Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

One should not always let the wish be father to the thought, I protested with some firmness.

as is borne out by experience, the instinct of self-deception in human beings makes them try to banish from their minds dangers of which at bottom they are perfectly aware by declaring them non-existent,

Even in the last war he had not met many men at the front who had either unequivocally acquiesced in or opposed the war. Most of them had been whirled into it like a cloud of dust and had simply found themselves caught up in the vast vortex, each one of them tossed about willynilly like a pea in a great sack. On the whole, more men had perhaps escaped into the war than from it.

It always demands a far greater degree of courage for an individual to oppose an organized movement than to let himself be carried along with the stream—individual courage, that is, a variety of courage that is dying out in these times of progressive organization and mechanization.

But a distinction of that kind, you know, only had any sort of point in our military world; and when the war was over, it seemed to me ridiculous to have to go about for the rest of my life labelled as a hero, just because on one occasion I had acted with real courage for twenty minutes—probably no more courageously than thousands of others, except that I had had the good fortune to be noticed, and the perhaps still more astounding good fortune to come back alive.

It’s a very odd story, and yet it may serve to show that courage is often nothing but inverted weakness.

Everywhere soldiering entails the same busily empty monotony; hour after hour is mapped out in accordance with inflexible antediluvian regulations, and even one’s leisure does not seem to offer much in the way of variety. In the officers’ mess, the same faces, the same conversation; at the café the same games of cards and billiards. Sometimes one is amazed that the good God should trouble to give the six or seven hundred roofs of a little town of this sort the background of a different sky and a different countryside.

Were one to attempt, I was quite certain, to visualize the misery that existed at any one time all over the world, there would be an end of one’s sleep and the smiles would die on one’s lips.

My family affairs were settled for me, my profession, my career was mapped out and defined, and this freedom from responsibility—only now did I realize it—had, without my knowing it, been very agreeable.

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.

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.

And since this whole world of ours is crammed, street upon street, room upon room, with poignant tragedies, drenched through and through with burning misery and distress, my days were passed from morn till night in a state of heightened attentiveness and expectation.

And I said to myself: From now on, help anyone and everyone so far as you can. 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.

For what could they know of this subtle craving to be stirred by pity to which I had fallen a prey as though—I cannot express it otherwise—to some dark passion?

But of what use is any amount of self-persuasion and self-encouragement once one’s inner equilibrium has been shaken?

For the first time I began to perceive that true sympathy cannot be switched on and off like an electric current, that anyone who identifies himself with the fate of another is robbed to some extent of his own freedom.

Uncertain to which God to turn, the forsaken God of his fathers or the new one, and pursued by the dread fear of getting on the wrong side of either, he has pledged himself to both.

Oh, if only I could stay here forever, be at no one’s beck and call, be free forever in the open fields, free as air!

I had been perfectly happy the whole of this long golden summer day; anything more could only diminish my happiness. Better to walk home now down the familiar avenue, my spirit tranquillized like the warm, summer air after the burning day. Better not to hanker for more, better merely to look back on it all and remember it gratefully.

pity is a confoundedly two-edged business. Anyone who doesn’t know how to deal with it should keep his hands, and, above all, his heart, off it. It is only at first that pity, like morphia, is a solace to the invalid, a remedy, a drug, but unless you know the correct dosage and when to stop, it becomes a virulent poison.

For the first time in my life I began to realize that it is not evil and brutality, but nearly always weakness, that is to blame for the worst things that happen in this world.

But he who is loved without reciprocating that love, is lost beyond redemption; for it is not in his power to set a limit to that other’s passion, to keep it within bounds, and the strongest will is reduced to impotence in the face of another’s desire.

Do understand—I had longed for you so long and so interminably.

‘Exactly what I told myself, Hofmiller, exactly what I thought! I just wanted to get away, and then I thought everything would be wiped out—tabula rasa! Better, I thought, be a boot-black or a dish-washer in America, like the big millionaires whose life-stories you read of in the newspapers. But, my dear Hofmiller, even to get to America you need a hell of a lot of money, and you’ve no idea what it means for the likes of us to have to kow-tow. The moment an old Uhlan no longer feels the collar with, its stars round his neck, he can no longer stand squarely on his feet, still less talk as he has been used to. He sits there, tongue-tied and embarrassed even in the presence of his best friends, and when the moment comes to ask a favour, his pride chokes him. Yes, old man, I went through a good deal that I’d rather not think about—disgrace and humiliations which I’ve never mentioned to anyone.’

I may as well confess to you that I have never regretted my choice, for, believe me, a doctor, of all people, seldom has a clear conscience. One knows how little one can really do to help; as an individual one can’t cope with the infinite wretchedness that exists all around us in the world. One merely bales a few drops out of the unfathomable ocean of misery with a thimble, and those whom one imagines one has cured today have a new malady tomorrow. One always has a feeling of having been remiss, negligent, and then there are the mistakes, the professional mistakes, that one inevitably makes—and so it’s always good to know that one has saved at least one person, kept faith with one person, made a good job of one thing. One must know, after all, whether one has lived a dull, useless existence, or lived to some purpose. Believe me’—

it’s worth while taking a hard task upon oneself if thereby one makes life easier for another person.’

People who are so much at the mercy of their moods should never be given serious responsibilities.

Those whom Fate has dealt hard knocks remain vulnerable forever afterwards.’

It is only the immeasurable, the limitless that terrifies us. That which is set within defined, fixed limits is a challenge to our powers, comes to be the measure of our strength.

Why should I not let myself be loved in all heedlessness, if it made others so happy?

On that evening I was God. I had created the world, and lo! it was full of goodness and justice.

On that evening I was God. I had calmed the waters of unrest and driven the darkness from their hearts. But from myself, too, I had chased away the fear, my soul was at peace as never before in all my life.

Our decisions are to a much greater extent dependent on our desire to conform to the standards of our class and environment than we are inclined to admit. A considerable proportion of our reasoning is merely an automatic function, so to speak, of influences and impressions which have become part of us, and anyone who has been brought up from childhood in the stern school of military discipline is particularly apt to succumb to the hypnotic and compulsive force exercised by an order or word of command; a force which is logically entirely incomprehensible and which irresistibly undermines his will.

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