Understanding “später ist dann nichts mehr daraus geworden”

Question

The question is on the highlighted clause in this passage from the translation of Camus’s The Stranger by Georg Goyert and Hans Georg Brenner.

Ich fand nur schwer aus dem Bett, denn der gestrige Tag hatte mich sehr angestrengt. Während des Rasierens fragte ich mich, was ich unternehmen sollte, und ich beschloß, baden zu gehen. Ich nahm die Straßenbahn und fuhr zur Hafenbadeanstalt. Dort schwamm ich in der schmalen Fahrrinne. Viele junge Leute waren da. Im Wasser traf ich Maria Cardona, eine frühere Stenotypistin aus meinem Büro, auf die ich damals scharf gewesen war. Sie wohl auch auf mich. Aber sie kündigte bald, und später ist dann nichts mehr daraus geworden.

Question

1. This dictionary entry says

   Es wurde nichts daraus

   means

   It came to nothing.

   Am I right to think that the highlighted clause uses a form of this expression in which es has been suppressed?

2. Assuming yes to 1, is there any way to restore the suppressed es so that we get, for example:

   später ist es dann nichts mehr daraus geworden

   Or is it going to sound terrible no matter where you stick in that es once you’ve got später in front of ist?

3. In Es wurde nichts daraus, do we say that es or nichts is the subject?

4. Assuming the answer to 3 is that nichts is the subject, then for es regnet do we say that it is a sentence without a subject? Or do we resort to saying that es is the subject there?

Background

I realize that question 3 and 4 may be artificial in the sense that nothing interesting is at stake and we know what is going on without bothering our head about any subject. But once you have a concept like subject, then as you come to a limiting case you can (a) say that the concept does not apply (the question is meaningless, etc.) or (b) make an arbitrary call so the concept gets a nice universal applicability. So, questions 3 and 4 may be asking which formal choice grammarians have made.

Answer 1

The word es can have many different roles in German. In connection with certain verbs such as regnen, where there is no entity actually doing something, es can be an impersonal subject: es regnet. In other cases, however, it is a so-called expletive, having the purely syntactic function of filling the mandatory position before the verb. In this use, it doesn’t even have to agree with the real subject in number or gender:

Es gingen zwei Männer die Straße entlang.
Sie gingen zwei Männer die Straße entlang.

When there is something else in first position, this es becomes unnecessary and vanishes:

Im Morgengrauen gingen zwei Männer die Straße entlang.
Zwei Männer gingen die Straße entlang.

On the other hand, the impersonal subject with regnen is always there:

Es regnete die ganze Nacht.
Die ganze Nacht regnete es.

The es in the sentence from your dictionary, Es wurde nichts daraus, belongs to the other category – it is an expletive that is only necessary because of the word order. When the sentence is changed into, e.g., Daraus wurde nichts, the es disappears. There is no choice involved: The es is required in Es wurde nichts daraus and can’t be used in Daraus wurde nichts.

Since es in its role as an expletive isn’t really a sentence part, it can’t be the subject – nichts is the only option here. (Note that in this expression, werden is not the auxiliary but the full verb, meaning “to come into existence”.)

As I said above, the es in Es regnet is completely different and is indeed considered the subject of that sentence.