This Month's Installment
His house was not the only one at which they stopped;---156---he also saw them knock at others, and everywhere, one opened to them and received them warmly.Edith came. The work was done; all were fed and put to bed. He left his place at the window and sat down beside her."Many more refugees are come," she said."A sad sight, these poor people, how they wander now through the city, looking for a place for the night... one is still not at all accustomed to these images," he added, in order to excuse his agitation from earlier, which had certainly not escaped her."I fear we will still have to accustom ourselves to quite different things."He did not answer, but she felt that something was working in him. "Certainly," he finally said, "we will still have to accustom ourselves to much. And will bear and accept it as has been ordered us by God's will. I will never grumble or resist it. But these people here, who wander through night and fog, are a piece of the destroyed home. And when I look at them, my heart bleeds.""One has said to me a word once," Edith replied," that I did not hold believable, that I have passed on to no one, but that I come across now and then, the last time even from such a one who appeared to be well in the know.""What was it?""One would surrender East Prussia in a war with Russia.""Surrender!?" he cried, and his cheeks flushed hotly. "Surrender our home, our East Prussia to the Russians, to the robbers!... I will never believe that. And you will not believe it either; you're not allowed to believe it!"---157---"No," she answered firmly and definitely, "I told you already: I have absolutely rejected it and am still doing so now."He had stept back to the window and stared at the street and beyond it at the market over there. "Still! Homeless, miserable, desperate!" he said, more to himself than to her. "Now where the war first began... already they come out of Gumbinnen! How far is it from there to Reckenstein and Bärwalde - maybe thirty miles, not more. And if they were also to take and scorch that!"
Grammatical Minutia/Commentary
I translated "ein heißes Rot stieg in seine Wangen" as "his cheeks flushed hotly," but literally it's something like "a hot red rose in his cheeks."
