The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful h
eart, and Beware of Pity, the only novel he published during his lifetime, uncov
ers the seed of selfishness within even the finest of feelings.
Hofmiller, an A
ustro-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 r
outine of the barracks. The surroundings are glamorous, wine flows freely, and t
he 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 blunde
r that will destroy his life, as pity and guilt gradually implicate him in a wel
l-meaning but tragically wrongheaded plot to restore the unhappy invalid to heal
th.
