Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

help by Dmitrieva to revenge herself on Gumilev. Indirect evidence implicates Voloshin: he alone could have writtenthese poems, Dmitrieva is second rate. Makovsky is only the gullible middleman, the objective is to ridicule Gumilev."He stopped before the stove. "I have to give Konrad credit for his skepticism. I shall have the three culprits watchedclosely. We shall soon be treated to a grand-guignol play."Alexandra covered the pot. She finally had her mind and her hands free. "My dear, I don’t understand. Since Tamaracame you have lost your cool mind—maybe it happened on the unhappy day at Gippius’ salon. Anyway you seem tohave fallen into the trap in which everybody else in this town is caught, playing silly parlor games, sleeping around,creating rumors, and ‘sticking it’ to one’s enemies for sheer perverse pleasure. I understand your instinctive dislike forVoloshin, but Gumilev is one of your friends. I find all this talk boring. Will someone rise, will you finally collect yourselfand produce some serious prose, or are we all windbags? In the tough times before Witte we had a common enemy, lifewas dangerous, now it has deteriorated into a decadent farce. Somehow I am more impressed by Tamara’s engagementin the Marxist cause, however misguided it may be."Vladimir sat down with a red face. "But don’t you see? All of these happenings are the fireworks that accompany the birthof a new Russian poet. In the future women are going to write the great Russian poetry, express our deepest fears anddreams! The men will duel each other over the women who write this poetry like in Pushkin’s times. Blok will be sweptaway. I recently saw a young thing following Blok on Nevsky Prospect picking up the butts of the cigarettes he was chainsmoking. He has become the idol of adolescent schoolgirls. A sad sight. Doesn’t this female revolution excite you?"The fight for supremacy between Tsvetaeva and Akhmatova began during that winter. Tsvetaeva had many influentialsupporters, among them Gumilev: Tsvetaeva’s Evening Album appeared a year before Akhmatova’s first collection ofpoems. Tsvetaeva’s poems were abstract. She used complex, highly intellectual metaphors, while Akhmatova wrote ofherself, exposing her sensitive emotions without using generalized abstractions. Besides, Akhmatova was a skilledprofessional in presenting her poetry. Every gesture, every inflection was carefully planned, studied before a mirror andexecuted perfectly. She knew how to fight for her audience’s attention. Near-sighted Marina, on the other hand, never didovercome her stage fright. Her childish voice did not carry, her gestures were awkward.However, during the frivolous winter of 1909, the sensation was not the poetic competition between these two women,but the ridiculously romantic duel between Gumilev and Voloshin.It took a trivial collision between the two as cause, which veiled the deeper reasons of their hatred. In front of the fullassembly of the Apollo editors, Voloshin slapped Gumilev. Nobody could later remember for what reason. Heavy, stockyVoloshin had simply lost his nerve.Right then and there Gumilev challenged Voloshin to an old-fashioned duel using antique pistols of Pushkin’s time. Theduel was to take place in the same park where Pushkin had lost his life—so operatic were the times!At the last minute Akhmatova raced through the snow to the scene trying to save her long-spurned suitor’s life. She cametoo late. Voloshin, on whom the lot had fallen to shoot first, refused to shoot at Gumilev and discharged his pistol into thesnow. Infuriated, Gumilev’s shot missed its mark. The two "third-rate poets," as Zinaïda Gippius put it, became theridicule of the capital. Applauded by the laughter of St. Petersburg, the curtain fell on the melodrama of the year.In April 1910 Anna Akhmatova married Nikolai Gumilev."I know that as a doctor I am sworn to secrecy," said Alexandra one evening to Konrad. "However, guess who appearedat my office today."Konrad feigned disinterest."Akhmatova! She is an impressive lady, none of the vagueness that surrounds Tsvetaeva. I like this woman. She knowsexactly what she wants, in this case no children. Another visitor a few days ago was lovely Tamara, for the same reason.I told them what I know and recruited both for an experiment. In lieu of payment they will keep a careful diary of theirperiods and when they have had intercourse, so I can get a statistics of the fertile days of a woman. Nobody has everdared doing that."Konrad raised his brows. "You are impossible Alexandra, to invade the most intimate privacy of your patients!""They don’t have to tell me their bedroom stories, just the scientific data. I impressed them with our scanty medicalknowledge of this most important process in a woman’s life. They are sober women, intelligent and very willing toparticipate in my study."He grimaced."I will not tell you anything any more," she scorned, "if you cannot understand this much. But I do have to find a reliable,trustworthy, and competent abortionist for my patients. I cannot perform the required surgical procedure, and my potionsare a miserable way to abort a pregnancy."With the help of a generous, low-interest loan from her father, Alexandra and Helena had rented three rooms in theLiteini district, bought some secondhand equipment and opened a doctor’s office: Alexandra Dadiani-Rost & Elena vonÜxküll, General Medicine. They decided on an unusual policy: they would charge their patients according to their means.Students and the poor paid only a token fee for a doctor’s visit, and truly needy cases, nothing. Soon their social attitudeand their conscientious work brought them a small but growing number of interesting clients. Alexandra fought fiercely for156