This Month's Installment
As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:
With warmth, Hans returned the greeting of his former teacher. The quick walk through
---41---
the fresh autumn air had woven a brownish shimmer around his pale face; his eyes shone youthfully. Now he sat with both ages under the dense pipe-leaf arbor as he so often did in earlier years, and memories from past times came alive.
A young girl appeared and brought the coffee.
"Hanna Teichgräber, Theo's daughter, who now lives with us as my and the grandmother's faithful assistant," introduced the old gentleman. And Hans' eye lingered with pleasure on the lovely vision, whose well-built body came in the simple linen dress with the white apron at the right length, while the yellow-blonde hair was combed to both sides over her forehead. A trace of purity and freshness lay on the rosy face, spoke from the velvet-blue eyes, in which - compared to someone of so few years - were strength and determination. The freshness of the swelling life that the maturity pushed against breathed around the whole figure.
The golden sunlight lay full and soft on the pipe-leaves and now and then forced itself an entrance into the silent dark of the arbor. Outside a few doves flew here and there and bathed the bright [Schwingen] in the air; in the fruit trees chirpt the sparrows so much louder than the day inclined itself.
Wonderfully, this image full of quiet calm and still, cherished peace touched Hans' soul. He thought about the inner struggles, the draining uneasiness that he suffered through recently. This contrast, however, was not reconciled to him; he knew that his life would still face many a difficult struggle. At the same time, he felt within himself strength and courage to take it on.
---42---
A slight autumn fog crept over the earth; the air became even more pure, but at the same time also cool. The priest suggested a walk with Hans when one heard the approach of a carriage.
"The Bärwald taxi!" cried Hanna, and a peculiar vehicle rolled up: a single gray-upholstered seat with a high back on a strange, ornate, yellow-painted wheeled frame. On it lay, stretched out at length, Fritz Warsow, and with a casual hand he drove the gentle mare that one groomed to harness in front of this vehicle. Even two, possibly three, people could travel on the taxi; as far as space is concerned, they had to sit on both sides, back to back, and be very slim and little, and the third perhaps in front in order to hold the lead. But now Fritz was the absolute ruler and made himself comfortable.
The old priest wanted to introduce again, but Fritz interrupted him: "I have already had the pleasure to welcome the kind young lady on one of her Samaritan errands in Bärwald."
Interest Phrase I Happened Upon
fertig ist die Laube! - literally, this is "the arbor is finished!" but my dictionary translates it as the phrase "and Bob's your uncle!" so I'm assuming it has the sense of "well, there you have it!"
Grammatical Minutiae
Minutia, really, since there's only one:
I couldn't find a translation for "sammetblauen" as a whole, but I recognized "blauen" as an inflected form of blau, which is blue. I did a bit of searching and found that der Samt is the word for velvet. I'm not completely confident on this, but I think "sammetblauen" means something like "velvet-blue."
