Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

They helped Alexandra carry the supper into the dining room. Konrad found a last bottle
of red wine in his cabinet, and they sat down to eat.
"Russian politics are a chaotic charade," said Konrad over supper. "Do you mind
continuing your lecture? What about the revolution, is it dead or will it continue?"
Vladimir put his fork and knife down and shrugged. "The revolution? It has not started.
The radical left had nothing to do with the October demonstration nor with the ensuing disaster.
Everybody, on the right and the left, was completely taken by surprise. Only belatedly have the
Bolsheviks tried to reap some undeserved political gain from the situation."
He laughed derisively. "I think today’s arrests will break their back for the foreseeable
future, at least in St. Petersburg, elsewhere they might be more successful. In Moscow they
have a wealthy supporter in Sasha Manovsky—a rich sympathizer who channels his
contributions to the radical Moscow Soviet through Maria Andreyeva. Do you remember her at
Volkonsky’s, Alexandra, Gorki’s voluptuously beautiful mistress with the fabulous hat?"
Vladimir sighed and laughed. "Manovsky is the competitor of Becky’s father when it
comes to French paintings, he has an even bigger collection. He is a railroad millionaire, what
he expects from the Marxists in return for his donations completely mystifies me. And
Andreyeva?—I am still jealous of Gorki."
Alexandra suppressed a yawn. "We met a very young Russian woman in Italy, her name
was Marina Tsvetaeva. Have you ever heard of her? She writes poetry."
Vladimir raised his eyebrows. "Tsvetaeva is a formidable competition for our Petersburg
poets...."
"Her poems," interrupted Alexandra, "didn’t strike me as particularly lyrical, besides she
is still a lycéenne, barely sixteen, how can she compete with Blok?"
Vladimor shrugged. "Have you heard her read?"
"Yes, she read an abrasive love poem, which she must have composed a day earlier—
for Konrad who had flirted with her. She read it in German. Later she began reading a love
poem by Rilke but never finished it."
Vladimir raised his chin. "Well, Rilke is something else, he is a giant. I once heard him
read here when he visited Petersburg with Lou Salomé, a most striking woman of Russian
descent. Where did you hear Tsvetaeva read?"
Alexandra finally understood why Clara had been disturbed when she mentioned St.
Petersburg, another of Rilke’s loves. "We spent three weeks in a lonely pensione on the beach
near Venice with her."
She described the commune at Mama Angelina’s and the appearance of the two
Tsvetaeva sisters.
A smile of recognition lit Vladimir’s face. "It sounds like Voloshin’s hideout at Koktebel.
Voloshin is a local poet with dubious philosophical ambitions whose mother runs a pensione in
Koktebel on the southern coast of the Crimea, a popular summer haven for poets and
painters."
He nodded. "I heard Tsvetaeva read on a visit to Moscow earlier this year. You are right,
she is not lyrical and still very young and immature, but she handles her Russian like a broom
with which she sweeps the pigsties of the Symbolists. In that, she already surpasses Blok.
Tsvetaeva has only one competitor, another woman, three years older, Anna Gorenko, alias
Akhmatova. How is Tsvetaeva’s German, and why did she not finish her reading of Rilke?"
"It was a dramatic happening." Alexandra shook her head, recalling that night. "We had
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