Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

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.

he was merely one of those embarrassingly convivial souls who collect acquaintances as assiduously as children collect postage-stamps and are therefore peculiarly proud of every fresh addition to their collection.

I scarcely knew where I was, I felt like embracing everyone, saying something kind, some word of thanks to each one of them, so light, so rapturous, so blissfully young did I feel.

at our mess table every piece of idiocy on the part of any one of us was chewed over for the next ten or twenty years, every asininity immortalized, every joke fossilized.

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

One should never create precedents; a habit was liable to become a duty, and I was not going to tie myself down.

Just as she, on one occasion, had hobbled defiantly across the room on purpose to torture us, who were sound of limb, to revenge herself on us for our smug good health, so did I now feel a kind of angry pleasure in revealing to her in an exhibitionistic way the restricted and dependent state of my existence.

Never in my life had I received such a wild, despairing, thirsty kiss as the one given me by this crippled girl.

I do not expect you to return my love — no, by God, who is to heal and save me, I have not the audacity to expect that! Not even in my dreams do I dare to hope that you could love me as I am — I do not want, as you know, any sacrifice, any pity from you. All I ask is that you should let me wait, wait in silence, and not spurn me utterly.

And if mine is increased a thousandfold, the torture of having to do without you for weeks, for months on end, don’t think of that, think only of yourself, as I think always of you, only of you.

In all our actions vanity is, after all, one of the most powerful driving forces, and weak natures in particular succumb to the temptation to do something which, viewed superficially, makes them appear strong, courageous and resolute.

But ever since that moment I have realized afresh that no guilt is forgotten so long as the conscience still knows of it.