This Month's Installment
What's italicized is what I'm unsure about.
A few volunteered a word; he listened to them attentively, agreed with a lively nodding of his head to the thoughts that appeared to him practical and right, and now and then even made a note for himself with the huge pencil that lay on his table. On the whole, however, one had the impression that he already had everything fixed and ready and these rhetorical remarks were really only accessories belonging to a meeting."Where would I come to," he commented to Hans as they went home together, "especially in this time, when I let everything be spun out ten times in speaking in the meeting that suddenly is finished off by action? Talking a lot was one of the biggest mistakes of the Germans; hopefully the war has brought an end to it. We are now at the point of taking action there and not at the point of discussing.""We will find enough opportunity for taking action here too; the refugees will take care of that.""We must turn our attention to pushing them farther along as soon as it goes; a lasting place of residence in our city seems hardly advisable to me.""It would, however, not be very compassionate to send them farther immediately, when they have hardly reached any rest here.""And yet it would happen only for their welfare, because who gives us a guarantee that one day---180---even our city won't be affected?""You mean that the enemy could penetrate this far?"An obvious astonishment was in Hans' question. The thought that Stoltzmann was fighting there appeared not to have come to him yet."No," he added decidedly, "our brave troops would not let him come so far!""I don't fear it either. But it is much better to be calm about everything and take precautions than to let yourself be surprised. I had our collections in the museum and the most important pieces of the town archive brought into safekeeping. Your Nikolai church also has quite a share of pieces of value, above all the old paraments in the large sacristy; perhaps it would be advisable likewise to store them in a room as secure as possible. I still have some space and am at your disposal."
