First published in 1914, the story centers on Ingeborg who grows up being pushed around by her father, the Bishop. In the first moment she is ever alone and left to her own devices, she decides to take a trip to Switzerland. She is alone for only a few hours, however, and then the next overpowering man comes into her life, a German pastor. Through no effort or even desire of her own she somehow becomes his wife and begins yet another journey in pursuit of control of her life.
Ingeborg Bullivant decides spontaneously to join a tour to Lucerne-and returns engaged. Yet her new life as a rural Prussian pastor's wife restricts her as much as her old; and when the dashing artist Ingram appears, musing about wondrous Italy, wanderlust tempts her a second time. Von Arnim's accomplished and comic novel is based on her own first marriage and life in provincial Germany at the turn of the century