Repository path: workshop/translations/kronenwaechter-sturm/R07-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-kronenwaechter-sturm-R07-v1 — Arnim, «Die Kronenwächter», the storm scene, fluency

Source. As ../R06-v1/translation.md: Arnim, «Die Kronenwächter» I.7 «Der Sturm» (1817), 694 German words in eight segments, the collated copy-text at ../source-de-segments.txt.

Regime. R07 v1.0 — fluency, the ten-rule set frozen 2026-07-28 (S048), consulted at every choice, coverage code on every logged decision. F5 declared: British English. Cost $0.

Order. Rendered third, after R06 and R08, matching E-20260808c exactly.

Contamination. none, on the same basis as R06-v1 — no comparator exists, so tools/dependence_check.py is not run and the absence is declared rather than left silent. Within-run: written with R06 and R08 in view, the standing lead-ladder limitation.

The translation

S1

While he was still speaking with such satisfaction, the Prior came in and warned him anxiously that the mayor was having the house surrounded on all sides by armed citizens. The stranger thought it must be about the daughter, but the architect shook his head, and the Prior said that he had heard the mayor speaking very angrily about a woman who claimed to be the heiress of a ruling house but who was being pursued as a fraud by that family's relatives.

S2

"I know what they want," the stranger sighed. "The jewels from my father's estate. Let them have them. I have finer diamonds than those in the tears of joy that I am weeping. Let them in, the envious creatures. They will find that they can take nothing from me as long as I hold my beloved son in my arms. He is mine, and no power will part me from him."

S3

The architect stepped between them and tried to persuade her that the jewels could only be a pretext, and that these implacable people would refuse her the son simply in order to go on punishing her for her unfortunate husband's crime. "You know now that he is safe and amply provided for," he said. "You are not parting from him for ever. Your vow is discharged. Grant what my devotion asks; reward my long years of service. What does the princely title matter to you, when so many hold that you forfeited it through your mother's unequal birth and through your marriage to an unknown knight? As my wife you would have the protection of the free city of Strasbourg."

S4

But the stranger lifted up her beloved husband's skull and said: "I could give you everything and would still be repaying your service poorly; and the one thing you ask for, my heart and my hand, is not mine to give. No decision of mine can part me from my husband or my son; only the force that tears me out of life can separate me from them. Leave me to the fate that heaven has appointed me."

S5

At that moment the furious mayor pushed aside the stranger's servants, who were trying to stop him, and strode in with the cry, "In the name of my Count!" But just as he was about to declare the stranger under arrest, the architect brought the trembling Apollonia forward to meet him. This inexplicable sight left the violent man at a loss. If he had seen Berthold, his anger would have had its explanation, but the stranger was still holding the young man in her arms. "You, here?" the mayor stammered, and Apollonia was sobbing too hard to answer. After a moment's thought he took her by the arm. Berthold tried to keep hold of her, but she herself pulled away the hand he had caught as she turned from him.

S6

A vagueness had come over them all and left every one of them paralysed. Just as an illness sends such premonitions of exhaustion on ahead of it, so now some violent event in the atmosphere seemed to be working on all the townspeople like a general sickness of the heavens. A storm was raging through the streets of the town, and those who were shaken within had not heard it until now. It grew steadily more violent. The pounding gusts, the falling rows of roof tiles, the rattling windows, the shouts of people who no longer felt safe in their swaying wooden houses — all of it became audible only when the gale burst open a badly fastened window of the room where they were all still standing, blew in straw and branches, and began its wild game with everything loose in the room.

S7

Voices were calling for the mayor from every direction. He was asked to give the order that all the fires on the hearths be put out, so that a general blaze should not complete the disaster. He was not a man used to making decisions so quickly, and in his confusion he called for the town hall; but he did not let go of his daughter, just as the stranger, through the whole storm, held the skull and her son ever more tightly to her. And so the mayor went off with his daughter — the grim butcher with his broken lamb, the lamb whose safe fold had come down on top of it.

S8

Now that he was gone, the Prior emerged from his hiding place. He had been praying for his good name and his office, praying that he would not be charged with abducting the daughter. He used the first free moment to escape. Who would have thought that so red-faced a man could turn so pale?

Translator's log — frozen before any evaluation of this translation was designed

Coverage code on each: D a rule names the feature and only one live option satisfies it · P rules bear and two or more live options satisfy them · S no rule bears.

1. S1 «warnte ihn ängstlich, der Bürgermeister lasse…» → warned him anxiously that the mayor was having…. D (F7) — the connective the German leaves implicit is supplied. Same operation at said that he had heard.

2. S1 «er habe ihn … sprechen hören» — ihn is ambiguous between the Bürgermeister and the Baumeister. → had heard the mayor speaking. D (F8) — one reading chosen and written. R06 left the pronoun and R08 left it; this arm is the only one that fixes it.

3. S1 «Bürgermeister», «Baumeister», «Bürger», «Straßburg» → mayor, architect, citizens, Strasbourg. D (F4) on all four — no foreign matter, English conventions where English has them. Architect rather than master builder is also P (F2): master builder is the more specialised term.

4. S1 «Betrügerin» → a fraud. D (F1) — impostress is dated. The German's feminine marking is dropped, which no rule protects.

5. S1/S2 «die Fremde» → the stranger, and elsewhere pronouns. P (F2, F10) — the stranger woman would be noticed as a phrase.

6. S2 «gebt es ihnen» → Let them have them. D (F8) — the source's open antecedent is closed on the stones and written. This is the site R08 kept open under R4; the two rule sets name the same site and pull opposite ways, which is what a crossed pair is supposed to do.

7. S2 «die edlen Steine» / «Erbe des Vaters» → the jewels / my father's estate. D (F2) on jewels, D (F7) on the supplied possessive my.

8. S2 «Diamanten von reinerem Wasser» → finer diamonds than those. D (F1, F10) — the jeweller's water is dated and would be noticed as a word choice. The figure is lost and the rules require losing it: she is answering stones with tears and the English keeps the answer while dropping the hinge. Logged as the clearest single cost this rule set imposed here.

9. S2, the comma-spliced run of five clauses → five sentences. D (F7, F9).

10. S3 «der Besitz jener Kostbarkeiten» → the jewels. P (F2, F10) — the possession of those valuables is not wrong, only heavy.

11. S3 «um noch in ihr das Vergehen des unglücklichen Gemahls zu rächen» → simply in order to go on punishing her for her unfortunate husband's crime. D (F6) — to avenge in her still the offence is the close syntax and is not idiomatic; D (F7) on the supplied simply in order to.

12. S3 «…für verlustig achten.» → question mark supplied. D (F9) — closure. R06 supplied it too and logged it as a repair; here a rule requires it.

13. S3 «erfüllt die Wünsche meiner Treue» → Grant what my devotion asks. D (F6, F10) — the genitive chain is not English.

14. S3, four clauses on commas and one exclamation mark → three sentences and a semicolon. D (F9).

15. S4 «und lohnte Eure Dienste nur gering» → and would still be repaying your service poorly. D (F8) — the bare subjunctive is read as concessive, that reading is chosen, and would still is written. D (F7) on the supplied auxiliary.

16. S4 «sie beide sind nicht mein» → is not mine to give. D (F6, F8) — the resumptive pronoun is dropped and the sense fixed. To give is added; nothing in the German licenses it, and F7 does.

17. S4 «dem Geschicke meines Himmels» → the fate that heaven has appointed me. D (F10) — the destiny of my heaven, which R06 kept, is exactly a phrase that would be noticed.

18. S5 «die Leute der Fremden» → the stranger's servants. D (F8) — their status is left open in German and is fixed here.

19. S5 «aber die Fremde hielt ihn noch in ihren Armen» — ihn is Berthold, two sentences after he was last named. → the young man. D (F8), and it is a real gain in legibility: R06 wrote him and the referent is genuinely hard to recover there.

20. S5 «Nach kurzer Besinnung» → After a moment's thought; «Apollonia konnte schluchzend nicht antworten» → was sobbing too hard to answer. D (F6) on both.

21. S6 «pochten die Luftadern» → The pounding gusts. D (F10) — the image is deleted, not softened, because the veins of the air is precisely a phrase whose effect is to be noticed. This and fork 8 are the two places where following the rule set cost the passage a figure.

22. S6 «Krankheit des Gestirns» → sickness of the heavens. D (F2) — the constellations is the more specialised reading; of the star is not English.

23. S6, the 78-word period → broken into three, with It grew steadily more violent. standing as its own sentence. D (F9), D (F7).

24. S6 «wo sich alle noch befanden» → where they were all still standing. P (F6).

25. S7 «den Schrecken erfüllte» → complete the disaster. D (F8) — erfüllen is read as make whole and written that way; R06 wrote fill up the terror and logged it as the fork it would have gone back for.

26. S7 «verlangte … nach dem Rathause» → called for the town hall. D (F4).

27. S7 «der grimmige Schlächter mit dem zerschmetterten Lamm, über das der sichre Stall zusammengebrochen war» → the grim butcher with his broken lamb, the lamb whose safe fold had come down on top of it. D (F6, F7) — the German relative hangs off Lamm across a clause boundary; English needs the noun repeated. The figure survives intact here, unlike forks 8 and 21, because it is a figure English can hold.

28. S8 «ein feurig rotes Antlitz» → so red-faced a man. D (F1) — countenance is dated.

29. S8, the closing exclamation → question mark. P (F9) — both punctuations close; the question mark suits the rhetorical question the clause actually is.

Counts over 29 logged decisions: D 23 · P 6 · S 0.

One observation about the rule set itself, recorded because it is a fact about the rules and not about this translation (internal-judgment-only): F8 fired six times here (forks 2, 6, 15, 16, 18, 19) against a German text that is ambiguous far more often than Kleist was, and every one of those six is a place where the English now says something the German does not commit to. F8 is the rule that most reliably converts a source's openness into a translator's assertion.