Pages 189-190

This Month's Installment:

Here near a wagon ran a dog, which love and pity did not want to leave at home, with its tongue stuck out; there a small canary anxiously struck with his wings through his small cage, which had been attached under the wagon.  Then again, the train of wagons was interrupted by smaller or larger herds of cattle, which one drove along and which lowed and cried, as if they launched into a bellowing of yearning for the lush home pastures - a wonderful concert in the streets of the city.

    Hans stood for quite a while near the idlers on the pavement; unable to think or do anything, he let the hopeless image pass before his empty eyes.  East Prussia, his Fatherland, the wonderful, thriving country, presented itself to him there in its homelessness and its misery, and his heart beat loudly and painfully, and he could not get over the sight.

    Then, well-known honking sounded in his ear.

    "Good that I met you!" said Mayor Stoltzmann, while he let his car stop and askt him to get in.  "After all, everything has come faster than we had expected," he drove on, while the car forced its way past the long train of wagons only slowly and laboriously.  "The enemy invasion must have extended rather far, and we are

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caught a little off guard in our work here.  There's no harm in it; I have had the shacks in front of the Königsberger Gate made ready for storage as well as possible.  My wife with a few other ladies is already outside and is providing hot coffee.  I want to take the accommodation of the people in hand personally.  You can help me with it; we will find enough to do."

    They had overtaken the train; the car could now drive with unhindered power and in a few minutes stopt in front of the large sheds.

    Miss Lisa walkt up to them in her blue-white linen dress and with a huge house-keeping apron.  Also in her eyes there was nothing but cheerful desire for activity and the satisfaction to be able to step in here so quickly and usefully.

Pages 188-189

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about

    The old condition of the sudden tiredness and the concern for his well being arose again; he got up with the help of his brother, offered his hand to Hans, and proceeded to his room.

    As Hans went homewards from Rodenburger Court, the strong anxiety and movement that raged in the streets struck him.  He askt an old woman who received aid from his association of the poor and whom he met on the way.

    "G--, Pastor, what bad luck, what bad luck!" she wailed to herself.  "No, I don't even want to complain anymore.  People like us at least still have our little rooms and our beds, in which we can lie in the evening.  But those there..." with that she turned and pointed backwards with her thin hand, "There they come, Pastor!"

    And now he noticed a long, long train of wagons that sluggishly moved through the large main street:  handcarts mostly, with quickly gathered, most necessary possessions, coach wagons in their tow rope.  And on this as on those, bowed down figures.  Motionless they sat there, the large, gray blankets often pulled up over their heads so that nothing remained but the pale, despondent faces.  They lookt neither to the right nor to the left, not even now, as they went through the large street of the city; apathetic

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and indifferent, they let the thick crowd of people stream by.  They appeared to be busy with only themselves and their fate.  Whither the tired horses, drifting off course, would pull them, whether they would find a place here in the city, whether they would be sent further and also have to spend the next night on the country road again... everything appeared provisional and listless to them.

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

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

I couldn't think of a good way to match this in my translation, but in the sentence "Nur mit sich und ihrem Schicksal schienen sie beschäftigt" in the original text, the objects of the refugees' concern come first ("sich und ihrem Schicksal"), illustrating their importance.  My translation has the more prosaic "They appeared to be busy with only themselves and their fate."

Pages 187-188

This Month's Installment

    The privy councillor noticed how this subject excited his sickly brother; he began to worry about him.

    "For the time being, the enemy is not yet in Bärwalde, thanks be to God," he admitted, "and even if it should come to the worst, then after the peace and the victory, which is sure for us, we would be richly compensated for the destruction."  Then an angry flame ran over the wrinkled features of the old man.

    "Compensated for!?" he cried, for the first time his voice loudly raised so that even the others around him stopped.  "Pardon, my dear, you are not already become such a strong city dweller that you can say such a thing.  Compensated for!  One can compensate you for your money that you have lost, your furniture and appliances; perhaps one can compensate Hans for his books and his tools - but how can one compensate us for a destroyed home?  All those hallowed treasures of many generations before that are hidden in it?  We sacrifice them - that is our duty.  But we sacrifice them as something not able to be compensated for, never again to be made up for; that makes this sacrifice so difficult for us."

    Now even the privy councillor said nothing more.  Hans had not participated in the conversation at all, rather just listened silently and absorbed in himself.  Everything that the Bärwalder said there had a core and a strength, as always, once he opened his mouth.  Yet this time, however, it was something different:  the old man had given expression to what he himself constantly felt and what grasped him deep in his soul at this moment.

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    The Bärwalder appeared completely exhausted; his hands shook, and the color of his face was drained, become ashen, after the red of the excitement.

    "I think you should lie down, Manny!" the privy councillor said.

    "Yes, yes, I can lie down.  It may be good for me."

 

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

The expression "was ihm in diesem Augenblick in die tiefste Seele griff" is literally something like "what for him in this moment in the deepest soul grasped," but I smoothed this out a bit into "what grasped him deep in his soul at this moment."

It may also be worth pointing out that in his speech, the Bärwalder uses the word Heimat ("home") which is also in the title of the novel.

Pages 186-187

This Month's Installment

What's italicized is what I'm unsure about

But now when I am become old and tired and hoped to find well-earned rest on it and later on to see my body be bedded down in her bosom, now they come and force me abroad away from it!"

    His watery, dark eyes shimmered; even the other two were moved.

    "Those are the sacrifices that the Fatherland demands from us, Manny!" the privy councillor eventually said.

    "The Fatherland!" retorted the old man, "I know it well.  But then what is the Fatherland?  For all who sit here around us, for all country-born, it is the small piece of earth that they cultivate.  The soil is our home, and what you call love of the Fatherland arises out of the love for the soil.  My whole life long, I have known to treasure the produce of the spirit and of the culture; Hans there knows that the best.  But they are the artistic creations; they are not the original ones, the natives.  That is the piece of land that the man conquers anew every day with his strength and work; only through this does it become his property."

    Speaking became difficult for him.  But he pulled himself together and went on:  "Certainly, we sacrifice it, must sacrifice it so that the whole will be saved.  For in all of us, whoever we are, is and lives nothing else but the Fatherland.  But we people of the land give our last with it, and while we give it, we bleed to death, not much different from the soldier in the field.  But especially when we become old and already so united with our soil that

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we are no longer able to create a new home for ourselves."

Pages 184-186

This Month's Installment

    "But I am just used to her," the old man replied in that harmless selfishness, which had strongly developed through the infirmity of his body;

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it also appeared in such times as perfectly natural that everything had to turn around him.

    "The Hutemach has stayed in Bärwalde?" Hans askt.

    "She and Borowski.  Thanks be to God!  What would become of Bärwalde otherwise!?"

    "But it is a lot from her that she has done it."

    "She explained from the beginning that she wanted to stay.  She has often been in Russia, understands the language, and hopes to manage with the enemy if they should come."

    "But it is a lot," Hans repeated.

    Even from the poultry, which he otherwise preferred and which the privy councillor had again carefully prepared for him, the Bärwalder took hardly one bite.  The brother's patience gave out on him.

    "But you must pull yourself together a little, Manny!"

    The old man replied not a word.  But a vague resentment lay on his face, and his thick, white brows knit themselves together tightly and firmly.

    "It is a difficult time!" Hans sought to agree with the privy councillor and at the same time to placate him, "but we all suffer under it."

    Again no answer, and yet one saw how it was working behind the furrowed brow.  Finally, the old man lifted his head from his chest; searching for the word with difficulty, he said:  "A difficult time for us all, quite right, my son.  And you, who, although a city dweller and a scholar, cling to the country home like all the Warsows, must understand why food and drink has no taste for me anymore.  They have driven me from my soil!  I grew up on it; my parents grew up on it, and my grandparents.  I have cultivated and ploughed it from my

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earliest youth on.  I have put all my work and energy into it, seen it turn green and grow and bear fruit, every spring, every summer, every fall.

Grammatical Minutia/Commentary

Previously, I translated Scholle as clod, but that didn't really seem to fit the context here ("They have driven me from my clod!").  Soil is a better choice here (and probably in most instances so far, too).

Pages 183-184

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about.

    The weak eyes of the Bärwalder had still not seen his nephew at all; only when his brother

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made him aware and Hans himself now approached his uncle to greet him, did a faint shimmer of joy pass over his tired features and for a few seconds gave them something stirring, grasping in the heart.

    "We will go for our regular walk in the sun in the afternoon - right, Manny?" the privy councillor said.  "And then you'll lie down upstairs in your room and sleep a little."

    "Yes, then I'll lie down and sleep a little."

    "You've had a bad trip?" Hans turned to the privy councillor.

    "A very bad.  We decided only at the last moment.  Indeed, he was not to be moved for the departure and wanted to stay under any circumstances.  Only when everyone around us fled did the Hutemach and I bring him to it with a bit of force.  Now, however, it had already become a little late.  We needed to take the railway trip here, which one otherwise does in two hours with the fast train, the whole night, from ten o'clock in the evening until seven o'clock in the morning, and rode in the most dreadful corner in a compartment in the fourth class."

    The waiter brought the lunch.  Hans was invited and gladly joined.  But the Bärwalder took next to nothing.  The fish, which the privy councillor prepared and gave to him, remained lying, barely touched.

    "You should have taken the Hutemach with," he said grumpily, "she knows best what gets me."

    "But I know it too and am standing in for her."