This Month's Installment
As always, the italicized bits are what I'm unsure about.
In front of them and behind them, people rushed and pressed; in endless flight, carriages and cars loaded high with luggage rattled and snarled along the street. Finally, they had reached the train station. But it was not possible to approach the ticket office, and the barriers were closed because the platform was already over crowded. To go with one of the next trains was not a thought.He wanted to wait."Definitely not," she said, "we will take a car to Danzig, whatever it costs. I have enough money. He has many bad qualities, but he is not stingy."It was impossible to get a car, they were glad when they, after long searching and asking, finally got hold of a one-horse carriage. She promised the coachman a good tip if he would go as far as his horse could run."We must try to get the D train to Königsberg, then we can both still be home this evening, you at 8 o'clock and I at 10 o'clock."She had the whole trip ready and knew every train, its departure and its arrival, everything down to the minute. Only seldom did she check in the small timetable that she still constantly held in her hand. "Still a little faster, coachman!---100---Whatever happens, you must get the fast train, you should not regret it."A growing anxiety that could increase to feverishness was in her. Then her cheeks glowed, and shining fires lit up in her eyes. She was beautiful in such moments."It has surprised us all. He knew that it would come, for a long time already. He never spoke about it, but I markt it well. But that it would burst out now, he has not thought of that. He has made a mistake, the clever man, thoroughly mistaken!""Mistaken?"She lookt at him, a brief fright ran over her face. But only for a second, then she smiled, bright and maliciously."Yes, mistaken! In his speculation that he pursued more craftily than the slyest Jew. But this time they have passed him by. And it serves him right!"Now they were in Danzig, and there were only a few minutes left until the departure of the train. With a feline speed, she had left the carriage, paid the coachman, and bought the tickets. Immediately after they sat in an overcrowded compartment in second class, the train slowly left the train station.Hans stood at the window and lookt at the wall of people who waited on the different platforms for their trains. At every stop that they passed through, the same image.She saw nothing of all of that. Her head propped against the upholstery, she fixed her big eyes always on the same point, something dead was then in her gaze. But even here on the railway,---101---where she could change nothing, she had the same restlessness."We are late," she said when the train stopt in Dirschau long after the prescribed time; "for you it doesn't matter so much, but I will no longer make the connection in Insterburg.""You are unrecognizable to-day," he said; "on our hikes in Zoppot you were a completely different person.""You are right," she replied, forcing herself into a smile, "I always suffer from railway fever. It is a sickness from my childhood."Now she turned to brighter and better things. "What could people possibly take us for? Perhaps a young couple on honeymoon."
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
There are three instances of asyndeton in the sentence "Vor ihnen, hinter ihnen eilten, drängten die Menschen, in unabsehbarer Flucht ratterten, fauchten Wagen und Autos, hochbeladen mit Gepäck, die Straße entlang." Asyndeton is a rhetorical device in which conjunctions are omitted. Normally, this sentence would be something like "Vor ihnen und hinter ihnen eilten und drängten die Menschen, in unabsehbarer Flucht ratterten und fauchten Wagen und Autos, hochbeladen mit Gepäck, die Straße entlang." In its use here, the asyndeton gives a sense of the congestion and busyness of the travellers. I couldn't find a good way to include this in my translation though, and/so I went with the more straight-forward "In front of them and behind them, people rushed and pressed; in endless flight, carriages and cars loaded high with luggage rattled and snarled along the street." I'm not sure "snarled" is a verb that really applies to carriages and cars, but "snarl" and "hiss" were the only translations my dictionary provided for fauchen.
In the clause "als sie nach langem Suchen und Bitten endlich einen Einspänner auftrieben," the subject ("sie") and verb ("auftrieben") are about as far apart as they can be. This is just the way German word-order is for this particular construction (the verb goes at the end), but this distance also gives a sense of the long waiting period. I tried to retain this in my translation: "when they, after long searching and asking, finally got hold of a one-horse carriage."
In the sentence "Hans stand am Fenster und blickte auf die Mauer von Menschen, die auf den verschiedensten Bahnsteigen ihrer Züge harrten," "verschiedensten" is a superlative adjective, but I don't understand why. I translated "den verschiedensten Bahnsteigen" simply as "the different platforms" rather than "the most different platforms," which - while more accurate - doesn't seem to make much sense.
