Month 28: Pages 41-43

This Month's Installment

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

     With warmth, Hans returned the greeting of his former teacher.  The quick walk through 

---41---

the fresh autumn air had woven a brownish shimmer around his pale face; his eyes shone youthfully.  Now he sat with both ages under the dense pipe-leaf arbor as he so often did in earlier years, and memories from past times came alive.
     A young girl appeared and brought the coffee.
     "Hanna Teichgräber, Theo's daughter, who now lives with us as my and the grandmother's faithful assistant," introduced the old gentleman.  And Hans' eye lingered with pleasure on the lovely vision, whose well-built body came in the simple linen dress with the white apron at the right length, while the yellow-blonde hair was combed to both sides over her forehead.  A trace of purity and freshness lay on the rosy face, spoke from the velvet-blue eyes, in which - compared to someone of so few years - were strength and determination.  The freshness of the swelling life that the maturity pushed against breathed around the whole figure.
     The golden sunlight lay full and soft on the pipe-leaves and now and then forced itself an entrance into the silent dark of the arbor.  Outside a few doves flew here and there and bathed the bright [Schwingen] in the air; in the fruit trees chirpt the sparrows so much louder than the day inclined itself.
     Wonderfully, this image full of quiet calm and still, cherished peace touched Hans' soul.  He thought about the inner struggles, the draining uneasiness that he suffered through recently.  This contrast, however, was not reconciled to him; he knew that his life would still face many a difficult struggle.  At the same time, he felt within himself strength and courage to take it on. 

---42---

     A slight autumn fog crept over the earth; the air became even more pure, but at the same time also cool.  The priest suggested a walk with Hans when one heard the approach of a carriage.
      "The Bärwald taxi!" cried Hanna, and a peculiar vehicle rolled up: a single gray-upholstered seat with a high back on a strange, ornate, yellow-painted wheeled frame.  On it lay, stretched out at length, Fritz Warsow, and with a casual hand he drove the gentle mare that one groomed to harness in front of this vehicle.  Even two, possibly three, people could travel on the taxi; as far as space is concerned, they had to sit on both sides, back to back, and be very slim and little, and the third perhaps in front in order to hold the lead.  But now Fritz was the absolute ruler and made himself comfortable.
     The old priest wanted to introduce again, but Fritz interrupted him:  "I have already had the pleasure to welcome the kind young lady on one of her Samaritan errands in Bärwald."

Interest Phrase I Happened Upon

fertig ist die Laube! - literally, this is "the arbor is finished!" but my dictionary translates it as the phrase "and Bob's your uncle!" so I'm assuming it has the sense of "well, there you have it!"

Grammatical Minutiae

Minutia, really, since there's only one:

I couldn't find a translation for "sammetblauen" as a whole, but I recognized "blauen" as an inflected form of blau, which is blue.  I did a bit of searching and found that der Samt is the word for velvet.  I'm not completely confident on this, but I think "sammetblauen" means something like "velvet-blue."

Month 27: Pages 40-41

This Month's Installment

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

The lush yellow-gold of the dough with the many dark spots of the large and small raisins tempted even the finest taste; because no one was as good at [Glumse] cakes as the pastor's wife; for a long time she'd had this calling in the whole area.  In a silver can, an old heirloom of the priest's family that has survived for centuries, the [Schmandt] gleamed.  The coffee was not there yet; it would be prepared only when the visit was drawing near.
     The priest sat in a comfortable garden chair and read the newspaper that had just arrived.  He was a man of medium size and muscular build.  On the stocky [Kumpfe] sat a big, angular head with white - but still very thick - hair, a firm mouth, and small, mouse-gray eyes that dreamed under bushy brows.  Earlier they had certainly flashed; now they had become stiller - a true authentic scholarly head with a penchant for pensiveness, but not without inclination to action.  In the stubbornness of this seventy years, still fresh moves, the expression of a maturity and clarity; the one to look at him 

---40---

thought that it was won only after many a hard battle.
     His wife lookt much older and more worry worn than he, although she was ten years younger.  She had a small, delicate face and a tired sound in her voice; she still suffered from the early death of the only, hopeful son.  The oppositions of life that made him strong and firm had broken her.  A foot pain that had appeared a year ago forced her to use a cane for help while walking; nevertheless she was constantly active in her housekeeping.
     "Well I knew that Hans wouldn't forget his old teacher," the priest said as he put forth cigar and newspaper.  "How often have we sat here and discussed all sorts of theological and philosophical questions!  Even then he had the distinct nature of a lecturer.  That he has completely passed over to priestly service really surprises me."
     "It hasn't been a big jump for him," replied his wife, who - with events as with people - tried to bring out the littlest bit of good.
     "Don't say that.  He has a large and educated audience in Rodenburg, where he can work much good in the congregation."
     "Eventually he will take over Bärwalde and become your patron."
     "I couldn't think of a better - but isn't someone coming there?  Right, he is it!  Welcome and greetings in God, my dear Warsow!  You don't even know how very happy you make the old man through your visit!"

Interesting Word I Happened Upon

• eckig - my dictionary translates this as rectangular or angular, but since die Ecke is the word for corner, it's literally something like "corner-y.

Grammatical Minutiae

I couldn't find Kumpfe in my dictionary or even on the internet.  Judging by the context, I think it means something like shoulders, but I'm not confident enough about that to actually stick it in my translation.

Both recht and echt have so many meanings that I don't know if I captured the correct sense in my translation.  The original has "ein rechter, echter Gelehrtenkopf," which I've translated as "a true, authentic scholarly head."

The same goes for Zug in a later sentence.  It's plural in the text ("Zügen"), and I translated it as "moves," but I think characteristics might also work.  In that same sentence, there's the word "Geklärtheit."  I couldn't find this in my dictionary, but I'm pretty sure it's related to Klarheit (which I did find), so I translated it as "clarity."  It's paired with "Reife," which my dictionary translates as "maturity," so my English translation of this word pair rhymes.

I took a bit of liberty with "dennoch war sie von unaufhaltsamer Tätigkeit in ihrer Wirtschaft."  Literally, it's something like "nevertheless she was of unstoppable activity in her housekeeping."  Initially, I was going to change this to "she was constantly occupied."  Tätigkeit can mean occupation, so this was just shifting the parts of speech a bit.  I'd incorrectly translated dennoch as therefore, and when I remembered that it actually means nevertheless, I lookt at what I had again and realized that it didn't sufficiently portray movement despite the foot pain mentioned in the previous clause of the sentence.  So I amended it to "nevertheless she was constantly active in her housekeeping."  There's still a bit of shifting with regard to parts of speech, but it retains the same meaning while also implying motion.

I disregarded grammar for sense with the clause "die bei den Ereignissen wie bei dem Menschen immer das weniger Gute hervorzuheben suchte," specifically the "weniger Gute."  "Weniger" is the comparative adjective, so it's "less good" or "lesser good," but with "hervorzuheben suchte" ("tried to bring out"), I think it's meant as "the littlest bit of good," which has a superlative adjective.  I think I have the sense correctly (that the priest's wife is an optimist), but I'm unable to explain the grammar here.

Month 26: Pages 38-40

This Month's Installment

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

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 

---38---

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 

---39---

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. 

     In the arbor of the Pronitt parish garden, thickly overgrown with pipe-leaf, the coffee table was set.  A bowl piled high with freshly baked [Glumse] cakes stood in the middle of the table, framed by two old-fashioned vases of autumnal flowers.

Grammatical Minutiae

My dictionary translates schleppend as sluggish, slow, labored, and various other similar words, but none of them fit the context in which it's used in the text:  "einer schleppenden Krankheit."  I translated this as "a lingering illness."

Two months ago, when I ran across "Teichgräber," I translated it literally as "pond-digger," but after running into it again for this month's installment, I realized that it's actually a surname.  It appears as "Die kleine Teichgräber," which is literally "the little Teichgräber" and which I've translated as "the little Teichgräber child."

I kept "Onkels Marke" in German because I'm pretty sure it's a specific type of wine.  Translated, it's "uncle's brand."

I translated "Stubenmächen" as "chambermaid," although my dictionary notes that this is obsolete.  I'm not sure if the "obsolete" qualification applies to the text I'm translating because it's from 1916.  The rest of the sentence suggests that "Stubenmädchen" is an occupation from which Marie was fired, so "chambermaid" seems to make sense.

I took some liberties with the sentence "Er konnte noch so herzlich und kindlich froh lachen" because I couldn't really think of a way to render "kindlich froh" adverbially in English.  Instead, I put that part as a prepositional phrase and added "such" to retain the "so" in the original, which I'm assuming modifies both "herzlich" and "kindlich froh."  So I ended up with "He could still laugh so heartily and with such childlike cheer."

It occurred to me only after I'd pasted in this month's installment that I haven't been very consistent with place names.  I have both "Pronitten" and "Pronitt," although it's the same place.  I think I've been equally inconsistent with "Bärwald"/"Bärwalde."

Month 25: Pages 37-38

This Month's Installment

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

     "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 

---37---

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."

Grammatical Minutiae

I combined the two words in the phrase "nie angefochtenes" to get "incontestable."  "Nie" means "never" and "angefochtenes" is a past participle from "anfechten," which means "to contest" or "to challenge."  Translating "nie angefochtenes" somewhat literally to get "never-challenged" seemed a bit cumbersome; "incontestable" seemed much simpler.

Month 24: Pages 36-37

This Month's Installment

As usual, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

     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. 

---36---

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 the old pond-digger, 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."

Grammatical Minutiae

I don't have much to say about this month's installment.  There were a lot of food words that weren't in my dictionary, so I had to leave a lot in brackets.  I could recognize Kartoffeln (potatoes) in "Schmandkartoffeln," but that wasn't very helpful.

I couldn't find a good translation for "Kirchlichkeit" either.  My dictionary has the adjective "kirchlich," which it translates as "church" and "ecclesiastical" among other similar words.  It's obvious that it has something to do with church (I could tell that even before looking it up), but it's a noun, not an adjective.  I translated it as "church matters."  I don't think it's actually a plural in the original text, but the meaning is close enough.

Month 23: Pages 35-36

This Month's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

     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

---35---

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.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

The phrase "hit the nail on the head" is actually in the German text, although it has a different verb:  "traf den Nagel auf den Kopf."  It's literally "met the nail on the head," but it's close enough.  The other idiom in that sentence doesn't have an English equivalent:  "[es] hatte alles Hand und Fuß."  Literally, it's "[it] had all hand and foot."  My dictionary tells me that "Hand und Fuß haben" means "to make sense," so I translated "alles" as "complete," resulting in "it made complete sense."

Back in July, I was confused by "Hutemach."  I thought it was an occupation, but in translating a sentence this month, I discovered that it's actually a name:  "Da hatte Fräulein Hutemach inzwischen das Abendbrot bereitet."

Month 22: Pages 34-35

This Month's Installment

The italicized portions are what I'm unsure about:

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 

---34--- 

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.

Grammatical Minutiae

I couldn't find Dachgestühl in my dictionary.  I can put together Dach (roof) and Stühl (chair) to get a sense of the word (it's some kind of housing for the bell that's mentioned earlier in the sentence), but I can't think of a way to say that in English.

I'm not sure rings is the best translation for Kranze in "dem gewaltigen Kranze uralter Wälder," but none of the words my dictionary suggested seemed to fit this context very well.

One of the sentences mentions "die alte Pronitter Kirche." I could tell that "Pronitter" was an adjective derived from a geographic location, so I lookt up "Pronitter" to see if I could find where it is.  Apparently, it's Pronitten in German, but otherwise known as Slawjanskoje.  Looking this up on Google Maps, however, I found that it's about 1,000 kilometers away from the three Barwälds I found last September, so I find it very unlikely that one can see the sun set on Pronitten from Barwäld, which is what happens in the book (at least, I think that's what happens; there was no preposition, so I supplied the "on").  I'm assuming then that Brausewetter made up one or the other of these places (or perhaps even both).

I couldn't find "heißgeliebten" (or even heißlieben) in my dictionary, but I did find that heiß can mean ardently.  I knew that lieben is to love, so I translated as "heißgeliebten" as "ardently loved," subtly referencing Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy.

Month 21: Pages 32-34

This Month's Installment

First, a few notes:  it wasn't until this post that I realized that - since August 2015 - I've been describing these monthly installments as "weekly installments."  Obviously, I didn't notice this when I started doing it, and then routine just took over.

Lately, I've been splitting some sentences into clauses or phrases.  The last sentence here isn't complete, so my translation may change when I get to the rest of it.

As always, the italicized things are what I'm unsure about:

Taken by the amount, a kindly disposition has a far better effect than intellectual merits;  these shut out, that draws in.  Hans Warsow was still innocent enough to believe that in life, it depended first on a serious will and the strength of ability.  The people want to be caressed; the look must be warm, and that hand that touches them must be soft.  And Hans Warsow's look was not always warm, and the hand that he offered not always soft.
     For all that, he wasn't allowed to complain:  a very big part, not only of the St. Nikolaus congregation, but also of the whole city, stood by him indefatigably.  He gave priority to his sermons above everything else; he searched it for its official acts.  He tried hard to come into a personal and social intercourse with it.  This was, of course, not easy because during the day he workt in the community, and his evenings were devoted to intellectual studies that he 

---32---

did not neglect at all, or he was occupied with the preparation for the second edition of his work about East Prussia, which had met with a growing approval in the province and even beyond it. 

     Hans Warsow allowed himself a rest in the middle of all of his concentrated work:  now and then he travelled to Bärwalde.  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 

---33---

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

Interesting Words I Happen to Come across

• die Melisse - balm [I found this interesting because it's pronounced the same as the name Melissa.  I did some research, and according to a book I have, the name Melissa means honeybee (it's listed under Greek and Latin and has the same meaning for both).  I feel they're related (if only tenuously), but my field of knowledge doesn't encompass that.]
• das Pipapo - und das ganze Pipapo - and all the rest (of it), and all that nonsense

Grammatical Minutiae

I couldn't find Wollen in my dictionary (not as a noun, anyway).  I'm pretty sure it's related to the verb wollen, so I translated it as will.  Such a translation required that I change the definite article in the text ("es... das ernste Wollen... ankomme") to an indefinite article ("it depends... on a serious will").

I'm a bit disappointed that I couldn't use the same parallel structure in "warm muß der Blick sein und weich die Hand, die sie berührt."  That relative clause ("die sie berührt") causes problems in English, so the best I could do is "the look must be warm, and that hand that touches them must be soft."
I'm also mentioning this sentence so I can bring up the fact that the tense changes here.  In the midst of all of this past tense, there's a sudden change to present tense.  I think this sentence is just a continuation of the previous sentence (the end of which was also in present tense).  Taken together, theses sentences explain Hans Warsow's philosophy, and - assuming it's a philosophy he still holds - it makes sense for them to be in present tense.  However, before his philosophy is introduced, there's a present tense sentence espousing the opposite value.  So...?
I just wanted to make a note of that tense change lest anyone think I've not been paying close enough attention.

Translating "Da stand das alte stolze Herrenhaus..." proved interesting because of the order of adjectives.  (Brief side-note:  Herrenhaus wasn't in my dictionary, but Herrenhof was listed as manor.  Since they're similar, I just used manor.)  "Das alte stolze Herrenhaus" is "the old, proud manor," but those adjectives have a different order in English, so it becomes "the proud, old manor."
That same sentence has the word "mahnend," which took some searching to translate.  It's a participial of the verb mahnen, to remind.  My dictionary also mentions that it's usually accompanied with a prepositional phrase starting with an.  Here, it's "an eine ferne Vergangenheit."  Translating this as "reminding of a distant past" seemed clumsy, so I changed that participial into the regular adjective reminiscent, so the whole phrase becomes "reminiscent of a distant past."

A later sentence describes "der Kutschstall" as "herrschaftliche," which my dictionary translates as "manorial," so my translating Herrenhaus as manor seems accurate.  However, Kutschstall wasn't in my dictionary.  Since Kutsche means coach (in the sense of carriage) and Stall means stable, I translated this as coach house.  

Month 20: Pages 30-32

This Week's Installment

The italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

Frau Lisa was only half listening.  She lookt over the table with an examining gaze and counted the glasses.
     "Are you ready with everything?" askt Stoltzmann.  "It's almost time!"
     The bell, which announced the arrival of the first guests, proved him right.  Hans Warsow and his brother appeared punctually on time; the others followed soon afterwards. 

 

There were still two other priests invited to Rodenburg for the trial sermon, who also pleased.  But the first mayor spoke out for the choice of Hans Warsow with resoluteness, 

---30--- 

and because he had an influence in the city like no one else before him, so would it be carried out with considerable consensus.
     Now Hans Warsaw had achieved his goal; he had a great vicarage in the middle of a thriving city that lay in the heart of his beloved home: he could work and be active.
     And he did it.  His job was not easy.  His predecessor, an older, sicker gentleman, had left the larger part of the work to his younger colleague, and Deacon Brettschneider had created a rich field for himself in the congregation.  But Hans Warsow was in a better position than all his colleagues:  his sermons had a strong attraction that increased church attendance.  People who were usually never seen in the church now appeared; one spoke of his sermons, which had never happened in Rodenburg until now.
     But all that, as beautifully as it started, lasted only a short time.  The interest in his sermons certainly did not stop, but still lost its liveliness, as the novelty value there and his job was a little bit familiar.  Moreover, because his character changed that balance that let itself bring neither through obtrusiveness nor through affectation of many of his feminine [Schutzbefohlenen] out of the composure, because as a thinker he was too often occupied with all kinds of questions and contemplations, in order to come to meet every visitor, every one of his congregation members on the street alike with every ready kindness, whom one now wanted of "his" priests, so maintained the public interest that he had excited in the beginning, not on his peak. 

---31--- 

     "Certainly, he's clever, and what he says is beautiful," opined a lady of the better circles, who at first built doors for him with an enthusiastic hand, "but I can't help myself: Mr. Brettschneider is so very much nicer; it all comes out from him so sincerely and so lovingly."
     "He's earned himself a little bit of credit.  The intellectual people are always like that," voiced an-other, with whom he had a very stimulating conversation at a baptismal party, but whom at a later occasion he had not recognized and consequently had paid little attention to.
     "He can do sermons, but he can't comfort!" said a more modest old woman, who had taken offense to the new priest, that after a half-hour complaint of all of her grief in succession he was not more completely with the concern.

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

While I was translating "Frau Lisa hörte nur mit halbem Ohre zu," I figured that it contained an idiom.  It's slightly different in my dictionary ("er hört nur mit halbem Ohr hin"), but in German the phrase "to only half listen" is literally "to listen with only half an ear."

My dictionary has the exact same phrase as an-other sentence in the text, but they're used in different ways.  My dictionary translates "prüfender Blick" as "searching look," but that doesn't really make sense in the context of the sentence:  "Sie überschaute mit prüfendem Blick die Tafel und zählte die Gläser."  The context (Frau Lisa's looking over the table) calls for a phrase that evokes more scrutiny than just a "searching look," so I translated prüfendem as examining.  Prüfendem (in dative case in the text) is an adjectival form of the verb prüfen (to examine, test, etc.).  It seemed redundant then to say, "She lookt over the table with an examining look," so I translated Blick as gaze.  "She lookt over the table with an examining gaze and counted the glasses."

"It is the highest time," which is how I've translated "Es ist die höchste Zeit" doesn't seem to make that much sense in the context, so I'm suspicious that "Es ist die höchste Zeit" is an idiom of some kind.  My dictionary wasn't any help.  Google Translate suggested "It is high time," which sort of fits but which I'm still dubious about adopting.

As I mentioned before, because these sentences are linked in a narrative, they can act as checks and balances of each other and help in determining whether I've translated something correctly.  The sentence after "Es ist die höchste Zeit" confirmed my suspicion that it means something like "It's almost time," which is what I've revised it to.
That sentence itself - "Die Glocke, die das Kommen der ersten Gäste meldete, gab ihm recht" - has a couple things of its own that I want to comment on:

1. I had to look up Gast to make sure that Gäste really is the plural.  Going just by the article der, I thought it was singular.  In genitive case, der is the article for feminine singular; the genitive plural article is den.  I'm not sure what's going on with that discrepancy.
2. I couldn't find the phrase "gab ihm recht" (or the present tense "gibt ihm recht" or even just "recht geben") in my dictionary, but I'm pretty sure it's comparable to "recht haben" (to be right), so I translated it as "proved him right."

I wanted to translate Einstimmigkeit as unanimity because they have the same prefix (both the German "ein-" and the Latin "unus-" mean "one"), but the modifying adjective ziemlicher (considerable, quite) prevents that.  There aren't shades of meaning to unanimity; it's all or nothing, so I can't say "considerable unanimity."  Instead, I went with "considerable consensus," which I guess has the benefit of being alliterative.

I couldn't find Amtbruder in my dictionary, but since Amt is office and Bruder is brother, it's something like office-brother, which I translated as colleague.
In that same sentence, there's the word Diakonus.  I was pretty sure that this is deacon, but I lookt it up anyway.  My dictionary has only Diakon.  The -us ending made me curious though, so I lookt it up in my Latin dictionary, and I'm pretty sure that Diakonus is the Germanized form of the Latin diaconus (2nd declension masculine).

I can't seem to figure out the grammar in "die sonst nie in der Kirche zu sehen gewesen," but based on the context, I'm pretty sure it's "who were usually never seen in the church."  Later in the sentence, there's the verb einstellen, which my dictionary translates as appear and turn up.  I chose appear because it continues the visual theme that sehen sets up.
That same sentence ends with "was in Rodenburg bisher nie geschehen war" ("which had never happened in Rodenburg until now"), which is very similar to the novel's opening line: "Was lange nicht in Reckenstein geschehen war, das geschah heute" ("What had not happened for a long time in Reckenstein happened today").  So there's a second instance of something that hasn't happened for a long time (or ever).  I'm not sure if these two things are supposed to be connected, but the phrase stuck out to me.

The sentence that starts with "Da seinem Wesen zudem jenes Gleichgewicht abging..." totally thew me.  It was no help that that one sentence is an astonishing thirteen lines long!  I broke it up over several days, but even that didn't seem to help in understanding it.  I got one section that I'm reasonably confident about, but most of it is still a jumble for me.

There's inversion in "klug ist er," and the translation in that order ("clever is he") almost seems to imply that Hans Warsow is the embodiment of intelligence, but actually translating it that way is awkward.
The verb in that sentence is meinen.  A lady says that Warsow is clever.  My dictionary doesn't really give me anything for meinen that goes very naturally with a direct quotation.  There is "say," but since meinen is clearly related to die Meinung (opinion), I translated it as opine (or opined, since it appears as "meinte" in the text).

There are some words in dialogue ("Predigten kann hei, aber trösten kann hei nich!") that I can't find in my dictionary.  Because of those two qualities (their being in dialogue and their not being in my dictionary), initially I'd assumed that they're informal or abbreviated words.  I'm suspicious that "nich" is an abbreviation of "nicht."  There's parallel structure there (although the second clause is negative where the first isn't), which seems to suggest this too.
I wasn't sure what to make of "hei" at first, but then I realized it's somewhat similar to the Dutch hij, which is the third person singular masculine pronoun (he).  (Dutch is the language I'm focusing on right now on Duolingo, and - over the two years or so I've been learning it - I've found many similarities between it and German.)  So now I'm wondering if it's just a different dialect.  Translating "hei" as I would er does make a sensible sentence:  "He can do sermons, but he can't comfort!"  It's not a translation I can justify by pointing to the corresponding words in my dictionary, but I think it's at least close to what's intended.

Month 19: Pages 29-30

This Week's Installment

As usual, the italicized parts are what I'm unsure about:

And while she wrote a few place setting cards with a quick quill on a small side table: "But what hands the man has!  Such hands I have never seen before.  I hardly listened to his words; I always lookt at his hands, and I understood everything."
     "Yes, he really lives only in the intellect; his face, his whole body says it."  And after she spread a few dark roses, which Frau Lisa handed her, over the table: "Would such men have well grown of the idea of a big act?  Whether she would manage Hans Warsow if she one day would have demanded of him?  She can still approach him every day in such a large congregation."
     "See, how philosophical the man has made you!  I never come by such thoughts.  I find them rather useless, and they usually meant nothing for you either.  Come on, you'd better help me get the fruit bowl ready.  I can't leave something like that to the girl."
     Frau Lisa was a very efficient lady of the house; everything went fast and surely from her hands, her housekeeping was of exemplary order, and her guests felt comfortable at her place.
     Just as she had put down the last fruit, her husband stept into the room in order to set up the wine that he himself had fetched from out of the cellar.
     "Were you satisfied?" she askt him.
     "On the whole, yes, as far as a sermon is altogether capable of captivating me.  I must always think of Schiller, who's supposed to have said it would not be for an educated person." 

---29--- 

     "I thought he spoke just for the educated."
     "Surely, it is a lot of little things, which bothers me.  Certainly, he had no pulpit emotionalism, nor the usual meaningless phrases.  But already the manner of address, that unavoidable constraint in dogmatic forms and religious boundaries - as I said, it is nothing for me.  I could do well without it."
     "He has a distinctly modern style, both in that which he says and in his whole demeanour," now commented Edith, who put the written place cards of her friend on the glasses - "I beside Fritz, you have really practiced self-denial, Lisa! - earlier I had the doubt whether he is the right man for a city like Rodenburg and for the St. Nicolaus congregation."
     "But, but!" replied Stoltzmann with resoluteness.  "We have a very competent priest, but one who is capable is all we need to satisfy higher spiritual interests even beyond the church.  Therefore I would like him to pull together a few lectures; it was always my notion that we need something like that in Rodenburg.  He's just the person I want for that."

Interesting Word I Happened Upon

• der Auspuff - exhaust

Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary

I couldn't find Führungskarten in my dictionary, but since my dictionary gave me guidance and direction for Führung and since Karte is card, I translated it as place setting cards.
Later, in this section, I came across Tischkarten, apparently referring to the same thing.  My dictionary gave me place cards for that, so my translating Führungskarten as place setting cards seems accurate.

I'm pretty sure that "Geistigen" in "Er lebt ja auch nur im Geistigen" is a substantive adjective (my dictionary has the adjectival form geistig, but not a noun form), but I don't know what the implied noun there is.  Instead of translating that as a substantive adjective, I just used the noun intellect for "Yes, he really lives only in the intellect."

I have absolutely no idea what Edith is asking herself starting with "Ob solche Männer der Idee wohl einer großen Tat gewachsen wären?"  I can translate the individual words and link a couple together, but I have no confidence whatsoever in my translation.

I couldn't find Einzwängung in my dictionary, but I did find the verb einzwängen, which means squeeze in, jam in, constrain, straightjacket, so I translated Einzwängung as constraint.

I had to look up sowohl in my dictionary, and I found ~ ... als auch, which is the correlative "both... and...."  In my sentence, I think that's the meaning that sowohl has, but instead of being paired with als auch, it's with wie.  It's "sowohl in dem, was er sagt, wie in seinem ganzen Gebaren."  I can't make any sense of the sentence otherwise.