Here's the next section of Steppenwolf. It's likely to have some errors, because I wrote it on a Greyhound bus when I didn't have a dictionary or any internet.
One could speak long and continuously on the subject and write books about it....but it meant nothing at all to the Wolf of the Steppes, because for him it was all the same if the wolf had been magic’ed or beaten into him, or if it was only a fancy of his soul. What others wished to think and also what he himself wished to think was worth nothing to him, because it did not take the wolf out of him. The Wolf of the Steppes had two natures, one human and one wolfish. That was his fate, and it may well be that was nothing special or unusual. There have been many people who have much of dog or fox, fish or snake in them without any particular difficulties. In these people, the person and the fox, the person and the fish live next to each other, helping rather than hurting each other. Some people’s good fortune is due more to the fox or the monkey than to the human. This is known to everyone. But it was different for Harry. In him wolf and man ran against each other, and did not so much help each other as were locked in a deadly struggle.
I actually translated that last Friday on the route from Bellingham to Mt. Vernon. I might have gotten more, but a drunk man sat next to me and I was too busy with damage control. He wasn't actually threatening, just extremely irritating, and in my space enough that I didn't want to give him any opportunities to mess with me. When I was a little girl, my brother would take the Greyhound across the country from his college in New York to visit us. It was probably easier for him what with being male, but still! I would never want to do that.
Dear Sister! Your German is amazing. I'm speechless at your skills of translation and quite enjoying your combination of linguistic agility enhanced by your innate poetic sense, which you always had. It is thanks to you that I'm reading Steppenwolf for the first time.
ReplyDeleteSomeday we must share sordid travel stories. I'm sure you will have plenty more by the time you return to the land of raving soymilk and subdued organic honey.
Ah, the pleasures of a cross-country Greyhound trip...it will have to wait because this is your time to shine in the glow of your own adventure. I can't wait to read your latest entry from Graz, but I had to stop back here and post a comment (the PC I use at work blocks me from doing that, otherwie I would have written this days ago).
One quick tale - this is long before I ever rode Greyhound (and please forgive my haven't-written-German-since-1995 German): when I arrived in Bavaria, Christian and his mother Helga met me and we were walking through the Munchnerhauptbahnhoff. All of a sudden a stout fellow, unshaven and pungent with drink, stepped in our path and leaned close to me. "Du, junge.." he said with dead severity, evaluating me with a scrutinous gaze from head to toe, "Kommst-du mit mir und kaufst mich ein Bier." Helga said soemthing to him which I didn't understand, probably to the effect of "we're not interested" and turned us sharply away and out of the station. Christian good-naturedly smiled and said to me, "Wilkommen ins Bayern."