ここに話をしますのは、それらの多くの天使の中の一人であるのはいうまでもありません。- は言うまでもない - Grammar - Kanshudo - It goes without saying that this story is about one of those many angels.
ただ車が石の上をガタガタと踊りながら、なんでものどかな、田舎道を、。。。
「だんだん、のどかになりますだ」
This is a bit hard to parse, I think, so my hint would be 長閑 - Jisho.org.
「お前さんは、どこまでゆかしゃる」- This is an old polite conjugation which you can still see in words like おっしゃる and いらっしゃる. The verb in question is 行く (with the alternative reading ゆく). - “Dear sir, where are you heading to?”
日よりはほかになかったのであります。This does not have the usual meaning of “than” that you might know from ~より~の方が. Instead it is より - Jisho.org#3, “except, other than”, and there is even a complete grammar point for the construction: Japanese よりほかに…ない grammar yorihokani…nai (in our case, は is thrown in for additional contrast). - “Only on that day”
それをば手に持って - Not a typo, but apparently an old form of を: をば - Jisho.org
Here is a construction that appeared in a previous story, in a very similar context, but is not a major grammar point.
いろいろの花が咲くには、まだ早かったけれど、梅の花は、もう香っていました。
It was still too early for various (most?) flowers to bloom, but plum flowers were already fragrant.
I only ever see には used in reference to nouns, but it looks like one can apply it to sentence clauses for contrast.
For the majority of the story I wasn’t really sure what is it about, because it felt sad (due to the chocolate angel’s poor fate sometimes), but the narrative itself wasn’t exactly sad. Perhaps just slightly nostalgic. Until the sentence above showed up and I realized it’s probably again a reference to Mimei’s children who died early.
I don’t have much to add this week. I thought this week’s story was again a little easier to read (I might have to admit that it does get easier over time ), but I was a little busy so I didn’t have time yet to dive into the deeper grammar points yet (@NicoleIsEnough thanks again for the explanations!)
Story-wise, I thought it was a fine fairy tale, but not very exciting. There were some nice descriptions of scenes, but they didn’t grab me as much as in 月夜と眼鏡.