Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

well in Telavi, return tomorrow.
A room for the three men was found and a separate one for Alexandra. She sank into an
exhausted sleep.
Alexandra woke late in the afternoon. She found the three men in a wine shop next door
drinking and bragging about their exploits in front of the locals. When Alexandra entered they
dropped silent. She walked slowly and very erect across the room, sat down at their table and
ordered a glass of wine.
Dato raised his glass and drank to the beautiful Georgian woman he had rescued from
the red-bearded foreigner.
"You would be dead, if this Georgian woman had not saved you from shooting yourself,"
she said sarcastically, interrupting his boisterous toast.
The local drunkards backed away and left the shop.
"Listen, Dato, you promised to behave yourself from now on. Stop boasting and stirring
up trouble. What happened between us is nobody’s business. You may yet end in prison."
Dato, quite tipsy, dissolved into tears begging her forgiveness and swearing to abide by
his promise. He emptied another glass and grew sullen.
Suddenly they heard a commotion outside.
"They are here!" Konrad shouted as he came down the stairs followed by Ilia and Dato’s
father.
Dato went deathly pale when he recognized his father. He rose and swaying drunkenly
pointed at Konrad. "This is the traitor who is stealing our Georgian women. May he be cursed,"
and collapsed vomiting helplessly.
Alexandra flew into Konrad’s arms crying. Ortaladze sen. bent down to his destroyed
son, and Ilia, looking fiercely at the other two delinquents, shouted. "Stay, don’t move or you
will be dead."
He did not have to pull the gun from its holster. He was too well known to them, they
would not have dared to provoke their idol’s famed anger. Ilia took their daggers. "March, let’s
get out of this dingy place. You are going to ride before me to Kvareli now, where we shall take
care of you."
Trembling, the two let themselves be herded off by Ilia without resisting. Ortaladze and
Konrad tied the senseless Dato onto his horse, and Alexandra alternatingly crying and laughing
followed Konrad and the others into the night.
Reaching Kvareli, a good hour on horseback from Telavi, took them two that night. Ilia
locked the two accomplices into a room without windows. They poured a bucket of cold water
over Dato’s head and settled him in a chair at the dining table. Father Ortaladze sat next to
Dato, Konrad and Alexandra across from them, and Ilia as the master of the house and the
local baron presided over the interrogation.
Drowsily Dato followed Alexandra’s description of the abduction without interrupting her.
When she had finished Ilia ordered a strong coffee for Dato and addressing him in a stern
voice asked him to give his version of the story and to defend his actions.
Dato, ashen and resigned, said that he had nothing to add to Alexandra’s account of
what happened. He whined that he was deeply in love with her and had wanted to restore her
honor as a Georgian woman. "When I tried to shoot myself, she promised to love me for
the rest of her life," he offered meekly. Alexandra with a red face admitted that she had said
that and that she meant it. Konrad grew pale but did not interrupt her.
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