Konrad and Alexandra (pdf) - Rolf Gross

anecdote: my brother studied theology, I broke with tradition and became a scientist."
"And your father was the director of the Gymnasium?" asked Alexandra.
"Yes, that added to the significance of Novella."
Walter bowed to Alexandra and added portentously. "And after six hundred years a
worthy descendent of the incomparable Novella has taken a wife of even greater beauty."
When they arrived in Florence the Wolfsons insisted that Konrad and Alexandra stay
with them in Fiesole. A shiny, new Daimler touring car with an Italian chauffeur waited for them
at the station—Konrad and Alexandra’s first ride ever in an automobile.
Hidden in a steep orchard of olives, vines, and lemons they discovered Villa Tasso.
Originally built for the sixteenth-century poet Torquato Tasso, the villa had last been owned by
Gabriele d’Annuncio, who had sold the property to the Wolfsons to cover the debts of his
extravagant lifestyle.
The rustic two-story building was filled with Italian Renaissance paintings and a few
contemporary ones. In Walter’s room hung a number of Byzantine icons from the Balkans,
Greece, and Russia. More Byzantine treasures, ivories, jewelry, and glowing gold and enamel
cloisonnés, were hidden in a tresor deep in the basement.
Sally gave Alexandra and Konrad two connecting rooms on the second floor with a
delightful view. Between silver-green olive trees they looked down on the red and siennabrown
roofs of Florence.. A view as tranquil as from Zaguramo.
At night two other guests appeared, a doctoral student of art history from Harvard and
Katharina, a young German painter from Munich, who was spending two months in Italy. Their
dinners were lively gatherings with conversations in several languages. Alexandra immediately
felt at home. She became Katharina’s close friend, who taught her Italian. Katharina was
exploring the dissolution of geometrical reality into light and colors. She had fallen in love with
a Russian painter by the name of Wassily Kandinsky who had been her teacher in Munich and
had sent her to Italy. Kandinsky’s idea to create a new spirituality in painting had started her on
this project.
The best times were the long evenings on the terrace under the olive trees. Over coffee
or a glass of wine, Walter would hold forth on the wonders and treasures of Tuscany, the
history of its painters and architects. Most often he directed his lectures at Alexandra, who
followed his words with rapt attention.
Occasionally Walter would have his chauffeur motor them to some of the places he had
described the previous night: to Lucca, through the valley of the upper Arno to San Sepolcro to
see the frescoes of Piero della Francesca, the Greve and Siena. Walter would not accompany
them, he wanted to give Alexandra the freedom to learn to see with her own eyes, but in the
evening she had to give him detailed reports of what she had seen.
This improvised course in art history gave Walter as much pleasure as Alexandra. He
maintained that he had never had a more eager and intelligent student. After a while, in the
excitement of these evenings, Walter even arrived at an easy Alexandra, dropping the
‘Gnädige Frau’ and the formal ‘Sie.’
However, to the Uffizi Walter took her himself. He led her first into a room filled with
glowing religious panels, altar leaves, Madonnas, icons of saints, prophets, and angels in
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