Beware of Pity

by Stefan Zweig

  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. Not until the evening drew to an end and I rose from the table was I assailed by a faint sense of grief, God’s eternal grief on the seventh day, when His work is done, and this grief of mine was reflected in their faces, from which the light had suddenly vanished. For now it was time to say farewell. We were all strangely moved, as though we knew that something incomparable was drawing to a close, one of those rare untroubled hours which, like the clouds, never return. For the first time I felt disquieted at parting from Edith; like a lover I kept putting off the moment of bidding farewell to this girl who loved me. How pleasant it would be, I thought, to sit for a while by her bedside, to stroke and stroke her frail, shy hand, to see again and again that rosy smile of happiness light up her face. But it was late. So I merely threw my arms quickly around her and kissed her on the mouth. I felt her hold her breath as I did so, as though to keep for ever the warmth of my breath. Then I moved to the door, accompanied by Kekesfalva. One last look, one more ‘good-bye’ and then I went off, free and confident as one always is after a task successfully accomplished, a meritorious deed.

  I went out into the hall, where Josef was waiting for me with my cap and sword. If only I had gone more quickly! If only I had been more ruthless! But old Kekesfalva could not bring himself to part from me. Once more he seized me, once more he patted my arm, kept telling me over and over again how grateful he was to me, and what I had done for him. Now he could die in peace, his child would be cured, all was well now, and it was all my doing, all my doing! I grew more and more uncomfortable at being patted and flattered, in the presence of Josef, who was waiting patiently with bowed head. Several times I had shaken the old man by the hand in farewell, but he kept thanking me all over again. And I, the slave of my pity, I stood there, I stayed, unable to summon up the strength to tear myself away, although an ominous voice within me urged: enough, no more of this!

  Suddenly we could hear a disturbance through the door of the room we had just left. I listened intently. Voices could be heard raised in argument and I realized in alarm that Edith and Ilona must be quarrelling. One of them seemed to be wanting to do something from which the other was trying to dissuade her. ‘Please, please,’ I could plainly hear Ilona’s admonition, ‘do stay where you are,’ and Edith’s brusque and angry retort, ‘No, let me be, let me be!’ I listened with growing disquiet while the old man chattered away. What was going on behind that closed door? Why had the peace been thus disturbed, my peace, the divine peace of this day? What was Edith insisting upon doing, what was Ilona trying to stop her from doing? Then, suddenly, there came that loathsome sound, the tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap of crutches. God help us, surely she wasn’t coming after me without Josef’s help? But the dry, wooden tapping was faster now, was coming nearer: tap-tap, right, left ... tap-tap, right, left, right, left. I could not help picturing the swaying body; she must be quite near the door now. There was a bang, a thud, as of an inert bulky object being hurled against the door, then a breathless panting; the handle was agitated violently, and the door flew open.

  Oh what a ghastly sight! Against the doorpost leaned Edith, still gasping from her exertions. She clung grimly to the post with her left hand so as not to lose her balance, while her right hand grasped the two crutches. Behind her, in obvious desperation, hovered Ilona, evidently trying to support her or to hold her back. But Edith’s eyes flashed with impatience and anger. ‘Let me be, let me be, I tell you!’ she shouted, refusing the unwelcome aid. ‘I don’t need help from anyone, I can manage alone.’

  And then, before Kekesfalva or Josef had come to their senses, a most horrible thing happened. Biting her lips as though preparing for a terrific effort, and gazing up at me with wide-open, burning eyes, Edith gave one thrust against the doorpost, like a swimmer striking out from the shore, and began to walk towards me without the aid of her crutches. As she pushed off, she lurched as though falling into empty space, but quickly swung both hands into the air, the free one and the one that held the crutches, and regained her balance. Then, biting her lips again, she thrust one foot forward and dragged the other after it, her body rent by this spasmodic, marionette-like jerking from right to left. Yet she walked! She walked! She walked, her wide-open eyes fixed on me alone, she walked as though she were being propelled forward on invisible wires, her teeth pressed hard into her lips, her features painfully contorted. She walked, tossed hither and thither like a ship in a storm, it is true, but she walked — walked for the first time alone and without crutches or other aid! A miracle of the will must have brought life into her dead limbs. No doctor has ever been able to explain to me how it was that this crippled girl was able, this one and only time, to throw off the rigidity and weakness of her impotent legs, and I cannot describe what it was like, for we all stared as though petrified at her ecstatic eyes, even Ilona forgetting to go after her and watch over her. She staggered those few steps as though driven forward by an inner tempest. This was not walking, but flight, as it were, just above ground, the hovering, groping flight of a bird with clipped wings. But her will, that daemon of the heart, urged her on and on. She was quite near me now, she was holding out her arms, which until now she had kept outspread like wings, longingly and triumphantly towards me; her drawn features relaxed into a smile of ecstatic bliss. She had accomplished it, the miracle! Only another two steps — no, only one, one last step; I could almost feel the breath coming from between the lips that were breaking into a smile — when disaster overtook her. By throwing out her arms prematurely in this violent gesture of longing, of anticipation of the embrace she had earned, she lost her balance. Her knees suddenly gave as though cut through with a scythe. She fell with a crash at my feet, the crutches fell with a clatter on the hard flagstones. And in the first shock of horror, instead of rushing forward and helping her up, as would have been natural, I involuntarily shrank back.

  But Kekesfalva, Ilona and Josef had all rushed to her aid as she lay there groaning. Still incapable of raising my eyes, I realized that they carried her away. All I could hear were her stifled sobs, sobs of anger and despair, and their shuffling steps as they cautiously receded with their burden. In that one second the mist of rapture which had hung like a veil over my eyes the whole evening was torn aside, and in a flash I could see everything in all its dread reality. I knew that the hapless girl would never be completely cured. The miracle that they all awaited from me had not happened. I was no longer God, but a puny, pitiable human being, whose blackguardly weakness did nothing but harm, whose pity wrought nothing but havoc and misery. I was conscious, horribly conscious, of my duty; now or never was the time to keep faith with her. Now or never was the time to help her, run after the others, sit by her bedside, reassure her, lie to her, tell her that she had walked splendidly, that she was going to make a wonderful recovery. But I no longer had the strength for such a desperate piece of deception. I was seized with panic, a ghastly fear of those terrible, pleading eyes, those eyes that would once more be hungry with desire; fear of the impatience of this frenzied heart; fear of this catastrophe which was beyond my control. Without stopping to think what I was doing I seized my cap and sword, and for the third and last time fled like a criminal from the house.

  Oh for air, a breath of air! I felt that I was suffocating. Was the night really so sultry among the trees, or was it the wine, all the wine I had drunk? My tunic clung stickily to my body; I tore open my collar, I longed to hurl my coat away, it was so heavy on my shoulders. Oh for air, a breath of air! It seemed to me as though my blood were trying to force its way through my skin, so hotly did it surge and beat in my ears. Tap-tap, tap-tap — was that still the horrible sound of crutches or merely the blood hammering at my temples? And why am I running like this? I thought. What has happened? I must try to think. What has actually happened? Try to think calmly, de
liberately, don’t listen to that tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap. Well — I’ve got engaged, no, they’ve made me get engaged ... I didn’t want to, I never dreamed of such a thing ... and now I am engaged, now I am bound ... But no ... it can’t be true ... only if she were cured, I told the old man, and she’ll never be cured ... My promise only holds good ... no, it doesn’t hold good at all. Nothing has happened, nothing. But did I not kiss her, kiss her on the mouth? I didn’t mean to ... Oh, this pity, this cursed pity! Again and again they’ve ensnared me with it, and now I’m trapped. I’ve gone and got myself properly engaged, they were all witnesses, the old man and Ilona and Josef ... And I don’t want to, don’t want to ... What on earth am I to do? Try to think calmly ... Oh, it’s revolting, that everlasting tap-tap, tap-tap! It’ll go on hammering in my ears for ever now, she’ll always be running after me on her crutches ... It has happened, the irrevocable has happened. I have duped them, they have duped me. I have got engaged. They have made me get engaged.

  What was that? Why were the trees tumbling about in confusion? And the stars — how my eyes hurt and tingled! There must be something wrong with them! And how everything was pressing down on my head! Oh, the sultriness of the air! I ought to go and cool my head somewhere, and then I could think clearly again. Or drink something, wash the slimy, bitter taste out of my mouth. Wasn’t that a fountain just ahead of me on the road — I had ridden past it so often? No, I had long since passed it, I must have been running like a lunatic, hence the terrible hammering, hammering, hammering at my temples. I must drink something, then perhaps I might come to my senses.

  At last, when I came to the first group of low houses, I could see the yellow light of an oil-lamp glimmering through the half-covered window-pane. Ah yes, now I remembered — that was the little road-side tavern, where the drivers pulled up in the morning to warm themselves with a quick glass of schnapps. I’d ask for a glass of water or something bitter or pungent to wash away the slime from my throat. I must drink something, whatever it was. Without reflecting, and with the eagerness of one parched with thirst, I pushed open the door.

  The asphyxiating smell of cheap tobacco came to me from the dimly lit den. At the back of the room was the bar, with its bottles of cheap spirits; in front was a table at which some roadmenders were sitting over a game of cards. Leaning against the bar, his back towards me, was an Uhlan, exchanging pleasantries with the landlady. As I entered he felt the draught and turned round; when he saw me his mouth fell open in alarm. Pulling himself together, he clicked his heels. Why was he so frightened? Oh, of course, he probably took me for an officer of the military police, and he ought long since to have turned in. The landlady, too, looked up uneasily, and the workmen paused in their game. There must have been something odd about me. Only now, too late, did it occur to me that this was no doubt one of those taverns only frequented by the rank and file. As an officer I ought not to have set foot in it. Instinctively I turned to go.

  But the landlady had already come bustling up obsequiously to ask what she could do for me. I realized that I should have to make some excuse for blindly stumbling in upon them. I did not feel very well, I said. Could she give me a slivovitz and a soda-water? ‘Certainly, certainly,’ she replied, scuttling off. Actually I only meant to stand at the bar and gulp the two glasses down, but at that moment the oil-lamp in the middle of the room suddenly began to rock, the bottles on the shelf to bob noiselessly up and down, and the floor-boards suddenly to give beneath my feet, to pitch and roll. I reeled. Better sit down, I said to myself. Rallying what strength I still had, I managed to stagger to the empty table. The soda-water was brought to me, and I swallowed it at a draught. Oh, how cool and good it was — for one moment the sickly taste in my mouth disappeared. Then I quickly drained the glass of slivovitz and tried to struggle to my feet. But I could not; my feet seemed to have taken root in the floor, and there was a strange, dull roaring in my ears. I ordered another slivovitz. A cigarette, I thought, and I’ll be off.

  I lit the cigarette. I’ll just sit here for a moment or two, I said to myself, resting my dazed head in my hands, and think, reflect, turn over things in my mind, one after another. Well there it is! I’ve gone and got myself engaged ... they’ve pushed me into it ... but it’s only binding if ... Oh, it’s no use trying to get out of it, it is binding, I’m committed ... I kissed her on the mouth, did so of my own free will. But it was only to comfort her, and because I knew that she would never be cured ... Why, didn’t she fall to the ground like a log? One can’t marry a woman like that, she’s not a real woman, she’s ... but they won’t let me go, no, they’ll never release me ... the old man, the djinn, the Old Man of the Sea, the djinn with the mournful eyes and the honest burgher’s face and the gold-rimmed spectacles, who clings to me and won’t be shaken off ... he keeps seizing me by the arm, he’ll always keep dragging me back into the morass of my pity, my cursed pity. By tomorrow it’ll be all over the town, they’ll put an announcement in the newspapers, and then there’ll be no turning back ... Wouldn’t it be better if I were to prepare my family for the news, so that my mother and father don’t learn of it from other people or from the newspapers? Explain to them how and why I got engaged, and tell them that there’s no hurry about it, and that it was unintentional, that I only got mixed up in the whole thing out of pity ... Oh, this cursed, cursed pity! And they certainly won’t understand in the regiment, not one of them. What was that Steinhübel said about Balinkay? ‘If you sell yourself, at least you should get a good price.’ Oh God, what construction will they put on it? I can’t understand myself how I could go and get engaged to ... to that human wreck ... And just wait until Aunt Daisy gets to hear of it — there are no flies on her, you can’t throw dust in her eyes! She won’t be taken in by a lot of humbug about noble birth and estates, she’ll go straight to the Almanac de Gotha, and in two days she’ll have found out that Kekesfalva was formerly Leopold Kanitz and that Edith is a half-Jewess, and to her nothing could be worse than to have Jewish relations ... As for Mother, she’ll get over it, the money will impress her — six or seven million, he said ... But I don’t care a damn about his money, I haven’t the least intention of really marrying her, not for all the money in the world ... I’ve only promised that if she’s cured ... but how am I going to make them see that? As it is, everyone in the regiment has something against the old boy, and they’re deuced fastidious in these matters ... the honour of the regiment and all that ... They haven’t even forgiven Balinkay. He sold himself, they sneered ... sold himself to that old Dutch cow. And wait until they see Edith’s crutches! No, I’d better not write about it, no one must know anything about it for the moment, no one. I’m not going to have my leg pulled by the whole mess. But how am I to keep out of their way? Hadn’t I better go to Holland after all, to Balinkay? That’s it — I haven’t refused his offer yet, I can clear off to Rotterdam any time, and Condor will have to face the music. He got me into this pickle ... he’ll have to find a way of putting matters right, he’s to blame for the whole thing ... The best thing would be to go straight to him and tell him plainly ... that I simply cannot ... Oh, it was horrible to see her toppling over like a sack of oats ... one can’t marry a creature like that! ... Yes, I’ll tell him flatly that I’m clearing out ... I’ll go to him at once ... Hi! Cabby, cabby! Where to? Florianigasse ... what was the number? Ninety-seven ... Look sharp, and you’ll get a fat tip, but hurry ... lay on to the horse ... Ah, here we are, I recognize it, the shabby house in which he lives, I remember it, the revolting, dirty spiral staircase ... But how lucky it’s so steep! Ha-ha! She won’t be able to follow me up here on her crutches; at any rate I’m safe here from that tap-tap ... What, is that slattern of a maid still at the door? Does she spend all her time standing at the door, the slut? ‘Is the doctor at home?’ ‘No, no. But go in, ’e come soon.’ The Bohemian trollop! Well, let’s sit down and wait. Always have to wait for the fellow ... he’s never at home. Oh God, let’s hope the blind woman doesn’t come sh
uffling in again! I can’t do with her at this moment, my nerves won’t stand it, this everlasting consideration for others ... Mother of God, here she comes! I can hear her step in the next room ... No, thank God, that can’t be she, her tread isn’t as firm as that, that must be someone else walking about and talking ... But I know the voice ... how’s that? Why, that’s ... that’s my Aunt Daisy’s voice, and ... however is it possible? How did Aunt Bella get here, and Mama, and my brother and his wife? Nonsense! Impossible! I’m waiting at Condor’s in the Florianigasse ... No one in the family knows him, so why should they all suddenly be meeting at his flat? But yes, it is the family. I know that voice, that screech of Aunt Daisy’s ... Good heavens, where can I hide? The steps are coming nearer and nearer ... now the door’s opening ... opening on its own and — Good Lord! — there they all are standing in a semicircle as though posing for their photograph, and gazing at me; Mama in the black taffeta dress with the white ruffles which she wore at Ferdinand’s wedding, and Aunt Daisy in puffed sleeves, her gold lorgnette poised on her sharp, arrogant nose, that revolting beak that I hated even as a child of four. My brother in a tail-coat ... why ever is he wearing tails? And his wife, Franzi, with her fat, podgy face ... Oh, it’s revolting, revolting! Look at them all staring at me, and what a malicious smile Aunt Bella has on her face, just as though she were waiting for something ... There they are all standing round in a semicircle, as though at a reception, waiting and waiting ... What on earth are they waiting for?