This Week's Installment
She knew it and did it all the same. A little humiliation couldn't hurt him.
He answered almost calmly: "Fritz has taught you well. Yes, I hoped it once and was very disappointed as the affair came to nothing. But I soon found myself. In the meantime doubt emerged for me, whether it would be right to devote my whole life to the academic career."
"I believed another would not at all be out of the question for you."
"O but. Actually my inclination, perhaps also my ability, pointed me more to the vicarage. Just during my year of lecturing in Bonn the advantages in addition to the faults of this profession had become clear to me. I did without contact with the large spheres of people, in which I could support my ideas and goals more effectively than in a small circle of students. - I was in Rodenburg this morning. That's why you see me in this solemn
---21---
garment. There I had a good connection; I travelled here by the fast train. Fritz wanted to send for me tonight from here to Bärwalde. Perhaps he's even coming himself."
A shimmer of delight flew over Edith's beautiful features. It didn't escape him. These last words appeared to spark a stronger interest in her than everything that he had said so far. But now she turned herself to his matter again:
"You were in Rodenburg? I don't understand how it can be connected with what you just told me."
"Very easily. The first vacancy in Rodenburg will be at St. Nicolaus church. I have applied for it."
"You? In Rodenburg - and at St. Nicolaus'?"
A bright astonishment lay in her words, which she uttered individually and in bigger intervals.
"That appears to astonish you - ?"
"Yes, greatly -
Interesting Words I Ran Across by Happenstance
- der Dreck - dirt, muck, filth; rubbish, garbage [I find it interesting that Dreck is a word in German because dreck is also a word in English, although apparently not a very common one. I know it only because of Chris Baty's use of it in No Plot? No Problem!: "The main thing separating the mind-blowing, life-changing stories of a great novel from the treacly dreck of daytime TV is the manner in which the tale is told." Merriam-Webster's etymology seems to suggest that it came into English from German.]
- entgehen - to escape ["Escape" in both literal and figurative senses. Usually, these "interesting words I ran across by happenstance" are ones I find in my dictionary when I'm looking up a word in the text, but entgehen was actually used in the text (in the imperfect tense: "Er entging ihm nicht"). Based on the sentence it's in (specifically the "ihm"), I'm pretty sure it's a dative verb, which is why it's in this list of interesting words.]
- in sein - to be in, to be the fashion [I don't find this so interesting in itself, but rather the part of speech is interesting. This is listed under "in" in my dictionary. It's "adj.: ~ sein." In the sentence "it is in," "in" is indeed an adjective, but "it is in" seems to be a curtailing of "it is in fashion." In that sentence, "in" is a preposition, and the prepositional phrase "in fashion" is adjectival. What I find interesting about "in" being an adjective is that it came to be considered that part of speech through an abbreviation of a construction in which it's a preposition.
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
Despite having studied German for almost a decade, I'm still not really sure how to translate "doch," so for "O doch," I have "O but," which isn't exactly fluid English, but it's the best I could do.
"Fritz wollte mich heute abend von hier nach Bärwalde abholen lassen" is an-other one of those sentences where I've translated every part but can't come up with a way to put it in a smooth English translation. It'd be easy enough were it not for the "von hier nach Bärwalde." Anyway, I've translated it as "Fritz wanted to send for me tonight from here to Bärwalde."
"Fritz wollte mich heute abend von hier nach Bärwalde abholen lassen" is an-other one of those sentences where I've translated every part but can't come up with a way to put it in a smooth English translation. It'd be easy enough were it not for the "von hier nach Bärwalde." Anyway, I've translated it as "Fritz wanted to send for me tonight from here to Bärwalde."
I'm pretty sure the "großes" in "Ja, großes" is a substantive adjective. That's why there's a "-es" ending; if it were an adverb, it'd just be "groß." I think it's "great [astonishment]" since there's "ein helles Erstaunen" (a bright astonishment) a few lines earlier.
"Yes, great [astonishment]" doesn't really translate well into English though, so I changed that substantive adjective into an adverb to get "Yes, greatly." The same sense is there, although the grammar is different.
