Pages 167-168

This Month's Installment

    Thus stands the long row of carriages below in the ravine between the two mountain ridges, and above them, the grenades sing through the air and often explode not very far from them and, bursting, whistle their splinters on the rails.

    The wounded lay on their seats and cushions; many hardly know what is happening; the seriously injured are indifferent; the others also have gradually become used to these noises; they no longer bring them out of their rest.

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    On his bed on the coal car, the Russian captain sits upright.  Or rather he crouches, half sitting, half lying; because his wounds burn.  But he does not grimace; his face remains pallid, waxen, iron; now and then his healthy left arm reaches for the gray field coat and draws it up quite close.  That is the only movement of his body, which is otherwise motionless like a stump.  No one is allowed to leave the train.  The old Reckensteiner alone remains outside, shouting to the carriages here and there.

    Out of the farmstead over there, fire blazes up; straight as an arrow, columns of smoke and flame rise in the motionless air.  And from the heights all around, the guns crackle; black clouds of dust and dirt roll over the raging earth; uprooted plants fly about, as if it were a world in turmoil and the entire universe were burning.

    The old man thinks about Fritz, about his other wounded.  Whether he will lead them out of this wild confusion well, whether the locomotive will come back on time.  But also that without excitement.  Only with compassionate care for the good, brave blokes who lay there in their wounds.  "God may grant it!" he says to himself.  Nothing further.

    Suddenly, his thoughts are in Reckenstein.  It was actually a nice time that he spent there, despite some bereavements and sorrows.  Now it lies behind him like something that once was and can never return again, not even in changed form, something that never really was, a dream that he dreamt once in some night of joy.

Grammatical Minutia

I moved around some elements in "wie eine kerzengerade Säule steigen Rauch und Flamme in die unbewegte Luft."  Literally, it's something like "like a straight-as-an-arrow column, smoke and flame rise in the motionless air," but I condensed this a bit and translated it as "straight as an arrow, columns of smoke and flame rise in the motionless air"

Pages 166-167

This Month's Installment

    An endless train.  Close behind the engine, the two ration carriages, then the hospital carriage and a number of others with wounded laid side-by-side, on top of each other, the doctors and medical soldiers among them, and where the narrowness of the space possibly allowed it, helping them.

    The locomotive did not have it easy:  groaning and puffing, it tows forward the boa constrictor connected to it.  But suddenly, a halt; it has arrived at a narrow pass; the stretch goes uphill; the locomotive stalls.  The

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commander has feared it.  Therefore, he has guided the train up to here.

    The spot is critical; it lies between the high ridges, against which the troops have drawn back, to use them as backing and defense positions against the rushing enemy.

    In fact, on the other hand, one sees little of men, only small groups on the other side of the angularly undulating line, behind which houses and farms anxiously duck.  But in the air, the same sound:  like whirring wings and the whistling of a storm and jets of water whizzing up.  Even out of the treetops, the rain of bullets rattles down, beside the rumbling and thundering and roaring of the cannons.  The battle is in full swing, and he with his train is caught in the middle of the fire!  What will he do?

    He does not consider long.  First, it was a matter of bringing the ration carriages to safety; they must not fall into the hands of the enemy.  He gives an order to go backwards a little to a spot that lies deeper and is protected by the hills.  Then he lets the carriages be uncoupled by the soldiers and sends the locomotive with the rations ahead, to Gumbinnen, when it goes.  But as quickly as possible, it should come back and fetch the wounded; he himself will stay with them!

Commentary

Almost by accident, I translated "wie schwirrende Flügel und Sturmespfeifen und aufzischende Wasserstrahlen" so that it alliterates:  "like whirring wings and the whistling of a storm and jets of water whizzing up."

Pages 165-166

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

For a few days you must, under all circumstances, wait for the healing."

    The doctor says it with a certainty that cancels any protest.

    "We'll take you to Rodenburg," the Reckensteiner butts in; "Your brother is there, and my daughter can look after you."

    "No, if it must be and does not go otherwise, then bring me to Pronitten; I have promised it and can just see that everything is in order in Bärwalde."

    "Good, we are going past there, and you can stop by."

    The doctor has turned to other wounded.  He has hard work.  The injuries are partly of a difficult sort; it takes effort to make the people merely fit to be moved.  Even the Reckensteiner contributes.  There is not much time to lose because the train must leave.  It will not at all be able to take along everyone.  It holds troops.

    When his glance falls on Fritz's neighbor, a Russian captain with a slender, wiry body,

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his face motionless and waxen, his eyes lifeless, dead almost, his uniform disheveled and bloody, he sees a dead man similar to a living one.

    But the old man knows no sympathy; fury wins the upper hand and smothers the human feeling.  "He whom you leave behind has time!  And not much pomp at all is to be made with the bloke!"

    Not the slightest movement goes over the parchment face; coldly and calmly, the dead eyes stare at the commander.  But Fritz, who just wants to get into the train, turns around again.

    "Nothing there, Commander, the man must come with!  He has fought bravely and moreover passed his bottle to a wounded German soldier who lay near him and was crying for water."

    "I recommend what the Captain says," adds the doctor, who has just bandaged the wounded Russian, "he has three different wounds, one of which looks nasty.  Let someone put him here, so he is taken care of."

    "A great misfortune," rants the commander, "yet for the captain's sake - it's alright with me!  But now forward!  Otherwise, we will drive straight into the enemy's arms."

Pages 164-165

This Month's Installment

    "Come on!" says the old man.  "And we're taking the others right away; come here, Rudolf; two such strict blokes are indeed a bit much!"

    The Reckensteiner has been tough and hard his whole life long.  But the comradeship up until death that shows itself to him here forces tears into his eyes; he is not ashamed of them.  "And yet there writes one, who does not understand it, that men become beasts when self-preservation comes into question!" he mutters in the ice-gray moustache.  "Absolutely wrong, like so much that I have learned out of books.  After this war, I'll read no more books at all."

    "Mr. von Barrnhoff!" it sounds up to him.  The voice is known to him; he has often heard it in his life.  And not only known, but loved and trusted for many years.  He looks around himself and sees a wounded officer with whom a young doctor is occupied.

    "Fritz, my dear boy... it's really you!  And look... the confounded gang!  You had a cursed, difficult position.  The dogs lay near you eight hundred meters.  But you will even manage it... even manage!"

    Never in his life had he called him by his first name, never "dear boy," but rather always quite formally with his title or surname.  But in a moment like this what are title and

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formality!  On this bloody border wall of time and eternity, where hands reached out to him and death and life in an unending alternating dance!

    "A small graze, Major - or no, Commander, I must say now," replies the other, and his face shines with joy over this unexpected reunion with the Reckensteiner -, "here on my left arm, just as I wanted to put the binoculars up to my eyes.  They are bandaging me, and I will go right back into the field, right, doctor?"

    "By no means, Captain; the wound, which indeed is negligible now, would get worse, and you could become unfit for service for a long time.

Pages 162-164

This Month's Installment

The italicized is what I'm unsure about.

    Empty is the field, a desolate, ghastly

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chaos.  Trenches and entanglements shot to pieces, destroyed; paper, tins in them; now and then a weapon or a shattered part of it; even leather goods here and there.  Stones, boards, remnants of walls in a confused jumble; among the sideways, fallen ruins, very many broken carts.  Churned up, torn up earth, shell splinters over it, in it - a place of debris that showed the work of human hands in all its patheticness and fragility.

    Countless wounded and dying cover the blood-soaked ground.  Masterless, slightly wounded horses walk over the field, neighing, shrieking; others lay dead and motionless.  Under the gray-glimmering, cloud-covered sky, the ravens caw and hold dialogue with Death, whose triumphing foot strides over the rich harvest field.  Medical soldiers search for his prey, as many as they can, to rescue them.  They are diligent at their work, but their number is insignificant compared to the vast field.

    The Reckensteiner signals to his few people; he leaves behind the stoker and the aide-de-camp; the others must participate there below.  So the rescue work proceeds, and the best helpers are the wounded, one to an-other.  He whose right arm is shot to pieces helps up his heavily wounded neighbor with his left; not ignoring his own wound, one seeks to ease that of the other.

    The small military hospital at the train station goes into action.  A good number of the wounded have already been brought here for the first dressing.  Even here the Reckensteiner is not idle.  The wounded are loaded into the empty carriage with the greatest possible rush for it is necessary.  He himself

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helps out powerfully; a quiet joy is in him that the old poor and ranks can still accomplish that.

    "Let me lie; I'm done for... take him who can still do something!" stammers a simple musketeer and refuses to come with so that he does not dispute the place for his comrade.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

The section beginning with "Trenches and entanglements shot to pieces..." has no verbs, and this sort of paratactic style illustrates the confusion of the aftermath of the battle.

I translated "blutgedüngten" as "blood-soaked" ("Countless wounded and dying cover the blood-soaked ground."), although it's actually "blood-fertilized."

Pages 161-162

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    The sun is already at midday.  Faster, harder followed the rattling, clattering,

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blow upon blow.  On the hilltops over there, it booms and thunders.  Out of the valley, the howling rises up and plants itself firmly at the face of the forest; ever more distinctly does it sing, whiz, flash over to him; in the clear air, numerous hazy white clouds of exploded shrapnel appear; the thunder of the cannons is become roaring.

    There - an-other direct hit!  Flickering, the flames leap out of the middle of a large farm; one hears already their crackling and roaring.  Houses, farms, villages disappear under blazing fires.

    Now it is time.  He has waited until the last.  It is all prepared; a sign, and the track is blown up!

    There is for him, as the noise diminishes a little, as the rattling and clattering let up.  Should the forces on one side be depleted, the ammunition in this endless back and forth be scarce?  Should a decision be made?  The lines shift; no longer do they move in a straight course towards the train station; more they glide sideways to the ridges that offer good fortifications.

    He does not give the order... perhaps he can yet still save and risk, and would it be but half of the poor wounded, who had to languish and go to ruin, he now tore up the rails and forced open the provision wagon.  It had lasted perhaps an hour; he didn't know.  What is the time now, their coming and their escaping!  But the development on the battlefields has clearly gone southwards to the small ridges that lay farther away from the train station.

Commentary

There are quite a lot of instances in this section where I think I translated the words correctly but simply didn't understand the sense of what's going on.

Pages 160-161

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

Sometimes a thin, fluffy, white cloud comes up over them, remains hanging a short while, and yields like a vapor.  There the fierce battle surges.

    The hours pass; morning

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became afternoon; the dark lines move seemingly closer; one minute, they are visible in indistinct outlines; the next they disappear, as if the earth had swallowed them; then it is as if they climbed up small hills and fortifications.

    The thundering of the cannons sounds closer, louder.  The rattling and clattering of the machine guns join it, beside the singing whirring and whistling of the shells.  Tacktack - rrrrr - rrrr - si - tsiiissst - hui hui - baffbaff - bumm!... so it goes without stopping.  The earth rumbles, sighs, screams.  As if a thousand invisible wings were spinning in the air, as if the ground were spitting fire that fizzes up in flashing tongues; spread over the fields, mixed with iron and soul...

    The slowly moving dark lines rise at a steady rate; soon they slacken, open themselves up widely and swarm apart; soon they pull themselves together into close formations; then again they are pushed erratically forwards and just as quickly pulled back again.  And now there is nothing to see.  Until they suddenly emerge a new; here and there whole rows duck; the one rises up, charges forward; the others remain lying.  And the bullets patter there like hailstones, and from all sides, it whistles bangs, whizzes.

    Calmly, the Reckensteiner stands at his post.  Only one grief is in him:  that he cannot be there below, fighting, attacking, dying!  It is something different at the front from up here as train station commander.  Yet he knows that he stands in a post full of responsibility.  That gives him courage and patience.

Pages 159-160

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.

In the wider course, the area is flat; at last greater mountain and hill formations thrust up again, in which bluish-black mists stretch themselves; in between, the wide valley stretches to all sides:  endless fields, farm land, meadows up to the dark garland of the forests that line the horizon without interruption; then villages with high church steeples and large estates - the real East Prussian countryside with its earthy-smelling fruitfulness.  But now filled by the stench of the war, crushed by the brazen step of the battle, which creeps up.

    It is the highest time; the refugees are safe,

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the citizens of Malkaynen have followed them and have rudden away with the incalculably great train, hitched with two engines.  Every compartment is filled up to the last place, even up to the ceiling; in the luggage racks lay screaming children.

    Only a few tolerated the deserted train station:  the commander; his aide-de-camp, who in civilian circumstances is a head forester in the Reckenstein area, whom the old man had known well for years; the stoker; and in addition, a few courageous men on whom one can rely.

    And only one locomotive has stayed for him in case of the last resort.  For among the military hospital wagons and railway carriages, which he held back for wounded, stand two with provisions on the platform.  The commander had ordered them to hold as long as possible.  Perhaps they can serve the fighting troops when they, exhausted, come out of the battle.  Only they may not fall into the hand of the enemy; the Reckenstein citizen knows this and will act accordingly.

    He stands on the platform and keeps a lookout in a moment of calm.  Not far from the station, the staff has its garrison; he believes he is able to recognize it with the sharp binoculars.  Otherwise, there is little to see; only now and then the landscape livens up through the rising smoke of a burning farm, and behind, near the river that cuts through the plain, a few dark, hardly perceptible lines more slowly here and there.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

The same word ("unsehbar") is used to describe first the "fields, farmland, [and] meadows" of East Prussia and then the "great train" that's taking the citizens away from the war.  Because it's the same word in different contexts, I think it's meant to draw a contrast between them.  I didn't include this in my translation, though.  "Unsehbar" is an adjective in the first instance but an adverb in the second, and so I translated these phrases as "endless fields, farmland, [and] meadows" and "the incalculably great train."

Pages 158-159

This Month's Installment

As always, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    "Then we must just bear it, too.  And must rebuild what is destroyed where there is peace."

    "We must bear it, too, quite certainly," he replied, having become calmer, "it cuts out every material casualty that we personally lose.  But the thought that one could surrender this wonderful country like loot-"

    "Do you see," she interrupted him, "out there at the border at this moment our soldiers are standing and defending their home until the last drop of blood.  Your brother Fritz is also among them; do you mean that his East Prussia, even only a span of its soil, will be surrendered?  He'd rather cover it with his body; I know that.  And if they must yield to brutal force, and the enemy still sets his foot on the beloved earth - for whom would it be more difficult to see, for us or for them?  No, nothing remains for us except silently to endure what is imposed upon us.  You are right; he who now still wanted to talk to us about a surrender assaulted these brave men and the good things."

    She had talked herself into a growing heat,

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and each of her words resounded deep in his soul.

    Time had advanced.  She wished him good night; but he still stayed up late; yet he would have found no rest.

    At the train station in Malkaynen there is difficult work to-day.  It got pretty lively here every day, but never like on this day.  Incessantly, the trains come and go; the great battle, which raged since yester-day, casts its waves ever closer.  Not far from the train station, a war-time hospital was set up.  The people flee out of the whole surrounding area; the moving of the wounded becomes greater and more difficult.  Clearly, one hears the thundering of the cannon.  Yester-day, it still sounded dull and sluggish, like the distant rumble of a storm; to-day more intense, quicker, blow after blow.  And one hears each one.  And the earth sways and rumbles underfoot.

    Malkaynen lies a good mile on the other side of a high ridge of the East Prussian land, the plain stretches far under it; hard and angular edges cut through it.

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

Not many comments to make this month.  This is the end of chapter thirty-one, which I believe is the longest chapter so far.  Oddly, chapter thirty-one switches to present tense.

Pages 156-158

This Month's Installment

    His house was not the only one at which they stopped;

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he also saw them knock at others, and everywhere, one opened to them and received them warmly.

    Edith came.  The work was done; all were fed and put to bed.  He left his place at the window and sat down beside her.

    "Many more refugees are come," she said.

    "A sad sight, these poor people, how they wander now through the city, looking for a place for the night...  one is still not at all accustomed to these images," he added, in order to excuse his agitation from earlier, which had certainly not escaped her.

    "I fear we will still have to accustom ourselves to quite different things."

    He did not answer, but she felt that something was working in him.  "Certainly," he finally said, "we will still have to accustom ourselves to much.  And will bear and accept it as has been ordered us by God's will.  I will never grumble or resist it.  But these people here, who wander through night and fog, are a piece of the destroyed home.  And when I look at them, my heart bleeds."

    "One has said to me a word once," Edith replied," that I did not hold believable, that I have passed on to no one, but that I come across now and then, the last time even from such a one who appeared to be well in the know."

    "What was it?"

    "One would surrender East Prussia in a war with Russia."

    "Surrender!?" he cried, and his cheeks flushed hotly.  "Surrender our home, our East Prussia to the Russians, to the robbers!...  I will never believe that.  And you will not believe it either; you're not allowed to believe it!"

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    "No," she answered firmly and definitely, "I told you already:  I have absolutely rejected it and am still doing so now."

    He had stept back to the window and stared at the street and beyond it at the market over there.  "Still!  Homeless, miserable, desperate!" he said, more to himself than to her.  "Now where the war first began... already they come out of Gumbinnen!  How far is it from there to Reckenstein and Bärwalde - maybe thirty miles, not more.  And if they were also to take and scorch that!"

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

I translated "ein heißes Rot stieg in seine Wangen" as "his cheeks flushed hotly," but literally it's something like "a hot red rose in his cheeks."

Pages 155-156

This Month's Installment

    "Fleeing?" askt Hans.  "You?  And the others too?"

    Something heavy, faltering was in his speech.  As if it cost him an effort to make a connection between the words.

    "The battle rages around our city.  The enemy draws closer-"

    "Moving to Gumbinnen?"

    "But, Pastor, let the people up there come!  There are poor refugees from the border who are seeking a shelter.  Come, my little girl, give me your hand; no one will hurt you here!  Come along into the room, where it is already light, where you will no longer be afraid at all!"

    Edith had taken the little one by the hand and led her up the stairs.  "And your brother and sister also come with, and your dear mother.  And soon something warm will be brought to you all."

    The little one had calmed down; she followed the friendly guide with full faith; the two older children already began to recount what she experienced throughout the day.

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    "A nice cup of hot chocolate, what do you say to that?  You see, now you're already making a completely different face!"

    Hans likewise was come upstairs with the woman and let her tell about herself.  Now and then he glanced at Edith; an astonishment lay in his eyes.  He had never thought that she could deal with people in such a way, so friendly and so determined at the same time.

    Else was also there.  Edith was actually annoyed that she had gotten up; she had gladly allowed her the rest and had been able to do everything well by herself.  Now they were both quickly preparing the dinner for the refugees and setting up the room for them.  The chocolate tasted wonderful to the children, but they also ate to their hearts' content of the bread and butter that was served.  They were happy and now had no more objections about their fate, which appeared to them as a very agreeable change of their daily life.

    Else had gone back to bed; Hans stood at the window and lookt on the street.

    It was livelier than usual in this quiet hour.  Streams of people, mostly women and chile, but also a few men, went through it, remained standing here and there, askt about routes or houses, and then walkt farther.  Something helpless and restless was in them; some went silently, their heads bent to the ground; others speaking and moving lively and excitedly.  Now and then a child cried, like that small one just here in his hall... refugees, driven away from hearth and home, dragged through foreign streets in dark evening hours, looking for a place of mercy where they could lay their heads!

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I translated "mit vollem Vertrauen" as "with full faith" in order to keep the alliteration of the original.  Since both words begin with the same sound, it gives something of a sense of that completeness.

"Brüderchen und Schwesterchen" are diminutives, but the context seems to indicate that these two are older than the other girl, so I translated them just as "brother and sister."

I altered some elements in "schweigend, den Kopf zu Boden geneigt, gingen die einen" to get a smoother translation.  Literally, it's something like "being silent, their heads bent to the ground, went some," but I translated it as "some went silently, their heads bent to the ground."  The biggest difference is that I changed "schweigend" from a participle to an adverb.

Pages 153-155

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    And as if he had busied himself with such holy things for too long, he began in strong expressions to complain about the new attendant, who did not deal with him rightly and didn't hold him tightly enough.  And with him about his new bedfellow, who had only an arm and a chest shot and acted at least as if they had torn his head off.

    As they left the room, Edith askt about Fritz.

    "I know only that he is just come into the heaviest fire and is now in the middle of the battle."

    "He comes first among the brave ones.  Whether he returns home or falls, he would do either as a hero."

    Then Dr. Moll came up to them, and Else went to his side.

    With greater joy than even her brother had done, she greeted Edith.

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    "One could send me no one dearer!" she said and with quiet circumspection introduced the new helper into her work.

    Throughout the day there was much to do.  In the evening, however, when the measurements were taken, the mealtime administered, the patients bedded down, and the night guard settled, Else came home and brought Edith with.  She was dead tired; her eyes were already closing at dinner; before nine she went to sleep.  Edith on the other hand, whose strong body didn't feel tired in the least, still stayed together with Hans.  She was talkative, almost cheerful; he, however, quiet and withdrawn.

    "It's getting lively at the border," he said finally.  "Doctor Moll just told me; he heard it from a few newly arrived wounded.  The superiority is too great; despite all the brave resistance of our men, the enemy pushes forward."

    "He will not come far," Edith replied.

    In the same moment, they both came together.  Loudly and shrill rang a noise through the silence.

    "It is at the house door outside," said Hans, "hopefully Else will not be called away again."

    He went to open the door because the girl was already asleep.  In the dull, pallid light of the street lamp that fell from the opposite street corner in the village, he saw a middle-aged woman with a pale, emaciated face, a dark scarf wrapped over her head, under which her hair came out in disheveled strands.  Three children nestled into her timidly on both sides.

    "Only don't be angry, Pastor," she said with tear-choked voice, "but it all came so suddenly... I haven't taken enough money with... and the children... we were directed to your

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mercy... no one wanted to admit us into the guest house."

    "Who are you?  And where do you come from?"

    "I am the wife of the teacher Heinrich from Gumbinnen.  Our pastor pointed me to you."

    "From Gumbinnen? - And why-?"

    "We had to flee... along with many others.  My husband and the pastor remain... but we women and the other citizens..."

    The loud crying of the smallest of the children did not let her speak further.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I decided to stop numbering the months in the titles of these posts.  I'm only a little more than a quarter of a way through the novel, and so by the time I finish, these numbers would be a bit unwieldy.

I couldn't figure out a way to include this in my translation, but in the original German, what Edith says of Fritz ("Whether he returns home or falls, he would do either as a hero") has the structure of a poetic couplet.  The two clauses have the same number of syllables and a slant rhyme ("Ob er heimkehrt oder fällt, beides täte er als Held"), and these features make me suspect that this is something of an aphorism.

That the clause "he, however, quiet and withdrawn" lacks an explicit verb (the "was" from the previous clause in the sentence is implied here) illustrates Hans' more demure manner.