and there he read the date, and I quote, "1885-1914," and

他看到了日期 1885至1914
automatically he did the arithmetic, twenty-nine years.

他算了算 29岁
Suddenly he was struck by an idea that shook his very being.

突然他的内心被深深震撼了
He was forty-years-old.

他已经40岁了
The man buried under that slab who had been his father was actually

深埋在底下曾经是自己父亲的人
younger than him, and the wave of tenderness and pity that once filled his heart

比他还要年轻他的内心立刻充满了一种特殊感情
was not the stirring of the soul that leads the son to the memory of the vanished father,

不是那种使他来看父亲的墓地的遗憾之情
but the overwhelming compassion that a grown man feels for an unjustly murdered child;

而是一个成年人对被不公正杀害的孩子感受到的深深的同情
something here was not in the natural order,

这是不符合自然规律的事情儿子比父亲活得更长
and in truth there was no order but only madness and chaos when the son was older than the father.

这是疯狂混乱没有规律可言的事情
Second specificity: death was also experienced by the soldiers in a very solitary way.

第二个细节士兵的死亡过程都是十分孤独的
Well, you'll tell me it's of course very common in wartime.

当然你会说在战争时期这是平常事