This Month's Installment
As always, what's italicized is what I'm unsure about.
"Pastor," the young woman who had kept silent until then reported to Hans, "my husband has laid in the city hospital for three weeks with an open leg wound. Even now it is not well yet.""Will you be quiet, Tine! I don't need to walk, I come by horse," the young soldier dismissed, annoyed.But Tine did not pay attention to him: "The doctor did not want to let him go. But there was no holding him back. His bad leg, his salary, his wife, nothing matters to him, he must go to the war!""It is also rightly so. Now there is no salary and no sickness. Now there is only the Fatherland, which is in need - Bye, Pastor and thanks a lot!"---126---When Hans came home, again someone was waiting for him. "A young man," said Else," who still wanted to speak to you under any circumstances.""A face that was known to him beamed opposite him. "The pastor doesn't know me any more. Fritz Mattern. I was here once with Pastor and askt him for his kind recommendation because I wanted to join the navy.""I remember, but you were not taken, and you received a much better position in a business here as an electrical engineer, with which you were very satisfied.""Yes," answered the young man, his mouth formed a joyful smile, triumph shone in his small eyes, "but now I have indeed achieved it! I am become a stoker on a warship. It leaves to-morrow! And I still wanted to tell you about it!""A people of heroes!" said Hans to his sister. "Man for man! This one a chief engineer on a submarine! Under the water, he goes into the deepest dark, sees not sky and earth, always in difficult stations full of responsibility, ready for death, certain of death, in which the blonde wife waits for him, prays for him. The other has an open leg wound! But he jumps on his horse because his Fatherland is in need. The third is proud and overjoyed because he gives up a good position so that he may do stoker service deep underwater in the night and blazing heat of a giant ship. And they all rush into danger and death with beaming smiles, with firm confidence of victory! Dear Fatherland may be calm!"---127---Feverish days followed, days full of fervor and energy, full of hot pressure and anticipation. The war went through the country.It had always been there, but it had been sleeping. Sleeping under the fields, which yielded their fruits in their time, under the rising crops, which the sun swept across with a soft, warm hand, which the storm bent and lifted again. Sleeping in the heat of the days, in the refuge of the cool nights, under the songs of the birds that announced the spring, under the falling leaves that the autumn spread over the fragrant ground like a rich gold blanket. So soundly sleeping that they all had forgotten it, wrapt up in their tiny joys and small sorrows, busy with their worries and their plagues, without which they simply couldn't live, and Christmas after Christmas sang thanklessly their "Peace on earth," as it had to remain, forever, without any end.Now, however, it had awakened. It stretched its bony members, it took its powerful scythe and lifted its snake-haired head. It tore the iron horn from its fleshless ribs and blew with its bloodless lips until its lowest depth that rang and cried through the whole world: "The war has arisen! Prepare yourselves!"And they prepared themselves. It was as if the whole world rumbled with the footsteps of deploying troops, with the hoofbeat of saddled horses. Through the forests and fields went the frenzy of the important time. In their formidable strength stood the trees, the slender trunks neatly in a row, as if ready to march.
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
Although it's describing fields, not a tree, the relative clause "which yielded their fruits in their time" seems to borrow from Psalm 1:3: "He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers." In the original German novel text, it's "die ihre Früchte brachten zu ihrer Zeit," and in the German Psalter, it's "der seine Frucht bringt zu seiner Zeit."
The phrase "Friede auf Erden" also comes from the Bible. Luke 2:14: "Ehre sei Gott in der Höhe und Friede auf Erden bei den Menschen seines Wohlgefallens." "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased."
This is the end of chapter twenty-four and the beginning of chapter twenty-five
