Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

Every morning she attended Dahl’s introductory psychology course at the university. The tall, gray-haired intellectual wasa superb lecturer, clear, highly structured, and honest. He was presenting a critical review of a field in upheaval withexceptional impartiality.If Dahl had a personal predilection, it was his dislike for metaphysical or philosophical speculations in psychology. Hesearched for scientifically verifiable facts. This led him to be critical of the theories of the aging Fechner, Groddeck, andthe young Freud as well of the older, speculative schools of psychology. For him modern psychology began with theexperimental approaches by Wundt and his students. With barely restrained sarcasm he recommended the reading ofFreud and Nietzsche as two of the most imaginative writers of psycho-philosophical prose in German, but felt thatempirically Freud could not show any therapeutic success based on his psychoanalytical speculations.Alexandra had a well-developed, intuitive sense for the functioning of people. She would make highly accuratepronouncements of a person’s character and predict their behavior in ways that often baffled and annoyed less sensitivepeople, among them Konrad. She had a sixth sense. And Konrad, more often than he would admit, relied on her ability todivine the future, as he called it—she simply knew such things, and if nobody distracted her, with baffling accuracy.However, to her that was not a viable explanation, she wanted to understand how she arrived at such hunches, and thereshe ran into a puzzling handicap. She discovered that she could often not predict the reaction of other people to herselfwith certainty.She now learned from Dahl that this was caused by her interacting with her opposite so as to change their behavior.More disappointingly, she would never be able to completely analyze her own self, the nature of the process of gatheringinformation on herself precluded that. A sobering discovery of the limits of her attempts "to account for her own actions",which Walter Wolfson had challenged her to.29.A menage a trois1904Did the Föhn blow again that day? No one of the three could remember later. Konrad came home in an agitated mood."Alexandra," he begged, "may I spend the night with Katharina? Please, let me go. She is slipping from me, please onelast time."Alexandra collapsed in a chair. It was the ultimate test of her love and convictions. Finally she said with a tired voice, "Ifyou must go, do go."Konrad left the house feeling guilty and excited in equal proportions. Alexandra went to bed suspended in a numbingvoid. She did not cry, it had been her decision. Restless she tossed about, her mind locked in empty circles.After an hour she jumped out of bed, threw on a coat, and walked to Katharina’s apartment.She rang. After a considerable time Katharina, dressed in a yellow bathrobe, opened.Axiety was written all over Katharina’s face.Alexandra kissed her. "Do you have room left in your bed for me?"Katharina without a word closed the door behind her. The two fell into each other’s arms. Alexandra dropped her coatand with flying hands untied Katharina’s bathrobe and pulled it off her shoulders."You are even more beautiful than I imagined in my fantasies," whispered Alexandra running her fingers over the goldenfuzz on Katharina’s belly.Katharina blushed all over. She touched Alexandra’s lips as if to unseal their secret of Andechs. Hand in hand theywalked into the bedroom."Konrad, I could not bear the idea that you were making love to Katharina all by yourself. I love her as much as you do.May I share her with you?"Konrad’s eyes nearly fell out of his head. He began to laugh.Katharina hung a bed sheet over the mirror in her room."So that the devil cannot spy on us—and God neither!""Whom do you give the first apple to?" teased Artemis circling Aphrodite’s pink nipples with her finger. They stood, Pariswatching them from the bed.With her hands, very slowly, Artemis wove an invisible fabric over Aphrodite’s shoulders, the shadowy hollows betweenher collar bones, the clavicle depression at her throat, her breasts, her belly.Katharina closed her eyes, her left hand protecting her blond triangle, her right lifting her breast towards Alexandra.98