Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

you smile meekly and remain silent. Father at least objected openly to my wish to join
Jordania’s party. You never spoke up for me. You sabotaged my attempts at contacting the
influential Socialists in Tbilisi. ‘Don’t do that now, it will incense all your relatives.’ That was
what you said. Why am I so weak in my condition?"
Her head, surrounded by her long black hair, sank back on the table. Valdimir smiled,
abashed. Standing behind her, he spread his arms in an apologetic gesture of helpless
despair.
The scene was fast approaching the limits of Konrad’s usually imperturbable patience.
"Stop crying!" Konrad said sternly. "What do you want to do about getting married? Go wash
off your tears, and let us discuss that problem instead of these useless accusations."
She raised her head and looked at him wide-eyed. "All of you are paternalistic
reactionaries. ‘Go, marry this man!’ I will marry only to protect my child from this bourgeois
society."
Konrad’s voice was rising. "I thought we had covered that ground months ago. Of
course it is to protect your child from being born illegitimate. As far as I am concerned, you can
live in a wild marriage, I don’t care. You can even keep the name of your father, if that is a
consolation to you."
"I will keep my name, I will. I will, even if father disowns me."
They left her alone, and eventually she got up and, glaring at the two men, retreated to
the bathroom.
Vladimir and Tamara’s wedding took place a week after Alexandra had come home.
Alexandra at the side of Vladimir’s father, Konrad and Helena as witnesses. The priest had
been paid off to perform the ceremony in the sacristy of his church, no pomp, no singing,
barely a ritual. Tamara and Vladimir in street clothes, only M. Nomikoff and Alexandra in formal
dress.
Alexandra cried in sad frustration. Irakli’s ominous prediction of the pair’s unhappy future
rang in her ears. Otto watched the pregnant revolutionary wide eyed.
Tamara’s family ignored the wedding, no messages, no presents, or congratulatory
letters from her parents, except a serious note from Irakli and Tamunia-Deda wishing God’s
blessing onto them and their unborn child.
Vladimir’s father invited the pair and their five guests to a suitably elegant restaurant.
Tamara ate almost nothing, she felt nauseous. Otto watched the vaguely threatening,
enigmatic events with bewildered eyes.
On July 28, 1913 Tamara gave birth to a daughter. Alexandra delivered the baby at the
St. Petersburg Lying-in Hospital. They called her Asmat Alexandra after Tamara’s mother and
her natlideda.
In the winter of 1913-14, actively supported by the Okhrana, political demonstrations
returned to St. Petersburg. The government considered them a welcome diversion from the
mounting social and political ills of the country. Well-controlled by troops of the Ministry of the
Interior, the rallies were dressed as pan-Slavic protests supporting Serbia’s fight against
Austria over the remains of the Ottoman possessions in the Balkans. The ‘Second Balkan War’
smoldered for several months—the tinder on the European powder keg that had been Joachim
von Bredow’s worry.
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