Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

crowd of the fashionable and the marginal, hungry students with nickel-rimmed glasses, ladies from the upper society,men in well-tailored suits, the intelligentsia of Petersburg. The small place was sold out.The musical was an improvisation too, but a masterful one. Meyerhold was listed on the handbill as the director and asPierrot. A Colombine and a Harlequin completed the cast."Meyerhold is a genius, he has been looking for such a vehicle for years," whispered Vladimir.The curtain opened to a minimal set of symbolic pieces of furniture, a couple of chairs, a few paper decorations andstanding amid this plunder Pierrot: tall, lanky, a fantastic hook-nose, no beak-mask needed, his costume an abstractionof the Commedia dell’Arte.Meyerhold moved his lanky arms in jerky gestures like an old-fashioned mechanical doll. With a grating voice heshouted. "Help, help I am bleeding to death!"He made a pause and pointing at a growing puddle on the floor said as an aside, "Sok Klyukvy?"–-cranberry juicedrippimg from underneath his costume.Laughter.This beginning proved a gag. Quickly the poetry became sufficiently ambiguous that Alexandra had to interpret forKonrad several times. Pierrot loved Columbine, of course, but to Blok she also represented his Death—smertj, feminine.Kuzmin’s hackneyed tunes, sung by the characters without instrumental accompaniment off-set the sophisticated text:banal, erotic, sentimental, deliberately simple. Like the melodies at the Varieté in Berlin they crept under Alexandra’sskin.In the end Pierrot stopped at the ramp facing the audience with a drooping head and pendulous arms. "Life is sad, theworld a farce."Suddenly he jerked up his long arm, pointed at the audience and shouted, "And you think this is frivolous amusement.You idiots."He pulled a flute from the folds of his garment and played a melancholic tune as the curtain closed behind him.A minute of dumbfounded silence, and then a storm broke loose, whistles and cat calls mixed with ecstatic applause andshouts of "Bravo!"Meyerhold dragged Blok and a reluctant Kuzmin onto the stage. Blok tall, an even, oval face surrounded by an aura ofcurly blond hair, a sensuous mouth, gray eyes, and Kuzmin his complete opposite, dark, large, ancient near-Easterneyes, a few flying hairs on a balding head too big for his small body. Lemur or Cagliostro?Vladimir seemed to know everybody. With obvious pleasure he showed off Alexandra. Konrad played his role mostconvincingly. Meyerhold tried to flirt with Alexandra in Italian and then switched to a Viennese-tinged German. Nobodysuspected her Georgian origins.Blok, besieged by adoring women, made a poker face. "Mnye nravitsya," ‘I am delighted,’ was all he had to say.Alexandra did not care, he was not her type, she simply overlooked the most worshiped idol of St. Petersburg.On their way home Alexandra defended her obvious dislike of Blok. "He is ein kleiner Junge—he is a little boy."Vladimir stopped in his tracks and looked at her surprised. "You must be the only woman in St. Petersburg who doesn’tswoon at the mere thought of being introduced to him.""Oh," she said without mercy, "I’ll change my verdict, he is a hochbegabter dummer Junge, a highly gifted fool.""Well, you sure have no sense for poetry," parried Vladimir."Nonsense, I liked the play. How did you say, its language is like a broom with which one could sweep the Russianpigsties. We need more of that."A few weeks later Vladimir called. "I need someone to hold my hand. I received a summons to appear at the weeklysalon of Zinaïda Gippius or Hippius, as you would pronounce it—the name is related to the Greek word for ‘horse’—todefend my poetry. No, not really, to receive the pour-le-mérite or a condemnation out of her mouth. This soirée is aprivate party. I could get only one additional invitation, would you ask Konrad to consider my miserable circumstancesand let you accompany me?"Konrad sneered. "Is he afraid of a woman?" But he gave his ‘extraordinary’ consent.After Valdimir had hung up, Konrad gave his sarcasm free reign. "You are in the process of becoming his mother, sister,and confidante, to express it mildly. Since when have you any strong motherly instincts?"Alexandra blushed and in tears defensively hugged Otto.Later, that night she nestled up to Konrad. "I have not told you—I am pregnant."Konrad, seduced, took her into his arms. Thinking of his earlier reprimand her eyes swam in tears, but she bravelypresented him with a most radiant smile."This time it is my child, conceived in the waves of the blue Adriatic!"They had, one day, swum out to a lonely stretch of beach and had passionately made love in the shallow sea."Tell me something about this Zinaïda Gippius," said Alexandra to Vladimir on their way. "How is it possible that youtremble at the mere thought of the words that issue from this Horse’s mouth?"Vladimir’s chauffeur drove at his usual breakneck speed through the night. Alexandra had irritated Vladimir by suggesting131