Month 45: Pages 60-61

This Month's Installment

He noticed it immediately; so sure was she in her moves, that she made them seemingly mechanically and more in passing, meanwhile she continued chatting, undisturbed.  "You are a priest, I am a governess, that is a type of relationship.  Otherwise I wouldn't even approach you so easily.  You are from East Prussia, close to the Russian border.  Right?  I read it in the guest book... no, I shouldn't keep talking, you can't pay attention at the same time... stop!  Now you are lost.  You can move as you want, there's nothing more to do... look here:  checkmate!  Here's how you should have moved: the queen, and then here..."
     And with a small, white hand, in which everything lived, and on whose gold finger a big ruby glowed, she showed him the moves that would have been able to save him.  Even now he wasn't concentrating; she felt that he had no inclination for a second match, she didn't seem too keen on it either, she liked to be used to better players.  With a slight movement, she pushed the board from herself, leaned back in her wicker chair, took a little tobacco in tissue paper out of a small silver box, wound a cigarette with a fast talent, and lit it.
     "Now it's your turn.  Tell me about your life, please."
     He tried to.  But the words didn't quite come to his lips.  She wasn't even listening with very great enthusiasm; her legs wrapt over one an-other with casual grace, she squinted at her feet, whose delicate build couldn't be hidden by the strong

---60---

shoes she chose for this weather.

Grammatical Minutiae

I think I've translated "Jetzt sind Sie verloren" correctly as "Now you are lost" rather than "Now you have lost."  I know there's a group of words in German that use a form of sein instead of haben in the perfect tenses ("Ich bin gegangen," for example), but I don't think verlieren is one of them.

I've noticed before that the text uses commas rather than semi-colons to separate clauses.  Especially in this installment, this caused some difficulty.  I'm not sure whether to follow the grammatically confusing original and preserve this proclivity or amend this in some way, either by breaking up the clauses into individual sentences (which would probably seem too choppy) or replace all of these commas with semi-colons (which would result in extremely long sentences).  For now, I retained most of the commas, but I did replace a few with semi-colons in order to aid in comprehension.

Like some other sentences I've encountered earlier, there are so many elements in "With a slight movement..." that I'm not sure I have them in the smoothest order.  I'll also admit that "with a fast talent" isn't the best translation of "mit schnellem Geschick," but I couldn't come up with anything better.

I smoothed out "Aber die Worte kamen ihm nicht recht von den Lippen," although perhaps I shouldn't have.  Literally, it's "But the words came to him not right from the lips" ("right" in the sense of "correctly"), but I translated it as "But the words didn't quite come to his lips."  Maybe it's just that German isn't my first language, but the original seems a bit awkward to me.  Since Hans is having trouble finding his words, though, this awkwardness might be intentional.

Like "With a slight movement..." there were a lot of elements to include in "She wasn't even listening...."  I flipt the voice of the relative clauses "deren zierlicher Bau auch die starken Schuhe, die sie für dieses Wetter gewählt, nicht verbargen" so instead of the literal (and awkward) "whose delicate build even the strong shoes, that she for this weather chose, didn't hide" in active voice, I have the smoother "whose delicate build couldn't be hidden by the strong shoes she chose for this weather" in passive voice.

Month 44: Pages 59-60

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about:

She had freed and set in place her dark hair from the felt hat, whose only ornamentation was a bold feather.
     "You play chess.  I can tell by looking at you, one can tell by looking at all people.  In the same way that you are a priest."
     "I've always been told that I don't look like a priest at all."
     "On the contrary!  From the first glance.  Certainly, you wear a light gray suit, also your beard is secular.  But it is something in your movements, in your bearing, that betrays your profession.  Yester-day evening I saw it right away."
     "Yester-day evening?  I don't remember noticing you there."
     "I believe that.  I was here in the social room and made my studies through the open door.  There's certainly nothing else to do now.  You sat directly across from me, and I said to myself: officer?  No, his face is too pallid for that.  Farmer?  Same reason.  Businessman or civil servant?  Too much of the cerebral in his features.  Artist or author?  Too civilly proper.  So, priest."
     "You seem to spend a lot of time with people."
     "I get around the world a lot; I observed quite a few people there; I - well, didn't you agree to a game?"
     She had taken the game board out of a closet, distributed the pieces that she set up

---59---

and made the first move.  Everything went so quickly that he, without really knowing it, was all of a sudden in the most enthusiastic match.  She was a master at the game.

Grammatical Minutiae

I flipt the voices of the verbs in both clauses of the sentence "Man hat mir sonst immer gesagt, daß man mir den Geistlichen gar nicht ansieht" so they're passive instead of active.  "I've always been told..." seems more natural than "One has always told me...."  I'm not even sure how I would render the second clause with an active verb.  (My dictionary doesn't provide a translation of ansehen with quite the same sense that it's used with here, which complicated things.)  Maybe something like "one can't tell at all by looking at me that I'm a priest."  It's unwieldy, and "that I don't look like a priest at all" flows much better.

I've mentioned this before, but I still don't really know how to translate "doch," even though I understand the sense.  I translated "Doch, doch!  Auf den ersten Blick" as "On the contrary!  From the first glance," and I feel that I have to justify a few things about this.  I included only one of the "doch"s and translated it as "on the contrary."  Having this twice ("On the contrary, on the contrary!") is unnatural and seemed like overkill.  As something in the way of compensation for omitting one of the "doch"s, I exaggerated my translation of "Blick."  Instead of simply "look," I translated it as "glance."  Hopefully, this conveys something of the same impact of the double "doch" in the original.

I took the indefinite pronoun out of "Man hat jetzt ja nichts andres zu tun" so instead of a more literal translation ("One certainly has nothing else to do now"), I translated it as "There's certainly nothing else to do now."  It's a more natural rendering.

Month 43: Pages 58-59

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

     When he got up the next morning, the same gurgling rain trickling; the sea, of which he had an extensive view from out of his window, no longer so violently rough as on the last night, but almost murkier and gloomier, as a bored monster stretching itself out, enveloped the protruding coasts in thick fog.
  He was the only one in the breakfast hall, it appeared no other had gotten up so late.  Now he proceeded to the hall.  As if they hadn't gone to sleep at all, so sat the same people with the same tired expressions exactly in the same place.  Now and then one or an-other probably got up, went to the weather indicator that stood by the entry door, examined, tapped, shook his head, and turned disgruntledly as he came back to his place.
  "Maybe you would play a game of chess?"
  Hans had just withdrawn into the big social room and - undecided as to how he should kill time on this depressing morning - started to leaf through a few magazines when a soft, pleasant voice struck his ear.  Before him stood a young lady, small and delicately built, in a greenish-gray, fur-garnished jacket that fit close and tightly around her radiant body; on her head she wore a felt hat of the same color, under it waved her thick, deep-black hair, in which a few raindrops had gotten caught,

---58---

on both sides over her pale-brownish, sharply-cut forehead.  "I was just about to go outside for a little bit," she went on, without waiting for a reply.  "But it is impossible.  And here inside, one goes to waste out of boredom."

Interesting Words I Happened Upon

• die Siebenhügelstadt - City of the Seven Hills (Rome)
• die Siebensachen (pl.) - (all one's) things [I'm assuming that this is related to the Biblical idea of seven as a number of completeness]

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I couldn't do much to change the unwieldy descriptions that separate the subject from the verb in the clause "the sea... enveloped the protruding coasts...."  It's that way in the original German too, and since I translated it in sections, I myself got confused.

I translated "Spielen Sie vielleicht eine Partie Schach?" as "Maybe you would play a game of chess?" even though it's literally "Maybe you play a game of chess?"  The verb is just an indicative, but there's something of a conditional in the question.

This could have gone under "Interesting Words I Happened Upon," but I'm sticking it down here because it's actually in the text.  Blättern means to leaf through, and it seems to be etymologically related to das Blatt, the word for leaf.  So that's nice.

Month 42: Pages 57-58

This Month's Installment

One lookt in his colorful game, thought on this and that, yawned furtively and talkt now and then, always about the same things: about the bleak weather, about the dreariness, about the dwindling attendance.  A few men played a game of whist at the round mahogany table that stood in the middle; in the rocking chair an older but youthfully dressed lady with a bored face read a newspaper that was as big as she herself.  From outside sounded the surging lap of the waves that noisily, furiously came drawn from the height of the sea and beat hard and firm on the beach.
     The little lady with the big newspaper got up from her rocking chair, took one of the big bare logs that lay near the fireplace, and threw it in the flame.  With greedy tongue, the flame lickt up the welcome fuel, hissed loudly, and flashed back.  The rattling and crackling of the dry wood became stronger.  A dull bang like a pistol shot, then the excited element calmed itself down.  The lady nestled herself into the rocking chair again and immersed herself in her newspaper.  No one spoke anymore.  Something wintry lay in the air.  But it was the end of June, and Hans Warsow sat with the others by the fireplace in the great all with all of the comfort of the furnished guest house "Sea Star" in Zoppot, which lay close to the sea.
     He had planned on several days of walking on the beach. 

---57---

But despite all bravery, with the continuous rain, he had to give it up and had reached the goal of his trip so much earlier than he planned.  Now in Zoppot, which with only a quick stop had made an indelible impression on him, he wanted for a few weeks to rest, bathe, stretch, jump around, and gather new strength.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I couldn't manage to put it in my translation, but there's alliteration in "zischte laut und zuckte zurück" (hissed loudly and flashed back) that represents the sound of the fire.

I'm not exactly sure I've translated "in der Diele des großen" correctly.  It's literally "in the hall of the great," with "great" as a substantive adjective.  I translated it more simply as "in the great hall," which makes more sense but might not be accurate.  In the same sentence, there's the city "Zoppot," which apparently is anglicized to "Sopot."

I'm not that happy with the word order in the sentence "Now in Zoppot..." specifically the prepositional phrase "for a few weeks," but there really isn't a good place to put it amid the other constructions.

I actually got a bit further in my translation this month than what I've posted here, but I'm in the middle of a long sentence, so I'm waiting until next month to post it when I'll have the whole sentence translated.

Month 41: Pages 56-57

This Month's Installment

To join myself now to completely strange people in an unknown congregation with such a responsible mission, I don't have the courage for that."
     She had gotten up and stood in a position exactly opposite him; then the bitter uncommunicativeness was also in her figure.
     As Hans left Edith, two things were in him: anger and sadness.  And he didn't know which of the two was larger.
     From this hour on, there was a change in him.  One noticed it both in his character and in his work.  He was busier and more dedicated in his work than ever.  But he struggled with some difficulties in his position that concerned him all the more, he took everything ever more scrupulously.
     The spring came and brought a few beautiful days of the gathering of the three siblings in Bärwalde.  But even Fritz found his brother changed.
     "It is the uninterrupted activity that has exhausted him," he said to Else.  "If he had my healthy work out in the open, he would be fresh and well like I."
     On an evening on the veranda they both took him to task: he had to open up and do something for himself.  He refused.
     But as the summer came closer and the days in Rodenburg became hot and paralyzing for the work, the longing for air and freedom grabbed him so unbearably that he submitted an application for four weeks of vacation and set out on the trip.

---56---

     The rain fell in thick strands for three days, persistently, relentlessly.  A few showers mixed with it, and from the sea a fresh breeze came up.
     In the fireplace of the ancient, furnished hall, the fire crackled.  A small circle of people was gathered around it.

I have no notes this month, other than I finished chapter nine and started chapter ten.

Month 40: Pages 55-56

This Month's Installment

As always, what's italicized is what I'm unsure about:

In the new office I like to have dealt with some false things, to have made some mistake - it is not easy to find one's self in such a changed condition, especially when one should be exemplary in everything that one says and does - ,but one thing I may claim of myself: I also brought the good, honest will here and, if it doesn't sound exalted: the pure heart."
     "I believe you."
     "But you don't help me when I ask you."
     "I would like to say something to you, Pastor Warsow, even at the risk that we will then no longer understand each other at all - "
     He noticed that it was not becoming easy for her to continue.
     "I - yes, I also cannot regard this type of working effort as much as you.  The care of the poor and sick of the congregation, it is a beautiful, noble thought.  But do you really believe that the women whom you call together for this purpose are capable of translating it into the act?"
     "It will be difficult for them in the beginning; then they will grow into their duty."
     "They will not be missing a good will, certainly not.  They will give with full hands - always to the wrong one!  Because from where do they have the eye for the real need, from where the practice?  I am afraid that what they do in this way is again a dilettantism of the work that I've always hated."

---55---

     "Perhaps you yourself have not yet made an attempt?"
     "I have not been idle in Reckenstein and have my experiences; because I have met almost all the people - and always gave to the wronged.

Grammatical Minuta

I'm unsure about translating "dem Unrechten" as "to the wronged."  In the context, it seems like Edith is talking about poor people, but I couldn't find a substantival use of "unrecht" in that sense in my dictionary or in doing research online.  This is also a singular ("to the wronged [man]"), which doesn't particularly suit the context.  So I don't know.

Month 39: Pages 54-55

This Month's Installment

     "I was prepared for this answer," he said very quietly, "and still I would like to know why you give me such a short negative reply."
     She hesitated a moment.  "Because for me it appears the main thing for a person and his action [is] that he knows where his purpose lay and what he feels himself capable of.  Because only then can he work with success and satisfaction.  I do not hold myself capable of this type of work that you wish from me."
     "No," he answered with the same quiet, "it does not lie in that.  But you don't want it to."
     "Who tells you I don't?"
     "Your whole behavior from the beginning on.  Constantly you have lookt with disdain, sometimes almost animosity, on that in which I saw my purpose, what I began with a good, honest will.  You have despised my spiritual striving, never read my books, not even the one about East Prussia.  With some chapters that I wrote in a peaceful moment, I thought about you, about the impression that it would probably make on you - and you didn't read it once -"
     "You thought about me?"
     Suddenly there was an-other sound in her voice: something astonished, shocked almost, simultaneously something soft, warm, as - until now - he had never it heard from her.
     "Yes, about you," he freely admitted.  "It's something in you, in your appearance, in your essence, that for me embodies this country in its strength and significance."
     She lookt at him; a marvelous glow was in her eyes - but only for a second, then 

---54---

it again had that expression of quiet stiffness that to him [was] so often too strange and that he did not like in them.
     "I changed my job," he continued, and his speech became more lively and faster, "and came here as a priest.

Grammatical Minutae

I translated "verkörpert" as "embodies" because I believe there's an etymological link here (also for the simple reason that that's what my dictionary suggested).  I couldn't find anything to substantiate this, but I'm pretty sure that verkörpern comes - in part - from corpus, the Latin word for body.  Obviously, body is an element in embody too.  So this is something of an exact translation.

There are some inconsistencies of number in the sentence "Sie sah ihn an, ein wunderbarer Glanz war in ihren Augen - aber nur für eine Sekunde, dann hatte es wieder jenen Ausdruck von leiser Starrheit, der ihm so oft zu eigen und den er in ihnen nicht mochte."  There's "ihren Augen" ("her eyes"), which is plural, but later they're referred to with the singular "es" ("dann hatte es wieder") and then back to plural with "in ihnen."

Month 38: Pages 52-54

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

     "Really, my visit is meant mainly for you, Miss von Barrnhoff," replied Hans when she apologized for her father with his illness.  And to get to his real purpose immediately:  "I wanted to ask you to enter into the managing committee of a deacon society that we want to establish after the occurrence of another also in our Nicolaus congregation."

---52---

     "A deacon society - what's that?  Excuse my ignorance in these things."
     "A society in which a number of ladies join forces under the chairmanship of the priest in order to take over the care of the poor and the sick personally."
     "And how does that happen?  I mean, how do they do that?"
     "Now, by visiting them in their apartments, checking their living conditions and their need through getting hold of food or guiding in an-other suitable way."
     "They visit them in their apartments?"
     "Yes, it's exactly on this personal work and interest that we place value.  The poor and the sick should know that even one in the higher class has a heart for them.  A bridge should be built to reconcile the conflict of the classes that our city fulfills too."
     "To reconcile the conflict of the classes - " she repeated slowly, and a quiet smile lay on her lips.  His eye rested on its appearance.  Her slender shape with the harmony of her limbs and the soft, somewhat slow movements, the head with the sharply cut face and that distinct determination in it, that knows what it wants and doesn't need to ask, and over all of it, the crown of the wonderful hair, something distinctly German and at the same time rurally aristocratic spoke from her appearance and her face.  He could not escape from the impression of her personality.  She was the first women who exercised a certain power on him.
     "I appreciate the faith that you place in my, Sir Priest," she replied after short consideration.  But you may

---53---

charge me with it if I don't warrant it.  Your choice has not fallen on the right one."

Grammatical Minuta

This isn't so much about the text itself, but I encountered the word entschuldigte (third person singular past tense of entschuldigen) and realized something about it.  I translated it as apologized, but because ent- refers to removal and Schuld and schuldig mean guilt and guilty respectively, entschuldigen literally means something along the lines of "to remove guilt."

Month 37: Pages 51-52

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

The aimless helping and giving have no purpose, one never meets the right thing.  I was at Stoltzmann's yester-day.  He wants to make sure that we receive a deaconess for the congregation; his wife even promised me her entry into our board of management."
     "See, see, Frau Lisa as carer for the poor and the sick!  There you really have a success to record."
     She mentioned the names of two other ladies who had likewise [sich bereitgefunden].  "But there are still some missing," she added.  "I was thinking of Edith." 

---51---

     "Of Miss von Barrnhoff?" he askt with some astonishment.  "She will not want to; that is nothing for her."
     "Why not?"
     "You and Fritz want to get to know her better.  But I find there is something in her - I don't want to call it arrogance, but something negative, something excluding herself from this type of public activity."
     "It would depend on the test.  You always said that you have to make your visit to the old gentleman; you could take this opportunity to speak with her."
     He thought a moment.  "Good," he said then, "I will go to her to-morrow." 

     Edith had just returned home with her father from the doctor when Hans Warsow was announced to her.
     The old Reckenstein citizen was considerably better.  The treatment had done wonders.  But he still couldn't get used to the city and its peculiar customs.  And because he had visits only in the afternoons and in the evening, he grumbled about this pointless disturbance of his peace, which was prescribed for him before dinner.
     "I'm not putting in an appearance; you speak with him if it must be.  But make it short!"

Grammatical Minuta

It might just be my translation, but "the aimless helping and giving have no purpose" is redundant, just like the things it's describing.  I changed the number of the verb there, too.  The original is a singular verb but with a plural subject: "Das planlose Helfen und Geben hat keinen Zweck."


Just an additional note: I finished chapter eight.  "Edith had just returned home..." is the beginning of chapter nine.

Month 36: Pages 50-51

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

     Meanwhile, he had begun his lectures for which Mayor Stoltzmann had obtained him and in which he wanted to give in orderly sequence a development of the German religious philosophy from Kant until the present time.  He had gladly undertaken this work because it led him back into the spiritual circle that he had left.
     Although the topic was not easy, the registrations had come in in such great numbers that Dr. Stoltzmann had to use the biggest hall 

---50---

that was available to him in the city.
     Hans leafed through the list of the participants.  All of the well-known names were recorded on it: higher government officials with their wives, officers, many individual women who also regularly heard his sermons, the first mayor with his wife - only one name was missing: Edith von Barrnhoff.
     He knew that she had left Reckenstein at the beginning of winter because her father had to undergo a lengthy treatment here in the city.  He had seen her on the street quite often, even spoken to her a few times.  She had enough time - was there an aim in her staying away?  He had to smile at himself, that with such unexpected and great participation, the absence of a single name caused him trouble. 

     One evening his sister stept into his workroom.  "It might now be the time to bring our thoroughly discussed plan to realization," she said, "the establishment of a deacon society in your congregation.

I have no comments on this month's installment aside from: I finished chapter seven.  The next chapter is less than a page, so it shouldn't take too long to finish.

Month 35: Pages 49-50

This Month's Installment

As always the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

the mealtimes, prepared in moderation, that he always had alone, also offered him no rest because he could mull over his thoughts unhindered; some good plans that he considered for his congregation remained unrealized because he didn't have the wifely hand.  Who could offer it to him better than his sister!
     She was the youngest of the three of them.  When they 

---49---

were children, the age difference had not let a closer relationship develop between them.  That first happened when he came back to work for the second theological exam in the house of his mother, who had now long since passed away.  She was seventeen years old then, but of a [Reise] that went out above her age and with a thirst for knowledge that let her take an interest in some of his works with understanding.  The faithful loyalty that the two of them had kept for one another for her whole life had begun then.  Only later did he find out that that winter she had refused every invitation, every request of a friend just in order to be together with him for an evening hour that he had free for her.  She had never told him anything about it.  Now he again was granted the chance to be able to rebuild with sincere joy the old relationship that he needed more than ever from her.
     Else had come.  In the determined way that was forever her own, in the first days she immediately questioned many of the changes in the house, like the way of life of her brother.  At first, she didn't make much sense to him, but he soon felt her benefit.

Grammatical Minutae

I couldn't find a direct translation of weiterspinnen ("weil er ungehindert seine Gedanken weiterspinnen konnte"), although it's clearly a compound form from weiter (further) and spinnen (to spin).  That's to spin in a sense similar to that in the phrase to spin a yarn.  Eventually, I translated this as "to mull over," which retains some of the implied movement in weiterspinnen.

Although it's not a translation listed in my dictionary, I translated aufkommen as develop.  My dictionary gives me words that are synonymous with develop, but they're not applicable in this context (about a relationship).  Aufkommen is plainly translated as arise, but there are also specific meanings including thunderstorms (to come up) and wind (to spring).  Develop has the same sense, but it fits better within this particular context.

I'm not particularly happy with my word order in the sentence "That first happened when he came back to work for the second theological exam in the house of his mother, who had now long since passed away" because it makes it sound like the theological exam is being held in Hans' mother house, but the relative clause presents some problems in shuffling the order.  It's this way in the original text too:  "Das trat erst ein, als er zur Arbeit für das zweite theologische Examen in des Haus seiner Mutter, die nun auch längst heimgegangen war, zurückkehrte."  At least I was able to move "zurückkehrte" forward in the sentence when I translated it.

I italicized Reise because the meaning I know and the definitions my dictionary provides (all having to do with travel) don't make sense in this context.

"In the determined way that was forever her own, in the first days she immediately questioned many of the changes in the house, like the way of life of her brother." has some clunky word order too, but there are just so many elements in it.

I should also admit that I didn't translate a sentence or clause to-day (the 14th) because I was at the end of a paragraph.  The sentence at the beginning of the next paragraph is a longer one, so I would have split it into clauses, and as a result, this month's installment would have had an odd ending (although I ended in the middle of a sentence last month too...).

Month 34: Pages 48-49

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

And now my sisterly nervousness, which causes you so much trouble, scolds, but I find it is not sufficiently taken care of for you.  You know what this is about.  Even as a lecturer in Bonn you askt

---48---

me repeatedly to come to you and to run your household.  I couldn't then.  And, quite frankly, my dear boy, I also didn't want to.  The field that presented itself to me was for me, with all love for you, too small.  Now you are the priest of a large congregation, and what you indicated to me several times, I understand very well: there is no wifely helper for you for your work in the congregation.
     So, shortly and clearly: if you want me, I will gladly come, run the household for you, try to make life a little more comfortable for you, and satisfy my need for activity with work on the duties for your congregation.
     Now write to me just as frankly what you think.  I am ready at any moment; yes, I may even add that the wish to be able to be something for you and to live together with you was not without effect on my notice [of leaving my position].
     Warm regards, old boy, from your loyal sister

Else

     Nothing could be more welcome to Hans than this letter, which he found one morning on his writing desk.  Else had hit on the right thing.  Indeed, he was lonely.  He brooded in the long evenings, which he spent - almost without exception - at his writing desk, in all types of spiritual questions and problems;

---&---

For the first time, I have no comments on the grammar, which leaves this post a bit shorter than usual.