This Month's Installment
As usual, what's italicized is what I'm unsure about.For three years already would she be there. In the winter they lived in Petersburg,
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in the summer the baron would take a long vacation, then they travelled in the mountain region in Switzerland or to the Tyrol. But she would prefer to be in Zoppot.
He had to pay attention, he wanted to understand her words. Because since they left the protection [of the trees] the wind had become stronger and here on the open summit blowed with full breath. Moreover he thought he observed anew what he had noticed even during their first conversation back in the social room of the "Seastar," that there was a quiet foreign tone in her speech.
The baroness would have had to go to Tarasp this summer, but "he" - she always used this short term when she spoke about her employer - wanted to come to Zoppot with the two children. She would have travelled ahead in order to arrange everything. Now she could expect him any day, then her beautiful freedom would have an end. All the more she still wanted to enjoy them now.
For a short stretch the path led close along the beach again. The strong surf and the wind, which was against them, made it difficult, at least for Hans, although he was a good walker. The opposing element didn't bother her. As if she were a part of it, so happily and unconcerned she stept through storm and waves that flooded over her feet and splashed her up to her head.
"It is so beautiful! I love it so!" she cried as she stopt a moment at the start of a hilltop because here, where the path became very narrow, the waves went so high that she could hardly go on.
"I must admit that I would prefer a cloudless
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sky and a quiet, calm sea, at the moment at least for our walk."
"No," she replied lively, "an overcast sky can cause despair, but the eternally blue just makes me very tired and sad. It is right like this: always alternating light and darkness! Always the uncertain that stifles the charm of life. An incessant tipping and rising, just as on this cliff. Only no sunny, quiet rest, always unrest and risk and danger - always playing around life and death!"
She broke off, very suddenly, and as it seemed, not unintentionally. Then her last words came to his consciousness.
"Always in danger?" he repeated. "And always playing around life and death? Do you know anything about it in your youth and secured position?"
"And if I know anything about it! ... Still you are coming, now we want here to go up the cliff again, up there a wonderful path leads through a small forest. I know it from earlier years and will lead you."
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
What I translated as "employer" ("when she spoke about her employer") is "Brotherrn" in the text ("wenn sie von ihrem Brotherrn sprach"). Literally, it means "bread lord," but I couldn't think of a good way to include this in my translation.My dictionary translates ausmachen as "to put out." I used stifle as a synonym, but it still doesn't seem to fit the context that well. I'm suspicious that I might not have even translated it correctly because "always the uncertain that stifles the charm of life" directly contradicts what Nuscha says immediately before that: "It is right like this: always alternating light and darkness!"
I wasn't able to include this in my translation ("tipping and rising"), but "Neigen und Steigen" rhyme.
