Saturday, September 14, 2024

Pages 179-180

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.
But it was just good comradeship, nothing else.  Sometimes she had probably believed she felt more for him; now it was clear to her that it was sisterly affection that she felt for him.
    The image of his older brother stood before her soul.  Previously, he had been distant to her, indeed not once pleasant.  To be only on the spiritual side of the directed striving, that quite easily overlookt the ordinary mortals and their being there; she had kept away from him.  Still even now, certainly, there was something in him that she felt as dividing, even now he lived with all the trouble that he gave himself in the world of his thoughts; she noted it well in him, how in his spiritual and religious line of thought he still could not find his way in the hardship and in the frights of this war.  But now she saw this inner wrestling, this seeking and striving upwards in a different light.
    The morning dawned shyly and hesitating through the darkness outside.  The storm had died down a little, but the rain still hammered hard on the panes.  Edith turned off the lamp; a wounded man called her; the morning work began.

    In the late morning, in the antiquated sitting room of the magistrate, decorated with expensive carvings, ceiling frescoes like tapestries out of brocade and red damask, rich jewelry, the meeting to which the mayor had invited Hans took place.
    Doctor Stoltzman confided his briefly and clearly developed plans and objects with reference to a suitable accommodation for the numerous arriving East Prussian refugees, which he had come up with for a wide,

---179---

sweeping installation of the act of charity at the train station Maßnahmen, where now not only the troops who were passing through but also the refugees would be lookt after, and asked the gentleman to give proposals and suggestions as far as they were concerned.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

The morning dawns right after the narrator explains that Edith now sees Hans' internal struggle "in a different light," and this seems to be a literal picture of that metaphor.

I was way out of my depth with the lavish description of the meeting room, so while I think I have the individual words translated correctly, I'm not sure I have them put together in the right way.

There's no direct object in the clause "die Besprechung... zu der der Oberbürgermeister eingeladen hatte"; it's just "the meeting... to which the mayor had invited."  I supplied "Hans" to complete the sense.

I'm still a bit confused about the time of this meeting.  When it was announced by the mayor on page 174, the time was given as "Vormittags ein Uhr" ("one o'clock in the morning"), but here it's "am späten Vormittag" ("in the late morning").

In the original text, a very long sentence bridging pages 179-180 begins, "Kurz und klar entwickelte Doktor Stoltzmann seine Pläne und Absichten... teilte mit...."  The way this is structured, it seems that "kurz and klar entwickelte" ("briefly and clearly developed") refers to Doctor Stoltzmann, but it actually refers to his plans and objects.  In my translation, I moved this phrase to make its antecedent more clear:  "Doctor Stoltzman confided his briefly and clearly developed plans and objects...."  Still, the sentence is long and unwieldy.

This month's installment may be a bit shorter than usual because I was sick or otherwise under the weather for two of the last four weeks and didn't have the time or energy to work on this project.

This is the end of chapter thirty-three and the beginning of chapter thirty-four.