Ludwig smiled. "Let us make a distinction. You work at your good pleasure as the whim seizes you, while the work to which I allude must be the result of a certain outward or inward pressure. Moreover, the projected book will not be written at present. I am going to India."
"And you tell us this only when you are just going away?" Johanna cried, reproachfully; and Aunt Thekla asked, dropping her work in her lap, "For heaven's sake, my dear doctor, what can you want in India?"
Ludwig came to the window where they were sitting. "Study, madame," he said. "An expedition, half scientific, half mercantile, is about to start for Gujerat and the Vindhya Mountains. I join it as physician. Moreover, my final decision was made only to-day."
"What does your father say to it?" asked Johanna.
"Of course he made all sorts of objections at first, but gradually he relinquished his opposition, and now he admits that the journey will be of great advantage to me."
The Freiherr again interrupted his walk. "Advantage!" he growled. "What advantage can India bring to a German physician? But science and trade are the idols of the present age, to which men sacrifice not only human beings but sound sense into the bargain!"
With these words he left the room, closing the door behind him with a crash.
Aunt Thekla grew pale and red by turns. "Pray do not be offended with my brother," she began.
Johann Leopold interposed: "What is there to be offended about?" and he smiled faintly. "You ought to feel flattered, my dear doctor. Grandpapa wishes to keep you here, and is angry to think that you can prefer India to our Dönninghausen. Dönninghausen, you must know, is in the eyes of every member of the family the very ideal of perfection, a paradise on earth."
"Not in my eyes," Magelone called out from the other window: it was insufferable to have no one taking any notice of her.