This Month's Installment
As always, what's italicized is what I'm unsure about.
"Do you think I had gotten a taxi or a valet? Everything has disappeared! Now everyone is pointed to himself. We will have to learn still other things."They were gone upstairs. He proceeded to his study and cast a quick glance at the notes that had arrived."It is nothing important," she said.He also had his mind on other things, she noticed. She didn't like the look of him at all, his complexion was indeed tanned, but his eyes were dull and sunken, and although he had also pulled himself together, the restlessness that lay over his entire being and his movements could not escape her."I had hoped I would find you more refreshed after your long vacation."He laughed stiffly. "The upheaval came a little suddenly. Out of the deep peace of Zoppot so quickly into this uncertainty! Give me just---115---a little to eat, and everything will be fine. I haven't gotten anything yet, our train had no dining car, and there was such a rush at the stations that one preferred to stand back."She led him into the dining room. The tea kettle bubbled on the table, bread, butter, and cold cuts were set there. He sat down, he even helpt himself. But even before the first bite, he stopt."There is great unrest in the city," he said, "I heard paper money would not be accepted anymore, and the businesses were often closed for hours on end.""It is not so bad and will soon ease up again.""And in the congregation? Has anyone askt about me? ... How many would have to go with if it would really come so far! One still hopes, yes, but I fear the chances are only very small.""Don't you want to tell me about your trip?""An-other time. It all lay so far behind me, as if it had been a hundred years ago; now there is nothing in me but the seriousness of the hour.""No," she said quickly and with worried eyes lookt him firmly in the face, "that is not it. Something has happened to you-""How do you know?""You see, now you admit it yourself. And now tell!"He pushed the plate away from himself and with agitated, sometimes faltering, then again overly fast voice told her his adventure up until the moment when his travelling companion was arrested as a dangerous Russian spy and he had also been led away out of the train."And then?" she askt in breathless suspense. "What did they do with you? And how did you get free again?"---116---"Right away they put me in the train station in an already stopt, closed carriage and led me through the dark night to the guard. There they started a short interrogation with me. They were probably convinced of my innocence, but they did not set me free, I had to spend time in a not very cosy room until the next morning. Then a higher officer came. He did not doubt for a moment the truth of what I told him, regretted with hospitable sympathy the serious mishap that had befallen me through no fault of my own, added however that it would have been impossible for his officers to let me travel farther because my statement as a witness would be of great importance. I found out that it had to do with a wide-ranging nest of Russian spies. They had their accomplices everywhere, made plans and sketches, wrote and received traitorous letters. And they knew how to act so cleverly that one tracked them down only yesterday, and this was possible only through the showing-off of one of theirs who had wanted to take revenge on the head of the band, a German-Russian by the name Sandkuhl. That was the man that that ill-fated creature had introduced to me as a higher Russian officer. He was of course not her master, but rather her partner, who had her quite in his control.
Grammatical Minutiae/Commentary
In the original text, "up to the moment when his travelling companion was arrested as a dangerous Russian spy and he had also been led away out of the train" is in active voice with the indefinite pronoun "man": "bis zu dem Augenblick, wo man seine Reisegefährtin als gefährliche russische Spionin verhaftet und auch ihn aus dem Zuge mit fortgeführt hätte." I flipt it to passive voice simply because I thought it sounded better, but in this context, passive voice also illustrates the lack of agency that Nuscha and Hans had in that situation.
