Month 92: Pages 150-152

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    He was still not convinced.  There came now so many who "participated"; it was become the fashion, even among the noble ladies.  The paid or professionally prepared were preferable to him.  He had his experiences.

    "You want to go through your practical course with us?"

    "I had already begun it in the Pronitten hospital, together with Miss Hanna Teichgräber, when this morning the Pastor came and informed me that I would be summoned to Rodenburg, to the congregation hospital of St. Nikolai."

    "And your father?"

    "Could not be kept, gave himself up, and did not rest until one took him."

    "What is he?"

    "Train station commander in Malkaymen."

    "In Malkaymen.  There he is indeed in the middle of the area of operations."

    "It will probably be so; I still have no news of him."

---150---

    And as if she didn't want to let a rising worry come up:  "Maybe you are right if I sign up with your sister immediately."

    When they stept into the great hall, they found Dr. Moll with Else taking care of a few of the newly arrived.  Hans saw immediately that neither would be available soon.  He led Edith to the various beds and familiarized her with the people and their conditions.

    He led her to Kurt Thomas, the seventeen-year-old ensign who had received a severe shot in the head right in the first battle, over whose childlike, pure face with the quietly beatific smile, the white bandage lay like a halo.  To Klaus Dieckert, the robust Lithanian, whom they had wounded in the right arm, and who, despite medical prohibition, had already taken up exercises with his left so that even with it he could serve his Fatherland.  To Justus Liepmann, the Jewish assistant from Soldau, who with the big, wistful eyes and the full, chestnut brown beard in the suffering, pace face let Baruch Spinoza or Uriel Akosta come to life.

    He also went in the single room with her.

    "Well, finally!" said Nickelmann, who, quickly spoiled by his nurses and fellow patients, had already expected his entrance with impatience and lay in his waterbed under the brown blanket with the same comfort as yester-day.

    When Edith saw the bald head with the strips of beard hanging down on the protruding lips, she could not suppress a smile.  But he lookt at her for a while with his small, dropping eyes, questioning.  "Well, what's that then?"

---151---

he askt the priest then in his unabashed way.

    "A new nurse, Adam, who is come to take care of you and the other patients."

    But his words, in which a clear rebuke lay, appeared to make little impression.  Again, a questioning look, a slow shaking of the bald pate:  "Well, if she will do her job?"

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

This may be obvious, but I'll point it out anyway:  in response to Hans' question ("You want to go through your practical course with us?"), Edith offers an equivocation, not an actual answer.  I think that this illustrates something of her character as one of those "who 'participated.'"

There's a bit of an ambiguity in "keine Nachricht von ihm."  I translated it as "no news of him," but I'm pretty sure that "no message from him" is also a valid translation.

I translated "wundgeschossen" as "wounded," but I think it also carries a nuance of having been shot.  It seems to be related to the verb schießen, "to shoot."