This Month's Installment
As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:And when in this moment, a bottle of red wine appeared on the table, he couldn't refrain from telling the story about old Karenke and the ten bottles of Onkels though without in any way connecting it to Hanna's good work. The priest and his wife laughed, but she understood his intention very well. However, she didn't let herself lose her composure in the least; yes, from her eyes a quick, battle-brave look met him, a look that said, "Just wait! Perhaps my hour is coming too; then we'll get even!" That was just what he liked. He wanted to embarrass her, and she pickt up the gauntlet.
---43---
The evening came creeping on soft feet. The sun sank lower, out of the valley rose the gold and hung itself in glistening chains on the white-gray cloud bank that lined the horizon. Once more the sun reached through with crimson hands and lookt on the earth with fiery eyes. The sparrows chirpt even more quietly; the doves too had gone to bed on their [Schlag] in the hayloft. It had become very quiet in the world; a faint wind came from the meadows and carried over autumnal scents. Deep evening-peace covered the parsonage, its garden, and its farmstead with broad, shadowing pinions; from the church across the way, the evening bells rang a few times, then they fell silent.
"Wonderful," Fritz said then. He had indulged himself until then in silent devotion of this celebratory evening mood while the others carried on a casual conversation around him. "When one sits here like this in the middle of this [Pfarridnlle] this evening, which fills the world with its Sabbath calm, then for one it's as it always has to stay on earth, as it could never become different. And when one then thinks about it, how all of a sudden going to war over these peaceful valleys, how it can wake us all up out of the carefree calm of the peaceful delight of nature!"
Interesting Words I Happened Upon
- der Wolkenkratzer - in English, it's skyscraper, but in German, it's cloudscraper
- das Sechseck - octagon, but literally, "six-corner"
- die Blessur - wound, which I found interesting because the French word for wound is la blessure. According to Wiktionary, German borrowed the word from French.
- das Durchschlagpapier - carbon paper, but since durchslagen means variously to go through, to pass through, the show through, to come through, it's literally something like "to-pass-through paper."
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
I think there are some Biblical references in the clause "Tiefer Abendfriede deckte das Pfarrhaus, seinen Garten, seine Gehöfte mit weiten, schattenden Fittichen," which I've translated as "Deep evening-peace covered the parsonage, its garden, and its farmstead with broad, shadowing pinions." It has some resemblance with Psalm 91:4: "He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler" and Psalm 17:8: "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings." I have Martin Luther's translation of the Psalms, so I lookt up these verses and found some of the same words from the novel text (in bold). Psalm 91:4: "Er wird dich mit seinen Fittichen decken, und Zuflucht wirst du haben unter seinen Flügeln. Seine Wahrheit ist Schirm und Schild." Psalm 17:8: "Behüte mich wie einen Augapfel im Auge, beschirme mich unter dem Schatten deiner Flügel."
I wasn't surprised that I didn't find "Pfarridnlle" in my German dictionary. I don't know if I'm reading the type font wrong (which has happened before) or if it's a typo or if something else is going on.
I wasn't surprised that I didn't find "Pfarridnlle" in my German dictionary. I don't know if I'm reading the type font wrong (which has happened before) or if it's a typo or if something else is going on.
