As always, the italicized sections are what I'm unsure about:
Hans Warsow allowed himself a rest in the middle of all of his concentrated work: now and then he travelled to Bärwald. Of course it was always a long trip, but it paid its rewards. As soon as he breathed the air of Bärwald, all of the places on the height, and walkt in field and forest that held the most beautiful memories of his childhood, then he felt fine and was sincerely happy and young.
There stood the proud, old manor, its earlier part reminiscent of a distant past, the left far-reaching wing and the upper floor built later. But only the knowing eye could distinguish the old and new periods here because an understanding architect from Königsberg had managed the renovation and added to the [Vorhandenen] uniformly. And everything was lookt after and maintained with painstaking care.
Before him, facing the courtyard stood on both sides of the open, wooden veranda two enormous, ancient poplars, that a number of storms ruffled and many lightning bolts hit and that nevertheless rose strong and [trutzig] with leafless tops into the sky, as if they were put down as two protecting giants to guard the Bärwald manor against the hostile elements of the heavens and of the earth. Across from them was a big oval plaza planted with all kinds of bushes and young trees, under which the
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well-kept lawn gleamed; to the right of him, divided with a wide drive strewn with gravel, the manorial coach house with the steeple on top, the rooster over it as a weathervane, and the bell in the [Dachgestühl], that called to work and announced the celebration. How familiar this sound was to him, how it spoke its own language that only he could understand! He and perhaps Fritz, but he (Fritz) was much younger than he (Hans) and had discovered only later what he (Hans) had experienced for a long time. And again in his way, because they both had their certain idiosyncrasy that united and divided them. Only in one thing were they the same: in the love of this property of their ancestors, to every building, every tree, every blade of grass on it. For them, Bärwald meant the center of the home in which they were rooted.
And in the act: this old property with its deep areas and ranges, its green meadows and rich pastures, the vast rings of ancient forests, that encompassed the whole horizon, the wide dikes that intersected it on its borders, and the bridges with the black and white railings, that led over it - it was like an excerpt of the fertile, blessed East Prussian country. And at darkening evening when Hans sat on the wooden bench on the veranda with the old uncle and the rustling poplars over them played the song of time, its eternal melody of growth and fading, when on the drive, on the other side of the oval plaza, the large herd came drawing homewards, the sound of their bells united with the contented bellowing, and behind them, the cutters with scythes and tools settled their houses on the farmstead, when over them all the sun stood like a glowing
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disc in the blazing sky and with them greeted the last light on the old Pronitten church over there on the distant horizon, on the other side of the large dyke. Then he was overcome by a wonderful silent, secret, happy feeling of security, and he felt nothing but blissful consciousness, now finally, after a long hike, to be back home again in the ardently loved, often missed East Prussian land! He spoke no word, any syllable would have been a desecration for him.
In the withered features of the old uncle also lay something like a celebrating peace and a gleaming, despite his dim eyes that couldn't see much any more, but when they were young had lookt out on this blessed landscape in the same way, this peacefully lookt after property with its old but well-maintained buildings and trees. Nothing that happened on the large farm escaped his keen eye in those days.
The old man had a strange nature. Usually he sat silently, indifferently, when the others spoke around him. Then at once he cut in in the conversation, and immediately one knew that he had heard and well understood everything. Now he expressed his view, and then what he usually said in short, concise words made complete sense and hit the nail on the head. Above all Hans talked about intellectual things with no one as gladly as with the old man, and it was difficult to decide who of the two gave or received more.
The old gentleman could not endure the stay in the open air for a long time. Although he sat in a winter coat, he soon shivered; then one went into the house. There Miss Hutemach has prepared supper in the meantime. She was Lithuanian by birth; from
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her earliest youth on, brought to the most varied places in the world, she had acquired a comprehensive education, much talent and tact in dealing with people, and a good dose of personal bravery, which never left her. As the brother of the Bärwald resident, the old privy councillor in Berlin, searched for an associate, luck could lead him to no one more suitable than this. Now for a number of years she shared the loneliness of Bärwald with the frail lord of the manor, lookt after the house and yard for him, wrote his letters, read him his newspapers in the morning and evening, kept him to regular hours that had to be kept to the second, walkt in the big, well-tended garden or on the country lane depending on the condition of the weather, and took great care of him. A wife could not have done it better.
Even now at dinner she say next to the "Captain" - as the Reckenstein citizen and other neighbors still called him, with the title of the long-ago military time - reached the dishes for him, gave him what was easily digestible for him, and prepared it for him with great care.
Now Fritz came too, with Borowski, the inspector, from work. He had changed all of his clothes, was fresh and cheerful and very pleased when the brother suddenly sat next to them at the table. And with what pleasure! In the summer a big [Satte] with thick milk and the coarse farm bread. In the winter, a plate piled high with warm grits and afterwards, when it was possible, [Stippe] with bacon and gray peas, or, when it came up, [Schmandkartoffeln] with [Bratklops] and cream cheese or [Glumse], those were his favorite foods.
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Happily, he left them for all the magnificence that Hutemach had dished up for the uncle and Hans. Because he had become a little more of a cultured man and had a more delicate stomach that was not completely prepared for the heavy East Prussian cuisine. Only the sorrel soup with the melted egg in it or the plate with pure Königsberg [Fleck] did he not allow himself to take; lunch always had to offer one of the two if he was there.
In late autumn, he had come to Bärwalde on vacation even for a whole week. These were red-letter days, one like the other.
"Listen, Fritz," said Hans the very first evening, "to-morrow I have to go see old Teichgräber, and you have to go with. It's outrageous that you haven't made a visit to the old gentleman yet."
"We have no time to be making visits in the country, Hans. You're not allowed to put such high cultural demands on us. We are farmers and plow our clod. We don't worry about the people, their formalities and customs."
"But with his priest, one must make an exception," threw in the old Bärwald resident, "the Pronitten pastor has always been close to us. I myself, although I wouldn't like to make any demands on church matters, have gone into his sermons now and then. Just for his sake."
"You see, Fritz," Hans remarkt, "because you would have to replace uncle, where he can no longer do it, and you certainly haven't been there for a church service a single time yet."
"No, my dear! Not a single time! On Sundays I stay in bed; it's the only day when I can, sometimes
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right into the afternoon. And my church service - well, Hans, these meadows and fields, the grazing livestock, the foals in the paddock, and the rustling woods all around us. Do you mean then that all that is no church service, when one only has eyes to see it and ears to hear it? It's one for me at least; I don't need the church."
Hans wrinkled his brow. "You know how I love all that. But a good sermon - and the old man over there knows his stuff - increases the delight I get from it. Besides, I thought you had changed your view in this a little."
"Mr. Warsow is completely right," Hutemach, whose word was worth much in Bärwald and whom the two young men held in an incontestable respect, joined the conversation now. "See, Captain, how often I have said that to you! But you didn't want to believe it and thought it would be enough if I prayed for you."
Fritz relented. "Let one be good, Hans. I'm coming along tomorrow, if there's no hurry because you will already want to go in the afternoon while I have to do; but in the evening I'm picking you up with the taxi, if only the cute Little Red Riding Hood from Samaria paid her respects to me."
"Always the same!" said Hans, and now there was something like anger in his voice. "Whom does he mean by the cute Little Red Riding Hood from Samaria?" he askt Hutemach.
"A granddaughter of Pastor. She lost her parents early, so the two old folks brought her to them at Pronitten."
"Ah, I know already! The daughter of Theo, the
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doctor. He lost his wife to a lingering illness, accused himself that he had treated her wrongly, and then soon died himself. The old man had gotten over it with enough difficulty; only his childlike faith helpt him through it."
A short pause.
"But why do you call her the Little Red Riding Hood from Samaria?"
Fritz laughed. "Because I met her one afternoon here in our little village with a red cap on her blonde hair and a big basket in which she brought a bottle of wine and other tonic for old Karenke."
"Was he sick?"
"Yes, very sick. Quite often he lookt so deeply in the glass that Beelzebub and other devils raged in him."
"No, captain, you must always have your teasing!" said Hutemach, and to Hans, explaining: "The little Teichgräber child didn't want to go to him at all, but rather to his wife, who has been badly suffering for a long time and whom Pastor always visits when he comes to Bärwalde."
"But the bottle of wine should have been for him, with that he cured himself from the gutrot! That's a fact. By the way, the little one has caused something good with that because since then old Karenke has become distinguished and drinks only red wine. And he prefers Onkels Marke. Or am I speaking a falsehood again?" And with a triumphant look to Hutemach, whom, in all friendliness, he often gave a hard time: "Then why did you fire Marie, his daughter, who was so good a chambermaid, just like that one day? Because in the old man's parlor Mr. Borowski has found empty bottles of the brand that's there on the table. But
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it means nothing to the Samaritan service of young ladies."
Now even the old Bärwald resident laughed. And nothing pleased Hutemach more than when he did that. He could still laugh so heartily and with such childlike cheer.
