Month 15: Pages 22-24

This Week's Installment

As usual, the italicized sections are what I'm unsure about:

you, the man of the intellect, whom Fritz looks up to with respect, who to me - excuse me! - appears sometimes very kind, sometimes a little bit funny.  You, the light of the Warsow family, whose books and writings I didn't dare to read because they appeared too high for my feeble intellect, you - a simple priest in a city that, if not exactly small, is still only of middling importance, at least minuscule compared with Königsberg, where you desired to be a professor, that certainly would have been fitting and worthy for you.  And now pastor in Rodenburg, the successor of the old honest but very simple Maleischke, my confirmation priest - no, that comes as a surprise to me.  What does Fritz say about it, then?" 

---22--- 

"He understands it because he knows me," he returned, now audibly irritated because of the way with which she received his announcement.  "Because he knows that, after all, the subordinate lecturer job in Bonn cannot satisfy me, that I must work with all of my strength and can do this nowhere so well and gladly than as priest of a large congregation.  I find there is nevertheless enough similarity between his decision and mine.  He left a distinguished position that perhaps promised him a significant advancement in order to learn from scratch as a simple apprentice."
     His comparison was fitting.  But she didn't mention it to him.  "But with the difference," said she, "that something would never be made out of him, that despite his acknowledged ability he constantly stept back compared with you."
     Now it came to life in his dark eyes, which had - so slightly - a tired, almost dead expression:  "I don't know who gives you the right [implied verb?] me always as the less humble, who [sich Überhebenden hinzustellen].  You know me only from the judgement of others, who - with the exception of Fritz - have dealt with me with little love and understanding.  Do you want to charge me with it or count it for a sin if I always stood apart because of the arrangement of my nature?"
     She hadn't thought that such emotion could speak from out of the quiet thinker.  He wanted to be right: she didn't know him.  She wanted to say a justifying word when wheels rolled over the driveway in front of the house.  In a simple, but well-hitched self-driver, leading the reins, sat Fritz; near him, with an admirable impunity Schikorr set himself, who had been for Fritz in his childhood days a figure of authority, 

---23--- 

as ruler and leader of the manorial coachhouse, and now ancient as everyone in Bärwalde.
     "Now, have you settled your matter in Rodenburg?" asked Fritz, after he had greeted Edith and his brother.  "And are you content?"
     "Nothing can be said about that for the time being."
     "Have you told Edith about your visit with Stoltzmann?

Commentary/Grammatical Minutiae

Part of one sentence has "ein klein wenig komisch," and since "klein" means "small" and "wenig" means "little," I wasn't quite sure how to translate it.  I went with "a little bit funny," which I think provides the same sense as the original and is about as close as I could get.

For the first time in this project, I ran across a sentence that completely stumpt me.  I think there might be an implied verb that I just can't figure out, and some of the words aren't in my dictionary (Google Translate wasn't any help either).  I translated what I could, but I ended up with a sort of Frankensteinian "I don't know who gives you the right [implied verb?] me always as the less humble, who [sich Überhebenden hinzustellen]."

I ran into a panoply of problems in the clause "neben ihm der noch immer mit einer bewundernswerten Straffheit sich aufrecht haltende Schikorr, der für Fritz in seinen Kingertagen als Lenker und Leiter des herrschaftlichen Kutschstalles eine Respektsperson gewesen und jetzt uralt war wie alles in Bärwalde."  There are just so many elements, and I can't figure out how they all go together.  It's made more difficult because I couldn't find perfect translations for some words ("sich aufrecht haltende Schikorr" in particular gave me problems; I couldn't find anything for Schikorr, so I think it's a name, but I'm not sure).