Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

  ‘But couldn’t we ...?’ I began timorously, faltering beneath his scrutiny.

  ‘What?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘I only wondered whether ... whether we shouldn’t wait a while before opening up the subject again ... at least a few days, because ... because I gained the impression yesterday that she had entirely adjusted herself to the idea of this treatment ... I mean adjusted her mind to it ... and she would now, as you expressed it, have the ... the psychical strength ... I mean she would be in a position to get far more out of herself, if ... if one left her for a little time longer in the belief that this new treatment, from which she expects so much, would ultimately cure her. You ... you didn’t see, you ... simply can’t imagine what an effect the mere mention of it had on her ... I really had the impression that she was able to walk better at once ... and I wonder whether we should not first let that work itself out ... Of course ...’ — my voice failed me, for I could tell that Condor was looking up at me in astonishment — ‘of course, I don’t understand anything about it.’

  Condor kept his gaze fixed on me. Then he growled: ‘Behold — Saul also amongst the prophets! You seem to have got yourself pretty thoroughly mixed up in the affair — you have even made a note of what I said about “psychical strength”! And clinical observations into the bargain! Without my knowing it, I’ve secretly enlisted the services of an assistant and counsellor! By the way’ — he scratched his head thoughtfully — ‘what you suggested isn’t altogether a stupid idea — forgive me, I mean, of course, stupid in the medical sense. Odd, really odd — when I received Edith’s effusion, I asked myself for a moment whether, now that you had persuaded her that recovery was striding towards her on seven-league boots, we should not exploit this fervent faith she has in an ultimate cure ... Not half a bad idea, my dear colleague! The whole thing would be child’s-play to stage — I could send her to the Engadine, where I have a friend who’s a doctor, and leave her in the blissful belief that we were trying out a new treatment, whereas in reality it would be the old one. At first the effect would probably be astounding, and we should get scores of enthusiastic, grateful letters. The illusion, the change of air, the change of scenery, the increase of energy, all that would actually help no end, and bolster up the illusion. After all, a fortnight in the Engadine would do even you and me a world of good. But, my dear Lieutenant, I as a doctor have to think not only of the beginning of a treatment, but of the next stage, and above all, of the ultimate result. I have to take into account the reaction that would inevitably follow such wild and extravagant hopes. As a doctor I have to remain a sober chess-player; I dare not become a gambler, least of all when someone else has to put down the stakes.’

  ‘But ... you yourself are of the opinion that an essential improvement could be effected in her condition ...’

  ‘Certainly. At the start we should see considerable progress — after all, women react amazingly to emotions, to illusions. But just think what the situation will be in a few months when the so-called psychical forces of which we spoke are exhausted, the will which has been whipped up played out, the fervour used up, and when, after weeks and weeks of wearing emotional tension, there is still no sign of recovery, the complete recovery upon which she now counts as upon a certainty! Just consider what a catastrophic effect that would have on a sensitive person, who is in any case devoured by impatience! In Edith’s case it is not a question of a slight improvement, but of something fundamental, of a changeover from slow and sure methods, methods relying on patience, to risky and dangerous ones, based on impatience. How can we expect her ever again to have confidence in me, in any other doctor, or in any human being, when she realizes that she has been so deliberately deceived? Rather, then, the truth, however cruel it may seem. In medicine the use of the knife is often the kinder course. Never procrastinate. I could never take the responsibility for such dissimulation with a clear conscience. Think it out for yourself. Would you have the courage in my place?’

  ‘Yes,’ I answered without hesitation, and the very next moment was startled at my own precipitancy. ‘That is to say ...’ I added cautiously, ‘I should admit the true state of affairs when she had at least made some progress ... Forgive me, Herr Doktor ... it sounds somewhat presumptuous ... but you have not had the opportunity I have had of observing during the last few weeks how essential it is for these invalids to have something to help them on, and ... Yes, she must be told the truth ... but only when she is able to bear it ... not now, Herr Doktor. I beseech you ... not now ... not immediately.’

  I hesitated. He was gazing at me with such astonished curiosity that I grew confused.

  ‘But when?’ he said meditatively. ‘And above all, who is to tell her? Some day or other she’ll have to be told, and I’m afraid that her disappointment when she hears the truth will be a hundred times more cruel and more dangerous than if we told her now. Would you really take on yourself such a responsibility?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly (I believe that it was only fear lest I should have to drive out with him there and then to Kekesfalva that inspired me with this sudden resolution). ‘I will take the responsibility on myself wholly and entirely. I know for certain that it would do Edith an immeasurable amount of good just now if for the moment we left her in the hope that her troubles would soon be at an end. If it eventually proves necessary to explain to her that we ... that I have perhaps promised too much, I shall quite frankly acknowledge my responsibility, and I am convinced that she will understand.’

  Condor fixed me with his gaze. ‘My God!’ he murmured at length. ‘You’re taking on a hell of a lot, I can tell you! And the curious thing is that you infect other people with your almost religious faith — first those people out at Kekesfalva, and now, by degrees, even me. Well, if you are really prepared to take upon yourself the responsibility of restoring Edith’s mental poise in the event of a crisis, that, of course, puts a new complexion on the whole thing ... in that case we might risk waiting a few days until her nerves are in a slightly better state ... But if you take on a thing of that sort, Herr Leutnant, there’s no turning back. It is my duty to give you due warning beforehand. We doctors are in duty bound, before performing an operation, to draw the attention of all those concerned to the dangers involved — and to promise a girl who has been paralysed for as long as she has that she will be cured in a very short space of time is an action no less responsible than the performing of an operation. I beg you, therefore, to consider carefully what it is you are taking upon yourself. It requires an incalculable amount of energy to restore the faith of a person whom one has once betrayed. I like having things cut and dried. Before I forgo my intention of explaining quite frankly to the Kekesfalvas this very day that Professor Viennot’s method cannot be employed in Edith’s case, and that we must unfortunately ask her to go on being patient, I must know whether I can depend on you. Can I absolutely rely on your not letting me down?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Good.’ Condor abruptly pushed his glass away from him. We had neither of us touched a drop. ‘Or rather, let us hope that the outcome will be a good one, for I don’t feel entirely happy about this postponement. I shall now tell you how far I am prepared to go — and that is, not one step beyond the truth. I shall advise her to go to the Engadine for treatment, but I shall explain that Viennot’s method has by no means been tried out, and shall point out emphatically that they must not expect a miracle. Should they, pinning their faith on you, nevertheless buoy themselves up with illusory hopes, it will be for you — I have your promise — to put the whole business, your business, straight in good time. Perhaps I am taking a certain risk in placing more faith in you than in my professional conscience — ah well, I’ll take the responsibility for that. After all, we both mean equally well by this poor sick girl.’

  Condor rose. ‘As I have said, I count upon you if any kind of crisis should arise as a result of her being disappointed. Let’s hope your impatience will achieve more than my patience. Wel
l then, let us allow the poor child to live in hope for a few weeks longer. And if in the meantime she makes any real progress, then it will have been you who has helped her, and not I. That’s settled, then. High time too. They’ll be expecting me out there.’

  We left the wine-bar. The carriage was waiting for Condor at the door. At the last moment, when he had taken his seat, my lips moved involuntarily as though to call him back. But the horses had already moved off. And with the departure of the carriage the die was cast.

  Three hours later I found on my table a hastily written note which had been brought by the chauffeur. ‘Come tomorrow as early as you can. I have a terrible lot to tell you. Dr Condor has just been. We’re going away in ten days. I’m frightfully happy. — Edith.’

  Odd that I should have picked up that particular book on this night of all nights! I was in general a poor reader, and the rickety shelves of my barrack-room contained, apart from the six or eight military volumes, such as the cavalry drill manual, which are the alpha and omega of army life, the twenty or so classics which, ever since I had been gazetted, I had trailed around from one garrison to another without ever opening — perhaps only in order to invest the bare, strange rooms in which I was obliged to take up my quarters with the semblance and shadow of personal ownership. Amongst these were scattered a few still half uncut, badly printed, badly bound books which had come into my hands in a rather odd way. From time to time a little hunch-backed peddler with curiously melancholy watery eyes used to turn up at our café; in an irresistibly importunate manner he would offer for sale notepaper, pencils and cheap trashy volumes, most of them of a kind he hoped to get rid of easily in cavalry circles: tales of so-called gallantry such as the adventures of Casanova, the Decameron, the memoirs of an opera-singer, or rollicking stories of garrison life. Out of pity — ever and again out of pity! — and perhaps, too, to keep at bay his melancholy importunity, I had at one time and another bought three or four of these sordid, badly printed volumes and then casually left them lying about on my shelves.

  On this particular evening, however, tired and overwrought, unable to sleep and unable, too, to think consistently, I looked about for something to read which would distract my mind and send me off to sleep. I picked up the Arabian Nights, in the hope that its naïve, colourful stories, of which I still had a confused memory from childhood, would have the most powerful narcotic effect. I lay down and began to read in that state of semi-somnolence in which one is too lazy to turn over the pages and saves trouble by skipping any pages that happen to be uncut. I read the first story about Scheherazade and the King with languid attention, and then read on and on. But suddenly I started up. I had come to the curious story of the young man who sees a lame old man lying in the road, and at the word ‘lame’ I felt myself wince inwardly as though at a twinge of pain; some nerve in my brain had been touched by the sudden association as though by a fiery ray. In the story the crippled old man calls despairingly upon the young man, telling him that he is unable to walk and asking to be carried on his shoulders. And the young man takes pity on him — pity, you fool, why do you take pity on him? I thought — and in his eagerness to help he actually bends down and sets the old man on his shoulders, pick-a-back fashion.

  But this apparently helpless old man is a djinn, an evil spirit, a scoundrelly magician, and no sooner is he seated on the young man’s shoulders than he clamps his hairy, naked thighs round his benefactor’s throat in a vice-like grip and cannot be dislodged. Mercilessly he makes of the young man who has taken pity on him a beast of burden, spurs him on and on, pitilessly, relentlessly, never granting him a moment’s rest. The luckless young man is obliged to carry him wherever he asks, and from now on has no will of his own. He has become the beast of burden, the slave, of the old rascal: no matter if his knees give and his lips are parched with thirst, he is compelled, foolish victim of his own pity, to trot on and on, is fated to drag the wicked, infamous, cunning old man along for ever on his back.

  I stopped reading. My heart was pounding as though about to burst out of my breast. For even as I had been reading, I had had an unbearable vision of the crafty old man first of all lying on the ground and turning up his tearful eyes imploringly for help, then riding pick-a-back on the young man’s shoulders. He had white hair with a parting, the djinn of my vision, and wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. With the lightning rapidity with which only in dreams as a rule are scenes and faces conjured up and imposed one upon another, I had instinctively lent the old man of the fairy-story Kekesfalva’s features, and had myself all of a sudden become the luckless beast of burden which he spurred on and on — yes, the sensation of those legs twined about my throat was so physically vivid that I could scarcely breathe. The book fell from my hands, and I lay there in my bed, icy-cold; I could hear my heart beating against my ribs as though against hard wood. Even in my sleep this grim hunter urged me on and on, I knew not whither. When in the morning I awoke, my hair damp with sweat, I was as weary and exhausted as though I had travelled along an unending road.

  It was in vain that I spent the morning with my comrades, that I carried out my duties with due care and attention; no sooner did I find myself, that afternoon, on the inevitable road to Kekesfalva than I could once more feel that ghostly burden on my shoulders, for deep down in my troubled conscience I knew that from this moment on I was assuming a responsibility of an entirely novel and unspeakably difficult nature. That night when, on the bench in the park, I had held out to the old man the prospect of his daughter’s imminent recovery, I had exaggerated merely out of a compassionate desire to withhold the truth, without meaning to do so, indeed despite myself, but I had not been guilty of a deliberate deception, a downright fraud. Henceforward, however, now that I knew an early cure was out of the question, I should have, coldly, tenaciously, calculatingly, persistently, to act a part, should have to wear an impenetrable mask and lie in the bland tones of a hardened criminal, who subtly thinks out every detail of his crime, prepares every detail of his defence, weeks and months in advance. 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.

  At the Kekesfalvas’ everything turned out exactly as I had feared. No sooner had I stepped out on to the terrace than I was given an effusive welcome. I had brought with me a bunch of flowers on purpose to distract immediate attention from myself. But after an abrupt ‘Why on earth are you bringing me flowers? I’m not a prima donna!’ I had to sit down beside the impatient Edith, who began to hold forth without a pause, a certain far-away tone in her voice. Dr Condor — ‘Oh, that wonderful man, there’s no one like him!’ — had inspired her with fresh courage, she said. In ten days’ time they were going to a sanatorium in the Engadine — why lose even a single day, now that they were going to set about curing her in earnest? She had always known that hitherto they had been going the wrong way about things, that she would never make any progress with all this electrical treatment and massage, all these silly appliances. God knew it was high time. On two occasions — she had never told me before — she had tried to make an end of herself — twice, and each time in vain. You just couldn’t go on living like that indefinitely, never really alone for a moment, always dependent on others at every turn and every step, always spied upon and watched and oppressed into the bargain with a feeling that you were nothing but a burden, an incubus, an intolerable nuisance. Yes, it was time, high time, but I should see what a quick recovery she would make if only they set about things properly. Whatever was the use of all these slight improvements in her health which brought about no permanent improvement? One must get well completely, or else one was not really well at all. Oh, how wonderful even the anticipation of it was, how wonderful it would be!

  And so it went on and on, a leaping, bubbling, sparkling torrent of ecstasy. I felt like a doctor who listens to the fevered outpourings of a patient suffering from hallucinations, and, since he r
egards the hot, glowing fantasies as indubitable and disquieting clinical proof of a state of mental disturbance, gazes suspiciously the while at the infallible second-hand of his watch and feels the racing pulse. Whenever a wanton laugh spurted up like fine spray above the racing cascade of words I shuddered, for I knew what she did not know — I knew that she was deceiving herself, that we were deceiving her. And when at last she paused, I felt like one who starts up in a train at night because the wheels have suddenly stopped moving. But she had interrupted the flow of her own words.

  ‘Well, what have you to say? Why are you sitting there with such a stupid — I beg your pardon, I mean such a scared — look on your face? Why don’t you say something? Don’t you share my happiness?’

  I felt as though I had been caught out. Now or never was the moment to strike a cordial, a really enthusiastic note. But I was only a wretched tyro in the art of lying, I did not yet understand the technique of deliberate deception. So I laboriously scraped together a few words.

  ‘How can you say such a thing? It’s only that I am completely taken by surprise ... Surely you can understand that? And in Vienna we have a saying about great happiness, that it “strikes one dumb” ... Of course I’m frightfully pleased on your account.’

  It revolted me myself to hear how artificial and cold these words sounded. She too must have noticed my constraint, for her attitude suddenly changed. Her mood of exaltation was overcast by a shadow of ill-humour; she was like someone who has been rudely awakened out of a dream; her eyes, a moment before sparkling with joy, grew suddenly hard, the bow between her brows was stretched taut as though to shoot its arrows.

  ‘Well, I can’t say I have exactly noticed your great pleasure!’

  I was conscious of the implied insult and tried to propitiate her.