Beware of pity (New ed.)

The great Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a master anatomist of the deceitful heart, andBeware 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 hosts 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.