Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

adoration of her bizarre beauty. Everybody broke out in mirth. Alexandra clapped her hand
over her open mouth. Katharina made a deep bow before the God of Love, and Konrad,
blushing furiously, ran desperately for the sea. They all applauded.
"Help! Help, my lover is on fire!" cried Alexandra and ran after Konrad, splashing and
spraying him with cold water. In no time they were embroiled in a free-for-all water battle,
except for Katharina, who in her boot contemplated the havoc she had wrought. With sudden
resolve she kicked the boot in a high arc in Friedrich’s direction and ran into the water.
Friedrich passed the boot to Claudia, who instinctively rose from the protective element, to
catch it.
With the afternoon boat, two teenage sisters arrived, accompanied by an old,
unmistakably Russian aristocrat. After the gentleman had assured himself that his charges
were in the good hands of Mama Angelina, the proprietress of the pensione, he returned to
Venice.
Marina and Anastasia, Asya for short, came from Moscow. They had spent the year in a
boarding school in Geneva, and their uncle had been burdened with the responsibility of
chaperoning the sisters during summer vacation. Because Venice, where he lived, was too hot
and at this time of the year stank abysmally, his choice had fallen on Angelina’s place.
The sisters spoke the usual four languages, but only Marina was fluent in German. They
were relieved to discover that Alexandra and Konrad spoke Russian.
"Ach," exclaimed Asya, "in matters of the soul Russian is irreplaceable." Asya confided
to Konrad that Marina wrote poetry, which she, being the younger by a year and a half,
admired glowingly.
Marina, short, shy, with a round face and a pageboy haircut, was badly nearsighted, but
too vain to wear glasses in public. She fended off the fuzzy world that surrounded her with
intellectual arrogance and an acute command of language.
The two sisters were readily accepted into their commune. Supper was prepared by the
women. One of the men took the early boat to Venice every second day to do the shopping.
Alexandra handled the communal finances. Take-along lunches and cleaning the rooms were
individual responsibilities. Angelina did the two bathrooms. Whoever arrived first in the kitchen
in the morning made coffee and tea, and everybody helped themselves to bread, eggs,
melons, prosciutto and cheese. They ate their meals at a rustic table outside on an open
verandah covered by grape vines.
"What shall we read tonight?" asked Claudia. The question was decided by common
consent every night after dinner when the children had been put to bed. A kerosene lamp was
brought for the reader and everyone relaxed at the fringe of the circle of light.
The choice of books ranged from Friedrich’s tattered edition of Herodotus, the love
letters of Heloïse and Abelard, Konrad’s contribution, to a worn-out popular love story
Katharina had devoured.
Their favorite became a mysterious novel Clara had picked up in Paris: Le Manuscrit
Trouvé à Saragosse ou l’Histoire d’Alphonse van Woerden by Marquis Jean Potocki. No one
had ever heard of the author or his novel, although it had been written at the end of the
eighteenth century, and the literary critics had praised it as equal to Don Quixote and superior
to the Decamerone. The reason was, explained Clara, that until recently the roman had existed
only in fragments, which had been traded under the counter. A rare find.
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