Month 5: Pages 9-10

This Week's Installment

As usual, the italicized parts are things I'm unsure about:

But that’s only the introduction.”
     “And then?”
     “I take my discharge - it appears it doesn’t please you.”
     “I allow myself no opinion.  But it is not completely understandable for me.”
     A shadow flew over his face.  “And I believed no one would understand it like you.”
     “Maybe, if you give me time to resign myself to it - to-day it’s a little strange for me.  You’ve already called me slow once.”
     An old memory seemed to awake in him; he smiled.  “Do you believe that it’s become so light for me?  Our dispositions are not so dissimilar.  I have wrestled with the decision long enough; now it is irrevocable.”
     “Even now, when you are promoted and are called to Berlin in the general staff.”
     “That’s exactly why I’m going.”  And when she fell silent:  "One overestimates my abilities.  I can only thrive and work in the fresh air, in nature, on the horse that flies through fields and forests.  The sedentary occupation, the work in the narrow room is nothing for me.”
     “You have your service.  One would take your wishes into account; father said it only yesterday.”
     “He is wrong.  In the military career, there are no wishes, 

---9--- 

but rather only obeying.  One decides the place for us; we don’t choose it.  And it is properly so.  I want to be my own man and make a life for myself, as it corresponds to my idiosyncrasy, so nothing remains for me except going.”
     A secret darkness crept over the paths.  Under the trees, it had become cool.  A star flashed.

Interesting German Words I Ran Across

• das Schnauferl - jalopy [I find this interesting only because it seems to come from schnaufen - to breathe hard; to wheeze; to chug (along).]
• ich spür's im Urin - I've got a gut feeling about it [But literally: I feel it in [my] urine.]
• der Benjamin - the youngest, the baby [The entry for this includes "F," which indicates "familiar" or "colloquial."  I'm assuming this is related to the Biblical Benjamin, who was the youngest of the twelve sons of Israel.]

While confirming the plural of der Baum (die Bäume, although the text has - in dative - den Bäumen), I ran across bebrillt (spectacled), which obviously comes from die Brille (glasses, spectacles).  But I also discovered that die Brille can also mean toilet seat.  There's also "etwas durch eine schwarze Brille betrachten," which my dictionary translates as "to take a gloomy view of something," but which literally is "to look at something through black glasses."  In a way, it's opposite but similar to the English phrase "look at something through rose-colored glasses," although my dictionary also directs me to rosa (pink), under which that English phrase appears in German as "die Dinge durch eine rosa (rote) Brille sehen."

And while looking up die Brille, I also found brr, which doesn't indicate chilliness, as the English brr does, but rather whoa! or ugh!.

Grammatical Minutiae

I don't understand why the word for "strange" is capitalized in "heute ist es mir etwas Fremdes" ("to-day it's a little strange for me"). That capitalization seems to indicate that it's a substantive adjective ("it's a strange [thing]"), but a predicate adjective would provide the same meaning and wouldn't require capitalization.

I can't seem to wrap my head around "Eben jetzt, wo du befördert und nach Berlin in den Generalstab berufen bist."  I'm unsure of the verb forms (they seem to be passive), and it doesn't make sense to me as an indicative sentence.  Were the period a question mark, it would make more sense, but I'm hesitant to assert that it's a mere typographical error that's impeding my comprehension.

I have a lot to say about "Ich kann nur gedeihen und wirken in der frischen Luft, in der Natur, auf dem Pferde, das durch Felder und Wälder fliegt," which I translated as "I can only thrive and work in the fresh air, in nature, on the horse that flies through fields and forests."

• I'm not certain of the placement of "only."  There's a difference between "I can only thrive and work in the fresh air..." and "I can thrive and work only in the fresh air...."  The word order of the German seems to suggest the first (and I followed that), but the second makes more sense grammatically.
• "Auf dem Pferde" seems to exhibit a grammatical change between German as of 1916 and current German.  My dictionary tells me that "Pferde" is actually the plural, but the sentence makes it clear that it's singular.  So sometime the form of Pferd evidently changed.
• This isn't specific to German, but "auf dem Pferde, das durch..." got me thinking about the similar function of the definite pronoun (dem / the) and relative clauses ("das durch..." / "that flies through...").  Both provide more information about the noun that they modify.
• I'm glad that "That flies through fields and forests" exhibits alliteration because it helps to emphasize what Warsow is saying about nature.  That's where he thrives, and - accordingly - the words have a harmonious relationship.

I don't know how "der" functions in "Man würde deinen Wünschen Rechnung tragen, der Vater meinte es gestern erst."  Based on the structure, it seems to be a relative pronoun, but I can't come up with a meaning that employs a relative pronoun.  For now, I just left it out; my translation is: "One would take your wishes into account; father said it only yesterday."  That makes sense on its own, but because I didn't use that "der" in my translation, I'm dubious that it's the correct sense.

Like last month, I ran across an-other fortuitously-placed page break.  It's in the sentence "In the military career, there are no wishes, but rather only obeying."  It divides "Wünschen" (wishes), almost to reflect the lack of wishes typographically.  It's as if the word itself can't stand intact.  I'd rather not put page breaks in the middle of words, so I put it after "wishes," but that still achieves a similar effect by separating "wishes" and "but rather only obeying."  Before the page break, there's the thing that isn't present, and after the page break (on the start of page ten), there's the thing that's prevalent.

I might have translated "Will ich mein eigner Herr sein und mir ein Dasein zimmern, wie es meiner Eigenart entspricht, so bliebt mir nichts als das Gehen" incorrectly.  It seems to be an indicative sentence because there's a period at the end, but the word order at the beginning (leading with the verb) usually indicates a question.