Month 16: Pages 24-25

This Week's Installment

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

He's probably the highest man of action of the whole affair, isn't he?"
     "We haven't gotten that far yet."
     "Not gotten that far yet?  Surely you must have already been here a long while."
     "We are speaking about general things," Edith joined in, "just now your brother shared with me his decision to apply for the Rodenburg pastor position.  I'm surprised at him."
     "Why surprised?  I think it's a very reasonable idea.  The man must be active in practice, that is the most important thing; and it is good for Hans if he turns himself from the uninterrupted intellectual activity to the rougher reality.  He will do his job, you can be sure of that."
     The old love and high esteem for the older brother spoke from out of his words.  In the simple dark brown suit jacket, he no longer lookt as neat and snappy as in the flattering cuirassier uniform.  But the clear-cut features of his face emerged all the more, and his brown eyes lookt at cheerful and good things in the world.  "Everyone must know best what is good for him, and no one else should interfere with him.  I have experienced it myself." 

---24--- 

"And are you happy in your new occupation?"
     He smiled his clever, calm smile.  "Well, you know, at first I had to decree myself damned.  So from the bottom up!  And old Borowski, whom I knew until then only as a jovial, good man, is a bloody stern gentleman.  And you'll be sorry for him who provokes his anger!  I saw him once as he threw himself at a rebellious worker, and I am astonished even today that the man escaped with his life.  But we both get along well with one an-other."
     "And the old Bärwald citizen?"
     "With him I can communicate excellently, just because he is so terse and frugal in his words.  That raises me above much, especially over the loneliness which is sometimes a little oppressive."
     "But the [Hutemach] is still your best friend?"
     "You bet!

Interesting Word I Happened Upon

• der Johanniskäfer - glow-worm [literally this means "John beetle," so I don't understand how it came to mean glow-worm]

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I've run into an-other word that I can't find a translation for.  "Hutemach" isn't in my German-English dictionary; Google Translate and Wiktionary didn't have anything; and when I searched for it on Google, all I found was an-other digital copy of Wer die Heimat liebt wie du (apparently "Hutemach" is also used on page 279, so I have that to look forward to in a decade or so).  It's obviously a noun (because like all German nouns it's capitalized), and based on the sentence ("But the [Hutemach] is still your best friend?"), it's a person (unless "best friend" used metaphorically and applied to something inanimate or abstract), so I'm thinking that it's an occupation or title.

I couldn't find the phrase "Na ob!" in my dictionary, but it does have "Na und ob," which I'm assuming means about the same thing:  "You bet!"