Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

my company. Together, we could have made enormous profits, but he was too much of an
idealist. He wanted to save the Russian empire from disintegration."
Alexandra thought of Witte’s political acumen and his honesty. Surrounded by a similar
aura of unbending willpower as this man, Witte was a gentleman through and through. She
could not imagine the two as partners.
Manovsky began again. "Maybe you have to be a liberated Jew to see that Witte was
working into the hands of the reactionary clique around the Emperor, which was scheming all
the time to dispose of him. I had no such illusions. I still believe that we should all support the
Bolsheviks, they are the only political organization that has a viable concept for how to clean
up the rotten Russian social order. I put my money were my mouth was, and here you see me,
an outcast from the Motherland."
The waiter brought the dinner which Manovsky with superior arrogance had ordered for
them, the famous pressed duck served on a silver platter accompanied by a small side dish
with two shriveled, black nuts cut into thin slices and a sauciere with a brown sauce heavily
laced with Madeira. The sommelier brought a heavy red Bourgogne. Manovsky inspected the
cork and expertly swilled the wine in his mouth.
The waiter placed a piece of the duck and a few slices of the black nuts on her plate and
withdrew discreetly.
"In very few Parisian restaurants can one get an honest truffe périgourdine with a taste
worth one’s money. Try this wine, it is far better than a Tsinandali."
Manovsky, trying to catch her eye, raised his glass with a toast to her beauty and regal
bearing.
His blatancy insulted her, but she had to admit that she had never tasted a comparable
wine. Its complex bouquet was most elusive and left a taste of violets on her tongue. This
sensation was surpassed by her first slice of the truffle, its perfume exploded in her head: "The
wine is excellent but nothing compares to the taste of this truffle. One could lose one’s mind
over it."
He did not smile about this successful surprise. His watery eyes watched her with a
hungry expression.
She asked when he had begun to collect art.
"I never married, I devoted all my passion to paintings. At first it was as an investment,
later they seduced me. With the help of a French art dealer, who represents the unknown
painters whom you met the other evening, I abandoned myself to collecting contemporary art.
The paintings became an addiction as powerful as any drug, they nearly drove me mad. An
irrepressible craving took hold of me. I spent more time in Paris than in Moscow. I sat night
after night through these boring bouts of drinking, paid for the wine which these lazy, arrogant,
penniless bohémiens pour down by the liter, settled their debts and listened to their prattle,
only to hunt down new paintings.
"Eventually I retired from the railroad business and completely devoted myself to the
collecting of paintings: Gauguin’s erotic Tahitian women, mad Van Gogh, and now Modigliani,
Matisse, and Picasso. I have watched the value of these beauties rise every year. This passion
is more exciting than roulette and more mind-numbing than these truffles."
She took another sip of the wonderful wine. The fragrance of the wine was getting more
beguiling as time passed.
Manovsky’s large, ruddy hand trembled as he put down the glass. An alcoholic, she
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