Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

live apart most of the time. He will come to Munich later this year, to be with us. We shall try again, but it will be difficult.He has written an unearthly beautiful cycle of poems in Triest at the castle of one of his female admirers. I will read yousome of them in Munich. You are going to visit us in Berg, promise!"Alexandra told her why she was going to Munich by herself, to work on a rather esoteric research project, to investigatepsychic healing with Claudia and Robert Dahl. Clara showed surprise, Dahl working on clairvoyance?Alexandra briefly described how this cooperation had come about. "And here I travel by myself and am overtaken by achain of entirely unreasonable coincidences, first the conductor now you!"She decided to pass over her frightening vision in East Prussia.Ruth returned, a serious girl with a shock of her father’s dark brown hair."Ruth, do you remember Alexandra? She is Otto’s mother, the boy you played with on the beach in Italy many yearsago."Ruth made the expected curtsy, but gave Alexandra a skeptical look. "Mamma, you mean the boy with whom I playedfather and mother in Berg when you drank coffee?""Yes he. I am amazed that you remember Alexandra’s and Otto’s visit to Berg."Ruth took a book and read. Alexandra resumed the conversation. "Have you seen Friedrich and Katharina? I will nothave the time to visit them in Hamburg. Worpswede is close to Hamburg, isn’t it?""I met them a year ago in Bremen. They looked happy, their child has grown, but you are lucky, they come to Munich forEaster early next month. To please Katharina, they make a pilgrimage to Andechs at this time of the year, it has becomean annual institution.""And Kandinsky? What has become of him? You were not close to him, but I hear he has become a MünchnerInstitution."Clara shook her head. "Kandinsky, has left us all behind. He has gone completely abstract. Very colorful canvasses, but Icannot find anything in them. For a while they still showed recognizable subjects, now they are just chaotic scribbles,blots, lines, and circles. As an explanation he has published a kind of ‘Manifesto of Abstract Art’ last year, Über dasGeistige in der Kunst, very obscure, unreadable."Alexandra became excited. "We talked about this subject seven years ago. He was searching for a way to expressexactly such ideas between music and painting in his art. I must see him.""He now lives in Murnau with Gabriele Münter. She bought a house for them there."Time flew, they had crossed the Main river. They would reach Munich in another four hours.They had tea in the dining car. Clara described her work of the last few years. The two caryatids had long been installed.She had not become famous, but she had found a steady succession of commissions that kept her busy and paid for herliving expenses—and occasionally even for Rainer’s. She appeared, if not exuberant, this was not her nature, quietlybalanced and content with her life and work. Alexandra could not understand how Clara managed her emotional life, theidea of living separated from Konrad was inconceivable.In Munich Alexandra called Claudia and took a taxi to Solln.The taxi driver asked her, "Gnädige Frau, are you from Italy? You speak German very well."She explained that she came from Russia. The man was embarrassed and retreated into an icy silence. In all her travelsshe had never encountered any reservations towards herself. Eventually the man apologized for being nosy. It was noneof his business where his customers came from. He was Serbian.57.Dahl's examination of Alexandra, Munich1913Robert Dahl had no finished manuscript to show. After listening to Claudia’s reports about Alexandra’s healingexperiments, he had discarded much of his previous work and decided that Alexandra’s experiences and insights wouldform the nucleus of their publication."Claudia described to me the healing sessions you two undertook together." Dahl told Alexandra. "I have every reason tobelieve that you observed true medical effects in your patients. Have you had any new successes since then? I would, ofcourse, like to know the statistical rate of success you have experienced, that is, is your healing reproducible orsporadic?"She told him of the skin cancer remission, which had now held for more than a year.182