Stefan Zweig

Story of a young officer and a crippled girl, a tragedy of prewar army life in Austria.

A Novel

Beware of Pity

There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart’s impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another’s unhappiness ...; and the other, the only kind that counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.

...stroked my sleeve, that one restrained gesture of heart-felt gratitude had sufficed to cause some emotional spring deep down within me to well up and overflow.

It is never until one realises that one means something to others that one feels there is any point or purpose in one’s own existence.

Why worry as to whether I had said too much or too little? Even if I had gone further than in all honesty I should have done, my lies, those lies born of pity, had made her happy; and to make a person happy could never be a crime.

I was running away because I could not bear to be loved against my will.

‘Talk her out of it? Talk her out of what? Talk a woman out of being in love? Tell her she ought not to feel as she does feel? Not to love when she does love? That would be about the worst thing one could possibly do, and the stupidest into the bargain. Have you ever heard of logic prevailing against passion? Of anyone’s being able to say to a fever: “Fever, cease raging!”, or to a fire, “Fire, stop burning!”

aywen

I realized that to mortify oneself in this way was stupid and useless. I realized that there was no point in denying oneself a pleasure because it was denied another, in refusing to allow oneself to be happy because someone else was unhappy. I realized that all the time one was laughing and cracking silly jokes, somewhere in the world someone was lying at the point of death; that misery was lurking, people starving, behind a thousand windows; that there were such things as hospitals, quarries and coal mines; that in factories, in offices, in prisons countless thousands toiled and moiled at every hour of the day, and that it would not relieve the distress of a single human being if yet another were to torment himself needlessly.

For the first time in my life I had received an assurance that I had been of use to someone on this earth, and my astonishment at the thought that I, a commonplace, unsophisticated young officer, should really have the power to make someone else so happy knew no bounds.

In all sorts of delightful, obvious ways I was made to realize that I was regarded as one of the family. Every one of my little weaknesses and predilections was anticipated and encouraged; my favourite brand of cigarettes was always laid out ready for me, the book that on my last visit I had happened to say I should like to read I would find lying, as though by chance, the pages carefully cut, on the little stool; one particular arm-chair opposite Edith’s chaise-longue was regarded incontestably as 'my’ chair — trifles, mere nothings, all these, to be sure, but such things as imperceptibly cast a homely warmth over a strange room and, without one’s being aware of it, cheer and lighten the spirit.

Again and again, day after day, I found fresh opportunities for indulging, trying out, this passion that had suddenly possessed me. And I said to myself: from now on, help anyone and everyone so far as in you lies. Cease to be apathetic, indifferent! Exalt yourself by devoting yourself to others, enrich yourself by making everyone’s destiny your own, by enduring and understanding every facet of human suffering through your pity. And my heart, astonished at its own workings, quivered with gratitude towards the sick girl whom I had unwittingly hurt and who, through her suffering, had taught me the creative magic of pity.

I could no longer understand how it was that I had tortured myself when everything, after all, was so simple. You just sat together and held hands, there was no need for you to force yourselves or to hide your real feelings, you showed that you were fond of one another, you did not struggle against your tender feelings, you accepted the other’s love for you without shame and with sheer gratitude.

march🐇

“But, from that moment, I have understood that no guilt is ever truly forgotten as long as the conscience is still aware of it”

Wes Anderson on Stefan Zweig: "I had never heard of Zweig...when I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book. I also read the The Post-Office Girl. The Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books. Two characters in our story are vaguely meant to represent Zweig himself — our “Author” character, played by Tom Wilkinson, and the theoretically fictionalised version of himself, played by Jude Law. But, in fact, M. Gustave, the main character who is played by Ralph Fiennes, is modelled significantly on Zweig as well." The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, and Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings. Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer stationed at the edge of the empire, is invited to a party at the home of a rich local landowner, a world away from the dreary routine of the barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and the exhilarated young Hofmiller asks his host—s lovely daughter for a dance, only to discover that sickness has left her painfully crippled. It is a minor blunder that will destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a well-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to health.

I'm sure many readers walked away feeling sympathy for Hofmiller or Edith. I walked away feeling frustrated by both of them. Maybe that's exactly what Zweig intended.

The title perfectly captures the essence of the novel. Pity can be a double edged sword. Without clear boundaries between pity and empathy, even the kindest intentions can lead to tragedy. Was lying as an act of kindness really necessary? Does one have to sacrifice oneself for another person out of pity?

If I could describe what it felt like to read this book, I'd say it was like waking up to a rainy morning. Everything felt gloomy and heavy, making you want to stay in bed and hide beneath the covers. Which is probably why it took me two months to finish it.

I'm sure many readers walked away feeling sympathy for Hofmiller or Edith. I walked away feeling frustrated by both of them. Maybe that's exactly what Zweig intended.

The title perfectly captures the essence of the novel. Pity can be a double edged sword. Without clear boundaries between pity and empathy, even the kindest intentions can lead to tragedy. Was lying as an act of kindness really necessary? Does one have to sacrifice oneself for another person out of pity?

If I could describe what it felt like to read this book, I'd say it was like waking up to a rainy morning. Everything felt gloomy and heavy, making you want to stay in bed and hide beneath the covers. Which is probably why it took me two months to finish it.

Pity is a fragile state, there is no silver lining. 

Incredibly written book that grasp the human condition in regards to pity and the complexity of its nature — there is something so refreshing in confronting thoughts that i frequently think about ; pity, and how it’s a double ended sword. It was suffocating and amicably delusional. 

I love the juxtaposition between all of the characters state and how i understood each one of them but empathized with one of them the most. 

Although, a bit jarring of a read due to the density of the book, i still ate this up!

Pity is a fragile state, there is no silver lining. 

Incredibly written book that grasp the human condition in regards to pity and the complexity of its nature — there is something so refreshing in confronting thoughts that i frequently think about ; pity, and how it’s a double ended sword. It was suffocating and amicably delusional. 

I love the juxtaposition between all of the characters state and how i understood each one of them but empathized with one of them the most. 

Although, a bit jarring of a read due to the density of the book, i still ate this up!

Jini R

Nica

what a book. but it wouldve been better if this was a hundred pages less 

weli 

In 1913 a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance - his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope. Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayal of both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Nooshin

I might be slightly overrating this one. But Stefan Zweig is such a master storyteller and this novel was so oddly working in spite of its feverishness and confusion that I can't resist a five-star review.

It certainly could have been shorter—and would have been, had Zweig had time before WWII to exert upon it his well-known method of cutting a bulky piece of writing so much as to produce a final work that is no longer than a novella. There are indeed a few too many repenting letters and dramatic soliloquies; but, on the other hand, you won't see me complaining about the myriad, pleasant stories-within-a-story scattered in abundance in the 400-odd pages of this novel.

Anthea Bell's translation was magnificent and the Pushkin Press paperback was a pleasure to behold. It took me a criminally long time to climb the not-so-steep mountain that Beware of Pity was, but the journey was quite worth it.

sophia

soap

🍸

maia

Jing Yi

Ibragimova Renata

Ahmet

In 1913 a young second lieutenant discovers the terrible danger of pity. He had no idea the girl was lame when he asked her to dance -- his compensatory afternoon calls relieve his guilt but give her a dangerous glimmer of hope.Stefan Zweig's only novel is a devastating depiction of the torment of the betrayalof both honour and love, realised against the background of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Aaron McCollough

After Thomas Mann, Stefan Zweig was perhaps the most well-known and widely read author writing in German before the Nazi rule. Beware of Pity was written in Zweig's London exile in 1938, and although it is above all a psychological novel whose tragedy unfolds in the private realms, Zweig's humanistic perspective provides a commentary on the larger historical and political situation. His subtle analysis of pity and its implications - his psychological study of the self-denying surrender to the object of one's pity and his Nietszchean verdict against the fatal power of the weak - resonates with the political ills of the time. The main action is set in 1914, in the months leading up to World War I. Pushed on by circumstances and caught between the polarities of his life as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army and his acquaintance with a wealthy local family, Anton Hofmiller consents to an engagement with Edith, the crippled daughter who loves him. Immediately regretting his assent, remorseful yet refusing responsibility, he denies the news of his engagement to his comrades. His weakness of character and his selfish and superficial pity for Edith and her father, his fear of making decisions and his inability of facing the consequences, drive the woman to commit suicide and break her father's heart.

Clare B

Wes Anderson on Stefan Zweig: "I had never heard of Zweig...when I just more or less by chance bought a copy of Beware of Pity. I loved this first book. I also read the The Post-Office Girl. The Grand Budapest Hotel has elements that were sort of stolen from both these books. Two characters in our story are vaguely meant to represent Zweig himself -- our "Author" character, played by Tom Wilkinson, and the theoretically fictionalised version of himself, played by Jude Law. But, in fact, M. Gustave, the main character who is played by Ralph Fiennes, is modelled significantly on Zweig as well." "Stefan Zweig was a dark and unorthodox artist; it's good to have him back."--Salman Rushdie The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, and Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncovers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings. Hofmiller, an Austro-Hungarian cavalry officer stationed at the edge of the empire, is invited to a party at the home of a rich local landowner, a world away from the dreary routine of the barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and the exhilarated young Hofmiller asks his host's lovely daughter for a dance, only to discover that sickness has left her painfully crippled. It is a minor blunder that will destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a well-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to health.

Beware of Pity A Novel