Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

creative clairvoyance, and her sharp mind she cut the most artful knots, as no one else would dare to do.In her exalted state she appeared frighteningly beautiful. He could see how she affected Walter, if she could not convincehim, she would, without a scruple, seduce the old art expert.He also understood what he himself lacked in comparison to her. His strength was his careful, systematic, occasionallypedantic methodology, he would never be able to grow her wings. He would remain the dead weight on her feet—butalso her spirit. As she grew older and more certain of her ingenious insights, it would be he who would have to hold heron this earth, prevent her from taking off into a never-never-land of hubris and lunatic speculation.She had made her point, now someone had to bring her down gently from the apogee of her free flight.Walter caught her before she crashed. "Alexandra, it is unfair that your beauty should be paired off with such an astutemind. You should, like Novella d’Andreae, be relegated to speak from behind a curtain so as not to confuse yourlisteners."Alexandra blushed. She had landed on good old, flat earth again. Konrad sighed relieved.With a fine smile Walter looked at Konrad. "Konrad, maybe you should follow your wise forefather Conradinus Calderiniand change your name to Konrad Dadiani."36.Clara Westhoff1905A large, generous mouth, thick, dark brows, gray eyes tinged with a trace of sadness, a pronounced chin—her featuresstruck Alexandra as coarse. Mrs. Dahl introduced them, Clara Westhoff, Alexandra Rost. Distracted, Alexandra thought,it can’t be, I associate fine-boned, graceful women with that name. This Clara was, though slender, an imposing person,taller than herself. Her large feet! Hands like a man’s!Clara scrutinized Alexandra with her enigmatic eyes. Not unfriendly, but out of some deeply hidden reserve.Her warm, resonant alto-voice came as a complete surprise. "Claudia has mentioned you to me. You are Nikos’ oldersister? You just returned from two weeks in Florence, how wonderful."Mrs. Dahl explained. "Clara is a sculptress, she has just spent six months working with Rodin in Paris. I have longwanted to bring you two beautiful women together. Clara has a charming daughter, Ruth, a year younger than Otto."Alexandra, used to being the center of attention, if only for her appearance, felt self-conscious and defensive. Claraoccupied a large emotional space, yet the sadness that surrounded her contradicted the impression of emotionalstrength.Mrs. Dahl abandoned the usual mixed seating order at the dinner table and placed them next to each other. Alexandratried to shake off the spell that Clara cast and said. "Being a sculptor, you must know Florence well. It was my secondvisit to that city, and I still have not seen half of it. We drove to Florence in Friedrich’s new automobile, which gave us achance to also explore Tuscany.""I hear you learned how to drive. Claudia is consumed by envy, right Claudia?" Clara laughed unexpectedly freely,without giving herself away.Claudia blushed and glanced admiringly at Alexandra.Friedrich, with an ironic smile, keenly watched the competition between Alexandra and Clara.Alexandra self-consciously continued her attempt at winning over austere Clara. "Our journey to Italy was a realadventure. In Florence we stayed with a couple, dear friends of ours, who own a secluded villa in Fiesole. Walter is an artdealer in Renaissance paintings, an excellent cicerone for Tuscany. He has a resolutely practical American wife, Sally,without whom he would be lost. Claudia would complement Walter better than I, I am much too brusque and forward forthe refined, old gentleman."Clara’s frown was barely perceptible. She asked where they had been.Alexandra described their rides, the dusty roads through the intimate landscape, the abstract checkerboard of yellowmustard fields and the bright green vineyards that looked like they had been combed, plots of newly sprouted grain, rowsof cypresses along the paths across the rolling hills, lonely farm houses, a profusion of iris on the roadside, red-roofedhouses closely stacked into towns, always on hilltops, misty blue mountains on the horizon.Clara’s gray eyes grew lively. "How well you picture this landscape. You must truly love Tuscany. Have you noticed howthe paintings of the Florentine quattrocento mirror this sobering countryside? Their colors and style are so different fromthe lush Venetian or Umbrian paintings."117