This Month's Installment
As always, what's italicized is what I'm unsure about.
Else hadn't been out of her clothes in days. But in the midst of all the grating activity, she remained the same: friendly and kind to each of her patients and yet of an unbending definiteness.Also over in the lodge For the Golden Key the picture had become much more serious; the charming play of the views and flowers was at an end; now much moaning and groaning also sounded through these halls.Mrs. Lisa, however, showed that she had grown for the seriousness. The strength and litheness of her youthful body let her overcome the difficulty of the unusual work; indeed, the hotter this was, the better it appeared to her. So also the sunshine now came and went with her, passed like a sweet dream of home over the beds of the sorely tried men, played like a quiet smile of the flashing lips, a thankful brightening of half-opened eyes.Hans, however, stood behind neither---148---the doctors nor the directors in devoted work. Among the wounded were many whom he knew well. He had set out to see him fresh in flourishing youth or in powerful manhood; he found him again miserable and infirm. The horror of the war spoke to him with violent tongues. Some, on whose bed he sat, told him about the battle that now raged out there, the one in a clear, coherent account, the other in short sentences repeatedly broken off by pain.The accounts and the local proximity let his finely organized mind experience everything as if he were standing in the middle of it. He heard the rattling and clattering of the machine guns, the whistling of the bullets, the bursting of the salvos. The lines thinned out; here fell one, struggled to his feet, dropt forwards with a last, desperate strength, fell down... there one was knocked to the ground, hard, hit like a piece of iron, and did not stand up again. The grenades whistled, sprayed, banged, a hail of lead and fire. Burr... burr... ratsch... ratsch... rrrr... bum..., so it rumbled and ran in his entire body. And always his thoughts were on Fritz. Where could he be now?Just now they brought one from his squadron. "Our captain? I saw him yester-day still in the middle of the fire. Always up front; there it is no big deal to go with."* * *"Miss von Barrnhoff? Really!"He had actually not recognized her at first when she, in the gray uniform of the nurses, the bonnet on her head, stept into his office. "Assigned to the community hospital as assistant, with---149---orders to announce myself to Pastor Warsow of St. Nikolai."Through the importance of her words flashed the rascal; even in the uniform of the Samaritan, she had the aristocratic bearing that she never abandoned."Well, you too!" Yet at the same time suspicion stirred. "Quite frankly, I had hardly expected it after your opinion back when I askt you about their assistance in our congregation.""Back then I justified my refusal to you. Now everything is become different. What appeared to me back then as dilettantism of work is now duty, necessity, even happiness."
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
I couldn't think of a way to bring this into my translation, but the alliteration of "Blicke and Blumen" ("views and flowers") seems to add something to the beauty of the "anmutige Spiel" ("charming play").
There are two firsts in this section: onomatopoeia ("Burr... burr... ratsch... ratsch..."), which I left as is, and a lighter narrative break than a chapter division (* * *).
