child from Konrad.
If I love this man with all I have, she told herself, I will be able to take him along on my
journey, to let him partake of my new-old, female knowledge.
The culmination of her love would be to lead Konrad through the maze of his life and
dying with her sensuous powers!
Konrad received them in Berlin in a state of happy excitement. "How is it possible that
you look even more beautiful than I remembered!" he whispered in her ear when he held her in
his arms.
Alexandra looked at her tall man with his graying beard and with unerring intuition knew
that he had been with another woman. She smiled at him. "Maybe it is good to be separated
from each other at times."
Full of childish jealousy Otto pulled at Konrad’s coat demanding a ride on his shoulders.
Elisabeth tried to convince Otto otherwise, but he would not be dissuaded. Konrad lifted him
up, and the child grabbed Konrad’s hair and babbled away in a mixture of Russian and
German. Alexandra on Konrad’s arm the happy threesome walked through the busy station
followed by a smiling Elisabeth and a porter with their voluminous luggage. A taxi delivered
them at the Pension where Konrad had reserved two rooms.
After Otto had been given his supper, put to bed, and left in Elisabeth’s care, they ran off
exited and laughing. Konrad jumped down the stairs two steps at a time, she could hardly
follow. On the last step he turned around, caught her in his arms and kissed her ardently. On
the street he put his arm into Alexandra’s and steered her to the subway entrance in the next
block.
Konrad talked nonstop about Munich. "You will really like this city, it has a cosmopolitan
atmosphere spiced with a colorful, provincial flavor." About Niko and his new girlfriend, "She is
a dark, liberated, Jewish beauty who studies medicine." On a lecture by Rudolf Steiner,
"Katharina took me there together with the entire circle of painters around Kandinsky, five
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