Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

Georgian Gloom overcomes Alexandra
Claudia and Dioskorides
1904
Pursued by irrational fears, Alexandra railed against fate. Helpless, Konrad began to
avoid her. With some excuse or other he would stay late at work.
One night he called to say that he would be detained at some faculty meeting and be
home late, after supper. That evening Alexandra lost her head. Against all better knowledge,
she suspected him to be with Katharina. She left the house in panic and wandered through the
streets of Munich for hours, sobbing.
"He cannot do this to me. I love him and need him! He cannot leave me. I have nowhere
to go, no place where I am at home. He has abducted me into this exile, where I am lost. He
holds my life in his hands." Tears ran down her face.
"Konrad!" she cried in despair, "don’t abandon me!"
People turned to stare at her. She did not care.
Somewhere in a back street of the Lehel, she passed an unpretentious church built into
a row of houses. A curved facade, a brass plate: St. Anna im Lehel, Johann Michael Fischeri
fecit 1732. In her despair she went in hoping for a quiet place to calm down.
Overwhelmed by the splendor and the airiness of its space, surrounded by colors,
angels, flourishing, gilded ornaments, under a ceiling covered with an huge fresco, she sat
down in one of the pews and let her eyes wander. Most astonishing are, she thought, the quiet
proportions of this space.
She followed the curve of the ceiling from one of the four columns to the center and lost
all her heaviness. What clear, serene beauty, how is it possible that color, stucco, and space
harmonize like music? She thought of the churches of Russia, which resembled overloaded,
gilded caves, how strange, this was a Christian faith completely unknown to her, of a wild joy,
an ecstatic, extravagant otherworldliness—very different from the heavy Italian Baroque.
She forgot time and herself and left only when the church filled with somber people, and
a priest appeared to celebrate the evening service.
Her head had cleared.
"It is my Georgian penchant to wallow in gloom and despair. Katharina has nothing to do
with it, and Konrad is honest and really innocent. This is the moloch of jealousy who is trying to
eat me up. I have to free myself from it, and all three of us will be blissfully happy."
When she came home, a worried Konrad was waiting for her. She embraced him.
"Forgive me, I was overcome by my fear of losing you. I shall try to love you and Katharina
better. Give me time, please."
"Alexandra," Konrad said. "Brace yourself, ours are small worries. I have bad news from
St. Petersburg. Things are slipping towards a catastrophe."
Alexandra paled. "Did you find mail from home?"
"Yes, I found a letter from Deda to you in my office mail. According to the newspapers
everything looks bleak and dark in Russia. Nicholas is clueless and improvises more
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