This Week's Installment
As usual, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:
Awhile ago you didn’t take your sentence to the end. What do you believe?” He collected himself: “I believe,” he said then, “that his missed Königsberg hope has become a definitive decision, that no one had believed him capable.”
“What sort of decision?”
“I may not speak about it. Even not face-to-face with you, Edith, did I do it so willingly. Maybe he will tell you it himself.”
“He will hardly give me this honor.”
“Maybe he will. He announced his arrival from Bärwalde to me within a few weeks and also wrote from a visit in Reckenstein.”
They had stept into the house. Uechteritz stood at the grand piano and sang Schumann lieder. He had a soft baritone voice that stole into the souls of the women and clung to them, often more than his small jealous wife wanted. Frau Lisa accompanied him; the others were all ears; only the Reckenstein citizen sat with Rodenburg’s first mayor in the remote parlor with a bottle of red wine and negotiated political questions in that strained manner that was characteristic of most of their conversation. They both knew that they would never come to any end, but always started off, maybe because they would have agreed even less about other things.
Edith had ridden with her father over the fields. The old gentleman still had some things to do on the grange,
---14---
and - because she, from long-standing experience, knew and dreaded the endless range of his conversation with the Hofmeister - she had ridden on a straight path homeward.
“A gentleman has waited on the power for half an hour,” reported the servant and handed her the card. “Lic. Dr. Hans Warsow, lecturer. Bonn,” it read.
In the parlor they stood facing each other. He in a black overcoat with a black necktie, just as serious - as flawlessly dressed. She was still in riding clothes, the cap with a pin with a sparkling knob put through her thick hair, which had a brown, faintly iridescent reddish color. Something of the dull brilliance of autumnal leaves was in it. On her red cheeks lay still the trace of the fresh exercise.
She almost never saw gentlemen in long overcoats; in society they wore the [Leibrock], perhaps the [Halbfrack], or else the light jacket, as it belonged in the country.
He came before her strangely in this dignified clothing, so solemn and grave. But nothing was for her more hateful than the ceremonious.
“I bring you greetings from Fritz,” he said, as he sat down at her invitation.
Interesting Words I Came Across
- verifizieren - to verify [there's also die Verifizierung - verification, both of which I find interesting because they come from the Latin veritas - truth)
- derangiert - untidy; disheveled [I assumed that this is related to deranged, but when I looked up deranged in the English section, I found in Unordnung, gestört, so the similarity seems just coincidental.]
- divers - various [Apparently, this is a cognate with the English divers. I looked up divers to confirm this, and I discovered that it actually has a slightly different meaning from diverse. I’d always assumed that divers was just an alternate spelling, which I guess is not the case.]
- nicht gerade der wahre Jakob - not quite what I want [I'm pretty sure this phrase comes from the Biblical Jacob, who dressed up as his brother Esau and got his birthright]
- fensterln - to sneak into one's girlfriend's room through the window at night with the help of a ladder [I thought this definition oddly specific.]
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
"Vielleicht teilt er ihn dir selber mit" translates to present tense ("Maybe he is telling you it himself"), but present tense doesn't make sense there, plot-wise. I faintly remembered something from high school German about how present tense forms can also be translated as future tense, so I translated it as "Maybe he will tell you it himself." Then I looked through my reference books, and - in my first college German textbook - I found that "German generally uses the present tense to express future time." The examples they provide also include a temporal adverb, which helps to clarify the meaning ("Gehst du morgen...?" "Are you going to go tomorrow...?"). There isn't a temporal adverb in this sentence in the novel, but I still think it's intended to be future tense.
I translated "Er wird mich dieser Ehre kaum würdigen" as "He will hardly give me this honor," but I feel I should note that when I looked up "würdigen," my dictionary gave me acknowledge and appreciate. I felt give fit with honor more than acknowledge though.
I always find doch difficult to translate, but especially so in "Vielleicht doch." I went with "Maybe he will." Initially, I'd thought something like, "Maybe, on the contrary," but that seemed wordy. "Maybe he will" includes words that aren't really in the original text (it'd have to be "Vielleicht wird er"), but it's the best I could come up with.
I translated "Schumannsche Lieder" as "Schumann lieder." I think that sometimes using a word from the original language like that seems pedantic, but I looked up lied and found that it's specifically "a German art song especially of the 19th century," a category into which Schumann (1810-1856) falls. "Schumannsche" wasn't in my dictionary, but I'm pretty sure I've translated it correctly.
I feel like I'm saying most of this just because I was excited to see Schumann mentioned.
It doesn't make a difference in my translation, but I can't figure out the antecedent for "ihnen" in "Er hatte eine weiche Baritonstimme, die sich in die Seelen der Frauen stahl und in ihnen haftete..." ("He had a soft baritone voice that stole into the souls of the women and clung to them..."). It could refer to either "die Seelen" ("the souls") or "der Frauen" ("of the women"). Both are third person plurals.
I was surprised to find "die andern waren ganz Ohr." It's the same as the English expression: "the others were all ears." I'd just never thought about how there might be a German equivalent.
In that same (seven-line-long!) sentence, there's the word "zueigen" (in the relative clause "die ihren Gesprächen meist zueigen war"). I couldn't find "zueigen" in my dictionary, but I found "characteristic" under "eigen," which seems to fit the context here ("that was characteristic of most of their conversation").
Earlier in the sentence, there's also "Herrenzimmer," which I couldn't find in my dictionary either. Literally, it's something like "gentlemen-room," so I translated it as "parlor."
The bold E in "Edith" is supposed to be a drop cap. It's the beginning of the second "chapter." There aren't chapter headings, just breaks, but I'm calling them chapters anyway. From now on, I'll also be posting the chapters by themselves, without all of this grammatical minutiae and commentary. Here's a link to the entirety of chapter one, and the other chapters will eventually be in the menu to the right
In the sentence that bridges pages fourteen and fifteen, I ran into some more words that weren't in my dictionary. I tried Google Translate, but I wasn't satisfied with or convinced by their translations. I tried just Googling them, but then I had the idea to type them into the German Wikipedia and then switch it back to English. That's how I figured out what der Vorwerk and der Hofmeister mean.
I'm not quite sure how to translate die Herrschaft. My dictionary gives me "rule; government, reign; power," but I feel that all of those are too political for this domestic situation. I went with "power," which seems more general, but I'm still not satisfied with it, hence the italics. I also dislike how it makes that sentence rhyme "on the power for half an hour."
It took some digging to translate "Lic.," especially because it's an abbreviation. I'm fairly certain it's Licentiate, or - in German - Lizenziat.
That same sentence has an interesting grammatical feature. After Warsow's card, there's "las sie." It could be either "it (the card) read" or "she (Edith) read." Because German pronouns have genders, it could be parsed either way (with sie referring to Edith or referring back to die Karte). I went with "it read" because the focus here seems to be on the card itself.
The "dull brilliance" ("Etwas von dem matten Glanze...") in the description of Edith's hair seems to be an oxymoron, but I think it's that way in the original. As far as I know, it's not my own translation error.
I couldn't find translations of Leibrock or Halbfrack. It's clear from the context that they're types of coats or jackets, but I couldn't find anything specific, so I've put them in brackets.
I translated "Er wird mich dieser Ehre kaum würdigen" as "He will hardly give me this honor," but I feel I should note that when I looked up "würdigen," my dictionary gave me acknowledge and appreciate. I felt give fit with honor more than acknowledge though.
I always find doch difficult to translate, but especially so in "Vielleicht doch." I went with "Maybe he will." Initially, I'd thought something like, "Maybe, on the contrary," but that seemed wordy. "Maybe he will" includes words that aren't really in the original text (it'd have to be "Vielleicht wird er"), but it's the best I could come up with.
I translated "Schumannsche Lieder" as "Schumann lieder." I think that sometimes using a word from the original language like that seems pedantic, but I looked up lied and found that it's specifically "a German art song especially of the 19th century," a category into which Schumann (1810-1856) falls. "Schumannsche" wasn't in my dictionary, but I'm pretty sure I've translated it correctly.
I feel like I'm saying most of this just because I was excited to see Schumann mentioned.
It doesn't make a difference in my translation, but I can't figure out the antecedent for "ihnen" in "Er hatte eine weiche Baritonstimme, die sich in die Seelen der Frauen stahl und in ihnen haftete..." ("He had a soft baritone voice that stole into the souls of the women and clung to them..."). It could refer to either "die Seelen" ("the souls") or "der Frauen" ("of the women"). Both are third person plurals.
I was surprised to find "die andern waren ganz Ohr." It's the same as the English expression: "the others were all ears." I'd just never thought about how there might be a German equivalent.
In that same (seven-line-long!) sentence, there's the word "zueigen" (in the relative clause "die ihren Gesprächen meist zueigen war"). I couldn't find "zueigen" in my dictionary, but I found "characteristic" under "eigen," which seems to fit the context here ("that was characteristic of most of their conversation").
Earlier in the sentence, there's also "Herrenzimmer," which I couldn't find in my dictionary either. Literally, it's something like "gentlemen-room," so I translated it as "parlor."
The bold E in "Edith" is supposed to be a drop cap. It's the beginning of the second "chapter." There aren't chapter headings, just breaks, but I'm calling them chapters anyway. From now on, I'll also be posting the chapters by themselves, without all of this grammatical minutiae and commentary. Here's a link to the entirety of chapter one, and the other chapters will eventually be in the menu to the right
In the sentence that bridges pages fourteen and fifteen, I ran into some more words that weren't in my dictionary. I tried Google Translate, but I wasn't satisfied with or convinced by their translations. I tried just Googling them, but then I had the idea to type them into the German Wikipedia and then switch it back to English. That's how I figured out what der Vorwerk and der Hofmeister mean.
I'm not quite sure how to translate die Herrschaft. My dictionary gives me "rule; government, reign; power," but I feel that all of those are too political for this domestic situation. I went with "power," which seems more general, but I'm still not satisfied with it, hence the italics. I also dislike how it makes that sentence rhyme "on the power for half an hour."
It took some digging to translate "Lic.," especially because it's an abbreviation. I'm fairly certain it's Licentiate, or - in German - Lizenziat.
That same sentence has an interesting grammatical feature. After Warsow's card, there's "las sie." It could be either "it (the card) read" or "she (Edith) read." Because German pronouns have genders, it could be parsed either way (with sie referring to Edith or referring back to die Karte). I went with "it read" because the focus here seems to be on the card itself.
The "dull brilliance" ("Etwas von dem matten Glanze...") in the description of Edith's hair seems to be an oxymoron, but I think it's that way in the original. As far as I know, it's not my own translation error.
I couldn't find translations of Leibrock or Halbfrack. It's clear from the context that they're types of coats or jackets, but I couldn't find anything specific, so I've put them in brackets.
