Beware of pity
Stefan Zweig and a bit of Baby Reindeer
About a decade and a half ago I found myself stuck in a Frankfurt airport with about 5 hours to spare in between flights. A spell of bad weather. Most people would have been annoyed at the inconvenience of it all but I was young, single and had no obligations to anyone or anything. There was the irresistible romance of half empty airport cafes overlooking the literal runways of other people's hopes and aspirations. The Babylonian concentration of languages in my earshot that felt both mysterious and exciting. But more than anything, the nerd in me just really really couldn't wait to get on with the book I had tucked away in my cognac-brown leather backpack. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig. This was a perfect opportunity.
Zweig’s wordiest work, Beware of Pity centers around the life of Anton, a young lieutenant living a pretty frivolous existence in the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the brink of its collapse, just before the start of the First World War. In between his military engagements Anton attends various social functions including a ball at the house of a certain wealthy local (Kekesfalva) and his lame daughter Edith, who is paralyzed from the waist down. In complete ignorance of her condition, Anton asks her for a dance, leading to her public humiliation and his utter embarrassment, followed by a string of events in which Anton essentially attempts to absolve himself of this horrible faux pas out of…well…pity. Determined to make up for their first encounter, Anton unwittingly finds himself courting Edith and goes as far as to ask for her hand, which leads to some really dire circumstances. Read it. It's excellent.
Something similar seems to happen in Baby Reindeer, a gut-wrenching Netflix series, of which enough has been said by everyone else so I won't put my five cents in to applaud the main character’s chivalrous vulnerability in sharing his story. What felt painfully familiar is the feeling of pity that kick starts the main character's bizarre relationship with his stalker Martha:
“That’s the first feeling I felt. It’s a patronizing, arrogant feeling, feeling sorry for someone you’ve just laid eyes on, but I did. I felt sorry for her.”
Similarly to Zweig’s novel, the initial feeling of pity ignites a mutually obsessive relationship which drags on for way too long in a bizarre symbiosis of co-dependence, growing resentment and toxicity. I won't spoil the book or the series for you but I'll say this... they will put you off feeling pity for ever! And for a good reason, because nobody - I repeat - nobody (!) wants to be pitied. People want to be empathised with.
“There are two kinds of pity. One, the weak and sentimental kind, which is really no more than the heart's impatience to be rid as quickly as possible of the painful emotion aroused by the sight of another's unhappiness, that pity which is not compassion, but only an instinctive desire to fortify one's own soul agains the sufferings of another; and the other, the only one at counts, the unsentimental but creative kind, which knows what it is about and is determined to hold out, in patience and forbearance, to the very limit of its strength and even beyond.”
Stefan Zweig
