As usual, the italicized sections are those that I'm unsure about:
“I had completely forgotten it,” this one retorted.
“Yes, your wager!” it rang from several sides over to him.
“A year ago I had bet with Ms. von Barrnhof, as I had forgotten her birthday in an irresponsible way, that at the next recurrence of this day I would be there, even if I had to ride the distance from my garrison
---5---
into your dining hall.”
“And have won brilliantly!” shouted the fiery mayor’s wife, and her cheeks blossomed like the red carnations on her breast. Such an adventure and rider-trick, that was to her liking! What she had still wished and what she was actually missing was that Fritz Warsow had not literally fought out his wager and had galloped into the middle of the dining room with his comrade. And had they ridden the whole table into the ground and floor besides! The falling table and the jangling pieces of broken glass - it would have been a proper Rhenish carnival, and that was the only thing that she had by all acculturation and settling-in been without in the sober north and had not pardoned this up to present days.
But the old Reckenstein citizen also smiled contentedly to himself there. He liked the bit. He had always liked Fritz. He himself had been a soldier with body and soul, and he had taken part in all practices more than ten years ago. Then he had had to stop. But he had been awarded the title “major” and was proud of it. “And when it comes down to it, I am the first who takes part - against the Russians the best!” he was in the habit to say.
“How long have you been en route, captain?” Frau Lisa turned herself anew to Fritz, and her cheerful eye full of pleasure smiled at him.
“Eight hours, madam, not including the short midday rest. But in the end we have really ridden like the devil; I don’t know whether the hunger or the longing drove us.”
---6---
Edith knew him otherwise only seriously, so much the more she liked his funny nature and the fresh humor that suited him well. In the eyes, he was not a falling phenomenon, rather of stocky, almost small figure, but in his face was a trait of strength and energy, and his gaze was both clever and good.
Now Mrs. von Ubitzsch pulled him into a very thorough interrogation. Patiently, he withstood her a while, then he broke off a little abruptly and took part in the funny banter that his friend Uechteritz had started up with two young landed ladies from the neighborhood. But with little enthusiasm; he liked pretty girls, but the actual society and the light tone that it required was not his thing. The strength and masculinity of his personality combined with a certain timidity, during which he became a difficult gentleman.
It had become quieter at the table. From the garden sounded, not as loud and swelling as before, but still with a sweet euphony, the music of the bird that sang the hymn of love and courtly love. Was it jubilation or sadness?
One had not sat for long at the table; the garden there outside tempted.
Interesting German words I discovered by happenstance:
- die Ilias - Iliad [I found this interesting mostly because I’m currently reading The Iliad, but - since I’m also re-learning Latin - I looked up The Iliad in Latin. It’s also Ilias and also feminine (I think it’s third declension, but in reviewing, I’m only up to second declension, so I’ll refrain from venturing anything).]
- etepetete - la-di-da; fussy; squeamish
- üppig - luxuriant, opulent [there’s also die Üppigkeit - luxuriance, opulence]
- pendeln - to swing; to oscillate [I thought this interesting because it seems to be related to pendulum, the German word for which is das Pendel.]
While looking up unterwegs (just to confirm I knew what I meant), I ran into die Untertasse (saucer), which I thought fairly interesting because it’s literally “under cup.” Following this, there was an arrow pointing to fliegend. I knew that fliegend means flying, but it was until I referenced fliegend that I put flying and saucer together and realized that fliegende Untertasse is flying saucer. It was one of those learn-a-foreign-language-in-order-to-understand-your-own-better moments. I don't think I'd ever connected the flying saucer appellation to tea ware.
While confirming that Teufel means devil (although it’s feminine in the text [“wie die Teufel”] and masculine in my dictionary [der Teufel]; also, I find it odd that the German idiom “weiß der Teufel” is equivalent to “God knows” in English), I ran across a bunch of wallpaper-related words: die Tapete (wallpaper), die Tapetentür (concealed door), tapezieren (to wallpaper, to decorate). These all appeared to be related to tapestry. Unfortunately, my German-English dictionary doesn’t contain any etymologies (I’ve been vainly seeking a “pure” German dictionary that would have them), but I looked up tapestry on Merriam-Webster, and I discovered that it comes from the Greek: “tapētion, diminutive of tapēt-, tapēs carpet.” While I don’t know the etymology of the German Tapete, I’d bet that it’s related to that Greek word.
Looking up das Verhör (interrogation), I came across vergriffen. It’s the past participle of vergriefen (sich ~ - to make a mistake; sich ~ an - to attack, to assault), but as an adjective, it means out-of-print, which is really interesting. It sort of equates being out-of-print with making a mistake or an attack.
There’s a lot to talk about with the sentence that bridges pages five and six. Warsow says, “bei der nächsten Wiederkehr,” and I can’t tell whether this is supposed to redundant or not. Nächst is next, and Wiederkehr is return or recurrence, so it’s “at the next recurrence.” “At the next occurrence” makes more sense, but - since I’m not too keen on this Warsow character already - I’m wondering whether it’s meant to be redundant in order to show that he’s not that smart of a guy.
I’m not too confident on my translation of the second part of that sentence: “und wenn ich von meiner Garnison aus in einer Strecke bis in Ihren Eßsaal hineinreiten müßte.” My German-English dictionary tells me that “wenn auch” or “selbst wenn” is “even if.” There isn’t an auch or a selbst in this sentence (although there is an und [and], which is similar to auch [also]), but I don’t think it makes sense without an even. There are also so many prepositions that I don’t know what to do with them all. There’s von, aus, in, bis, in, and hinein. I left a lot out to get a smoother translation, but I have some doubts about it: “even if I had to ride the distance from my garrison into your dining hall.” I wasn’t quite sure how to translate Eßsaal either. Initially, I’d thought dining room, but I wanted to check. Eßsaal isn’t in the German section of my dictionary, but looking up dining|~ gave me der Speisesaal (dining hall) and das Eßzimmer (dining room). So I cobbled Eß- (dining-) and -saal (-hall) together to get dining hall.
"Ausgefochten" provided some troubles (especially because I thought at first that it was ausgesochten). After some fruitless looking in my German-English dictionary, I just typed it into Google Translate, which gave me “fought.” Then (because Google Translate said, “See fechten”) I realized that it’s a verb that changes its vowel in past tense. I looked up ausfechten in my dictionary to confirm this, but the only translation it provides is to fight out, which doesn’t seem to fit the context very well (“Warsow had not literally fought out his wager”).
Tafel and Tisch were in two sequential sentences, which made me realize that I know two German words for table. It’s easy to come up with synonyms in English, but I’d never really thought about doing it in German, to the point that I didn’t even know that I knew two words for table.
I couldn’t find an entry for Eingewöhnung in my German-English dictionary, but I did find die Eingewöhnungszeit (settling-in period). Since Zeit is the word for time, I just chopped that off and translated Eingewöhnung as settling-in.
“Ihr frohes Auge lachte ihm voller Wohlgefallen entgegen” gave me some problems, mostly with regard to word order. I can’t tell whether “voller Wohlgefallen” (“full of pleasure,” I think) is meant to describe Lisa (or, more specifically, her eye) or Fritz, whom she’s talking to. I also just had regular word choice problems here. I don’t understand why “Auge” is singular (Lisa looks at him with just one eye?), “lachte” can mean both “laughed” and “smiled,” and I’m not sure what to do with “entgegen” (provided I understand what’s going on, I don’t think I need “against” in my translation). I translated the whole clause as “her cheerful eye full of pleasure smiled at him.”
Even though I’m two months into this project, I’m still wary of adding too many words to create a more mellifluous English translation. So this is just a note to say that I supplied the “whether” in “I don’t know whether the hunger or the longing drove us.” The original text has “ich weiß nicht, trieb uns der Hunger oder die Sehnsucht,” literally “I don’t know, drove us the hunger or the longing.” It doesn’t make sense to me without whether or if, but there isn’t an ob in the text there.
“Eine Weile hielt er ihr geduldig stand” stumped me for a while. I didn’t understand why there were both “hielt” and “stand.” Why were there two verbs? “Held” and “stood”? I could understand what was going on by the context of the rest of the sentence, so I tried supplying my own verb. Withstand seemed to fit, so I looked that up in the English section of my German-English dictionary, and then I found standhalten. I’d thought there were two verbs, but it was just a separable-prefix verb!
I got the right idea in translating “Das Kräftige und Männliche seines Wesens,” but I don’t think I have it the same grammatically. I translated “das Kräftige und Männliche” as “the strength and masculinity,” but I think both “Kräftige” and “Männliche” are substantive adjectives. Die Männlichkeit (ironically feminine) is the word for masculinity; männlich is the adjective. Similarly, die Kraft is the word for strength or force; kräftig is strong or powerful. But since they’re capitalized in the text and have -e endings, I’m fairly certain that they’re substantives. So “the strong and masculine [things] of his personality….” That sounds a bit weird in English though, so I went with straight nouns.
My German-English dictionary doesn’t contain “Wohllaut.” I pieced it together to get “good-sound,” but Google Translate gave me “euphony.” Looking up euphony in my dictionary provided der Wohlklang, which is fairly close, so I went with euphony. The rest of that sentence doesn’t translate very well. The “euphony” is a bird’s singing “das Hohelied der Liebe und Minne.” Die Liebe (in genitive case here) is love, and die Minne is courtly love, but “the hymn of love and courtly love” doesn’t have the balance that “der Liebe und Minne” has.
I was dissatisfied with my dictionary’s translation of Jubel (cheering; rejoicing) because it seems to share the same root as jubilation. So I looked up jubilation in the English section and found that it does indeed translate to der Jubel. This is something I only recently started thinking about (mostly because I didn’t understand why my Latin textbook kept translating periculum as danger, even though peril is a directly related word), and I think that if there’re words that share etymological roots between the two languages (the original and the language to which the text is being translated), that relation should be honored and particular words preferred accordingly.
I might regret this later, but I translated “der Garten… lockte” as “the garden... tempted,” to include a sort of Edenic overtone. Locken can also be translated as to lure, to call, or to bait.
