“And what
do you want to do, when you finish your studying?”, she asked. She was an old
woman and had been invited as a guest lecturer. She had talked about her life.
She had been the first woman in the country to be allowed to study medicine and
practice as a doctor. She had been in the resistance, and she had been in the
socialist movement. A very interesting story of hardship, struggle and progress
had she delivered.
We were
standing together the three of us. As soon as the lecture was over, we had left
to buy some bottles of beer for the evening. It was on our way back to the
students’ hall that we came across her, and she stopped us and addressed us.
“And what
do you want to do, when you finish studying”, she asked.
John was
the first to answer. “I want to study medicine like you. When you see the misery and suffering in the Third
World, you realise that you could really make a difference by working there.”
Peter went
next. He wanted to study biology. The consumer society was devastating the
world. Global Warning was not on the agenda yet, but there were of course many
other causes for alarm. “We need somebody in this field, who do not just work
to amass as much money as possible, but who wants to work in the interest of
the environment”, he concluded.
She then
turned and looked at me. I couldn’t resist and said: “I don’t know yet, but I
really don’t care, as long as there’s some money in it.”
“You’re
lying”, she said. “I can see straight through you. You think with your heart,
not your brain.”
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