num_pages: 353
description: "Stefan Zweig was a dark and unorthodox artist; it's good to have him back."—Salman RushdieThe 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.
language: English
title: Beware of Pity
titlecomplete: Beware of Pity
characters: Lajos Kekesfalva, Edith von Kekesfalva, Anton Hofmiller, Doctor Condor
genres: Literary Fiction, Literature, Fiction, Romance, Historical Fiction, 20th Century, Novels, Drama, German Literature, Classics
ratings_count: 14388
places: Vienna
publisher: Northwestern University Press