Pages 186-187

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about

But now when I am become old and tired and hoped to find well-earned rest on it and later on to see my body be bedded down in her bosom, now they come and force me abroad away from it!"

    His watery, dark eyes shimmered; even the other two were moved.

    "Those are the sacrifices that the Fatherland demands from us, Manny!" the privy councillor eventually said.

    "The Fatherland!" retorted the old man, "I know it well.  But then what is the Fatherland?  For all who sit here around us, for all country-born, it is the small piece of earth that they cultivate.  The soil is our home, and what you call love of the Fatherland arises out of the love for the soil.  My whole life long, I have known to treasure the produce of the spirit and of the culture; Hans there knows that the best.  But they are the artistic creations; they are not the original ones, the natives.  That is the piece of land that the man conquers anew every day with his strength and work; only through this does it become his property."

    Speaking became difficult for him.  But he pulled himself together and went on:  "Certainly, we sacrifice it, must sacrifice it so that the whole will be saved.  For in all of us, whoever we are, is and lives nothing else but the Fatherland.  But we people of the land give our last with it, and while we give it, we bleed to death, not much different from the soldier in the field.  But especially when we become old and already so united with our soil that

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we are no longer able to create a new home for ourselves."

Pages 184-186

This Month's Installment

    "But I am just used to her," the old man replied in that harmless selfishness, which had strongly developed through the infirmity of his body;

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it also appeared in such times as perfectly natural that everything had to turn around him.

    "The Hutemach has stayed in Bärwalde?" Hans askt.

    "She and Borowski.  Thanks be to God!  What would become of Bärwalde otherwise!?"

    "But it is a lot from her that she has done it."

    "She explained from the beginning that she wanted to stay.  She has often been in Russia, understands the language, and hopes to manage with the enemy if they should come."

    "But it is a lot," Hans repeated.

    Even from the poultry, which he otherwise preferred and which the privy councillor had again carefully prepared for him, the Bärwalder took hardly one bite.  The brother's patience gave out on him.

    "But you must pull yourself together a little, Manny!"

    The old man replied not a word.  But a vague resentment lay on his face, and his thick, white brows knit themselves together tightly and firmly.

    "It is a difficult time!" Hans sought to agree with the privy councillor and at the same time to placate him, "but we all suffer under it."

    Again no answer, and yet one saw how it was working behind the furrowed brow.  Finally, the old man lifted his head from his chest; searching for the word with difficulty, he said:  "A difficult time for us all, quite right, my son.  And you, who, although a city dweller and a scholar, cling to the country home like all the Warsows, must understand why food and drink has no taste for me anymore.  They have driven me from my soil!  I grew up on it; my parents grew up on it, and my grandparents.  I have cultivated and ploughed it from my

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earliest youth on.  I have put all my work and energy into it, seen it turn green and grow and bear fruit, every spring, every summer, every fall.

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

Previously, I translated Scholle as clod, but that didn't really seem to fit the context here ("They have driven me from my clod!").  Soil is a better choice here (and probably in most instances so far, too).

Pages 183-184

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    The weak eyes of the Bärwalder had still not seen his nephew at all; only when his brother

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made him aware and Hans himself now approached his uncle to greet him, did a faint shimmer of joy pass over his tired features and for a few seconds gave them something stirring, grasping in the heart.

    "We will go for our regular walk in the sun in the afternoon - right, Manny?" the privy councillor said.  "And then you'll lie down upstairs in your room and sleep a little."

    "Yes, then I'll lie down and sleep a little."

    "You've had a bad trip?" Hans turned to the privy councillor.

    "A very bad.  We decided only at the last moment.  Indeed, he was not to be moved for the departure and wanted to stay under any circumstances.  Only when everyone around us fled did the Hutemach and I bring him to it with a bit of force.  Now, however, it had already become a little late.  We needed to take the railway trip here, which one otherwise does in two hours with the fast train, the whole night, from ten o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and rode in the most dreadful corner in a compartment in the fourth class."

    The waiter brought the lunch.  Hans was invited and gladly joined.  But the Bärwalder took next to nothing.  The fish, which the privy councillor prepared and gave to him, remained lying, barely touched.

    "You should have taken the Hutemach with," he said grumpily, "she knows best what gets me."

    "But I know it too and am standing in for her."

Pages 182-183

This Month's Installation

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

    For a moment, Hans stood hesitating at the door.  He could not see this scene without being moved:  these two old men, whom life had otherwise taken hold of with such a gentle hand, had surrounded with all amenities and spoiled with all comforts, who, as far as he could think, had not yet gone through anything really difficult.  And now even them driven out of their home,

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alone and without help here abroad on the road!

    And around them all the tables were densely occupied with other East-Prussian owners from the surrounding area, old and young with women and children; at several were also individual ladies, whose husbands probably remained at home or had gone into the field.  He knew a few of them, but he had always seen them in fresh activities or in happy circles.  Now they sat next to each other silently and lookt in front of themselves just as despondent and defeated as the old Bärwalder.  And yet they felt that they belonged together, one firmly rooted with the other as never before in life.  For the same fate united all of them.  He must think about the Reckensteiner.  He no longer felt sorry for him; the lot had fallen more pleasantly for him than for these here.

    "That is indeed Hans!" the privy councillor said suddenly, stood up, and went a few steps towards the one coming in.  "Good that you came, dear boy, we have been waiting for you.  But haven't you brought Else with?"

    "I haven't spoken to her anymore; I just had a meeting in the town hall; but I believe she will be expecting you with us at home.  You will surely eat with us, can even stay with us.  In such a time, one gladly makes do, and we can manage room, despite a refugee family that we have taken in."

    "Very friendly, my good Hans, but we will calmly stay here.  I am glad that I have gotten Hermann so far; the move would be nothing for him; he is not allowed to come out of his habit.  It has hit him hard, very hard."

 

Grammatial Minutiae/Commentary

In the original text, the phrase "had surrounded with all amenities and spoiled with all comforts" is "mit aller Annehmlichkeit umgeben und aller Behaglichkeit verwöhnt hatte."  I think it may be significant that the central phrases "Annehmlichkeit umgeben" and "Behaglichkeit verwöhnt" contain words that start with letters at opposite ends of the alphabet (A to U and B to V).  This gives a sense of the range of the two "all"s.

The description "in frohen Kreise" ("in happy circles") may be intended to refer to the beginning of the novel; the third paragraph begins "Klein war der Kreis der Geladenen" ("small was the circle of those invited").  Using the same word heightens the sense of contrast between the despondent refugees here and the celebratory atmosphere of Edith's birthday party at the beginning of the story.

Pages 181-182

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

    Hans wanted to reply when he saw his maid come towards him from the other side of the street:  "I should go straight to the town hall; the gracious Fräulein is sending me.  The Bärwald dignitaries, Mr. Hauptmann and the privy councillor, have just arrived.  The Pastor should go to them immediately."

    In the "Rodenburg Court," in which it had been very quiet in recent times, all of a sudden, life had now returned; the large hall was full of pieces of luggage, one piled on top of an-other.  The steps and hallways were filled with restless people rushing here and there, who were looking for their rooms and directing a thousand questions to the staff, which had become scarce because of the conscription.  This appeared set alight by the general nervousness;

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there were no answers at all or insufficient ones, about which the foreigners then fell again into bright annoyance.  Yes, even the otherwise so sure and dignified doorman in his gold-trimmed uniform had disposed of his magnificent composure so much that to Hans' question about a Captain Warsow-Bärwälde he strongly and firmly claimed that such a gentleman would not be staying in their hotel, that, actually, there was not such a gentleman at all.

    But through the large glass panes of the door that led into the dining hall, Hans already caught sight of the two old men.

    The Bärwalder sat quite bent, his head propped up on his wrinkled hand with the great blue veins, an answer-less question in his grey eyes.  More youthful appeared the privy councillor with the white goatee, the bold nose under the high, still quite smooth forehead, above which, artfully parted, his full, white-blond hair gleamed, whose care even to-day was not neglected in the least.  They were not talking politics to-day, as at other times; they were not fighting with one an-other; the privy councillor probably made a slight beginning of it because he had the newspaper in front of him and appeared to be reading the latest war news, but the Bärwalder did not show an interest in it; he had certainly not at all heard what his brother read; his eye remained directed into empty space.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

There are so many elements in the sentence "More youthful appeared the privy councillor..." and I don't know if I have them arranged in the best way.  The syntax of the original is a bit odd in that first the councillor is described as "more youthful... with the white goatee," a comment is made about his care (it "was not neglected in the least"), and then there are some more details about his features (his nose, forehead, and hair).  I re-arranged the sentence so that the descriptions are grouped together, but it still doesn't seem very smooth.  It's clear in the original wording that the antecedent of "whose" is the councillor, but in mine, it could be mistaken as his hair.

Pages 180-181

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

    A few volunteered a word; he listened to them attentively, agreed with a lively nodding of his head to the thoughts that appeared to him practical and right, and now and then even made a note for himself with the huge pencil that lay on his table.  On the whole, however, one had the impression that he already had everything fixed and ready and these rhetorical remarks were really only accessories belonging to a meeting.

    "Where would I come to," he commented to Hans as they went home together, "especially in this time, when I let everything be spun out ten times in speaking in the meeting that suddenly is finished off by action?  Talking a lot was one of the biggest mistakes of the Germans; hopefully the war has brought an end to it.  We are now at the point of taking action there and not at the point of discussing."

    "We will find enough opportunity for taking action here too; the refugees will take care of that."

    "We must turn our attention to pushing them farther along as soon as it goes; a lasting place of residence in our city seems hardly advisable to me."

    "It would, however, not be very compassionate to send them farther immediately, when they have hardly reached any rest here."

    "And yet it would happen only for their welfare, because who gives us a guarantee that one day

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even our city won't be affected?"

    "You mean that the enemy could penetrate this far?"

    An obvious astonishment was in Hans' question.  The thought that Stoltzmann was fighting there appeared not to have come to him yet.

    "No," he added decidedly, "our brave troops would not let him come so far!"

    "I don't fear it either.  But it is much better to be calm about everything and take precautions than to let yourself be surprised.  I had our collections in the museum and the most important pieces of the town archive brought into safekeeping.  Your Nikolai church also has quite a share of pieces of value, above all the old paraments in the large sacristy; perhaps it would be advisable likewise to store them in a room as secure as possible.  I still have some space and am at your disposal."

Pages 179-180

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

But it was just good comradeship, nothing else.  Sometimes she had probably believed she felt more for him; now it was clear to her that it was sisterly affection that she felt for him.

    The image of his older brother stood before her soul.  Previously, he had been distant to her, indeed not once pleasant.  To be only on the spiritual side of the directed striving, that quite easily overlookt the ordinary mortals and their being there; she had kept away from him.  Still even now, certainly, there was something in him that she felt as dividing, even now he lived with all the trouble that he gave himself in the world of his thoughts; she noted it well in him, how in his spiritual and religious line of thought he still could not find his way in the hardship and in the frights of this war.  But now she saw this inner wrestling, this seeking and striving upwards in a different light.

    The morning dawned shyly and hesitating through the darkness outside.  The storm had died down a little, but the rain still hammered hard on the panes.  Edith turned off the lamp; a wounded man called her; the morning work began.

    In the late morning, in the antiquated sitting room of the magistrate, decorated with expensive carvings, ceiling frescoes like tapestries out of brocade and red damask, rich jewelry, the meeting to which the mayor had invited Hans took place.

    Doctor Stoltzman confided his briefly and clearly developed plans and objects with reference to a suitable accommodation for the numerous arriving East Prussian refugees, which he had come up with for a wide,

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sweeping installation of the act of charity at the train station Maßnahmen, where now not only the troops who were passing through but also the refugees would be lookt after, and asked the gentleman to give proposals and suggestions as far as they were concerned.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

The morning dawns right after the narrator explains that Edith now sees Hans' internal struggle "in a different light," and this seems to be a literal picture of that metaphor.

I was way out of my depth with the lavish description of the meeting room, so while I think I have the individual words translated correctly, I'm not sure I have them put together in the right way.

There's no direct object in the clause "die Besprechung... zu der der Oberbürgermeister eingeladen hatte"; it's just "the meeting... to which the mayor had invited."  I supplied "Hans" to complete the sense.

I'm still a bit confused about the time of this meeting.  When it was announced by the mayor on page 174, the time was given as "Vormittags ein Uhr" ("one o'clock in the morning"), but here it's "am späten Vormittag" ("in the late morning").

In the original text, a very long sentence bridging pages 179-180 begins, "Kurz und klar entwickelte Doktor Stoltzmann seine Pläne und Absichten... teilte mit...."  The way this is structured, it seems that "kurz and klar entwickelte" ("briefly and clearly developed") refers to Doctor Stoltzmann, but it actually refers to his plans and objects.  In my translation, I moved this phrase to make its antecedent more clear:  "Doctor Stoltzman confided his briefly and clearly developed plans and objects...."  Still, the sentence is long and unwieldy.

This month's installment may be a bit shorter than usual because I was sick or otherwise under the weather for two of the last four weeks and didn't have the time or energy to work on this project.

This is the end of chapter thirty-three and the beginning of chapter thirty-four.

Pages 177-179

This Month's Installment

    In the large hall of the hospital, Edith sat and kept the nightwatch.  The green-veiled lamp threw its pale light on a sheet of paper on the small table in front of her.  It was Fritz's letter; she had read it over and over.

    Around her lay the wounded.  Some slept; their breaths sounded steadily through the quiet of the hall; others sighed loudly now and then and groaned; still others lay completely still; sleepless, with wide open eyes, they lookt into the pale, dawning light.  These were they who had suffered most heavily.  Now and then

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one askt to drink, or he wanted to be laid differently, or his wounds ached and he sought relief.

    Edith preferred when she had something to do.  But it lasted only a short time, and again she sat in her place inactive, tormented by her thoughts.

    Outside, the storm raged; it broke the branches and boughs in the garden; it beat on the window with a heavy hand and drove the rain that had started fiercely around midnight, splashing and pattering on the panes.

    She thought of so many nights when storm and rain had likewise raged around the old Reckenstein manor house, when she was awakened in the middle of a sound sleep by its noise and had felt only so much more cozy and secure in her soft bed.  Altogether, how peaceful and beautiful had her youth been, with what warm love she had surrounded her father, how tender a bond existed between them, despite the dissimilarity of her nature and his sometimes severe and irascible manner!  But she knew him and the valiant center of his heart.

    Now he had fallen out there, and she sat here and watched over the wounded whom his heroic death had saved.  And everything that she saw and experienced was so great and tremendous that one was not allowed to complain and grumble, even if one had personally to make the most difficult sacrifice.

    Now she was alone; she no longer had anyone who was close to her.  The old man had been both her father and mother.  Who took care of her life and her health now?  It was good that she could care for others.

    Again, her glance fell on the letter; again

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she read it.  He who had written it had been much to her in the past, a faithful comrade of her youth.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I translated "aufgerissenen" as "open" ("wide open eyes"), but it's really a more intense notion than that, something like "torn open."

I don't know if this is significant, but the same word ("heftig") is used in sequential paragraphs to describe the storms that Edith remembers and the old Reckensteiner.  I translated them differently, though (it was only when I was typing up my translation later that I noticed that the same word is used):  "the rain that had started fiercely around midnight" and "his sometimes severe and irascible manner."

I was puzzled about what to do with the sentence "Wen kümmerte jetzt noch ihr Leben und ihr Ergehen?"  There's a singular verb ("kümmerte") that seems to go with the singular "wen" and not the compound (and thus plural) "ihr Leben und ihr Ergehen," but "wen" is in the accusative case, not the nominative.  I translated it as "Who took care of her life and her health now?" because it seems to fit the context better.

Pages 176-177

This Month's Installment

The italicized part is what I'm unsure about.

    Fixed and calm, her eye lingered on his face, a quiet trembling in her voice, otherwise no agitation, only a certainty that did not let itself be shaken.

    "You need not say anything to me; it would be pointless."

    "Who told it to you?"

    "No one.  I've known it the whole day.  He had the train station in Malkaynen; the battle was there."

    "He has accomplished a great thing.  The whole carriage that arrived to-day with the train is his work.  He led his locomotive through the enemy fire."

    She turned her head.

    "Fritz was also on his train."

    She said nothing.

    "He lies wounded in Pronitten."

    "I knew that he would be at his post.  He has died as he has lived."

    He said nothing in reply.  Her pain was sacred for him; an empty world would have been desecration.

    "Your brother wrote to you about it?  I would like to read the letter."

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    "I have it over in my room.  Come over to us now; my sister will also be there soon.  A substitution for you at night has already been provided."

    "I am staying here.  Perhaps you will be so good to send the letter over to me."

    He attempted an objection.

    "I thank you.  I find myself most at ease when I am doing my duty."

    In this moment, he had to be able to do something for her in her pain, which she took upon herself so grandly and bravely, he who knew what it was about, when he was able to destroy this strangeness that still piled up between them!  Yet nothing remained for him but silence.

    But to Else he expressed himself.  "This war also makes women into heroes; one sees it in you both."

    "For myself, I must refuse this designation.  But in Edith, there's been something heroic all along.  Now the fruits of upbringing and of education are showing themselves, above all of self-education.  What is in a person and what he has trained himself to, that is what suffering makes evident."

Pages 175-176

This Month's Installment

    "Yes," he replied, "you are right:  one must not brood over all that; then one does not endure it.  We must give even the last and the best, some their body, others their home.  The work is our only escape.  Come, we must go over; the ambulance can be there right away."

    Again the telephone rang.  Lodge for the Golden Key:  Mrs. Lisa Stoltzmann.  Of the four wounded announced, only three would come; one had just died upon arrival.  A Russian.  A captain even, a wonderful guy.  He had sat upright on his mattress and stared at them with large, glazed eyes, as if he wanted to devour them even in death.  He hadn't said a word when they had spoken to him, only gathered the thick coat tightly to himself with his hand, which - by the way - was very delicate and slender; so had he collapsed.  Well, it wouldn't come further into consideration; he was indeed only a Russian.

    How then did it go otherwise?  The time would probably be difficult, but yet also great and uplifting.

    "It is undoubtedly the carriage that the Reckensteiner led," said Hans, as he went over to the hospital with Else, "we must keep Edith at a distance so that she does not find out about it from a hasty man."

    The wagon drove straight up; the stretchers were lifted out; the lightly wounded

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went propped up on the arm of the attendants or nurses; Doctor Moll was on hand; the patients were laid in bed; the bandages were inspected and in some cases replaced; everything was proceeding quickly and surely; everyone was already settled in to work.

    "Perhaps you would come to my room for a moment, Miss von Barrnhoff," Hans askt Edith after the most important work had been done.

    "I have the nightwatch to-day."

    "I would like to speak to you."

    "My father has fallen."

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

There's a long sentence near the end of this selection ("The wagon drove straight up...") that contains eight individual clauses (they're separated by commas in the original text, but I standardized these to semi-colons).  The long, drawn-out sentence provides a sense of the great amount of activity taking place.

The clause "Doktor Moll war zur Stelle" is literally something like "Doctor Moll was at the place" (or more prosaically "Doctor Moll was there"), but I translated it as "Doctor Moll was on hand" to retain something of the structure of the original.