ABSTRACT
In his novel Beware of Pity, Stefan Zweig gives a vivid description of the change that came over a young man as the result of an unanticipated emotional experience. It happened to him quite out of the blue. The year was 1913. The person was a young army officer who, until this event, had experienced himself as someone of little consequence going through the routine of life in the way to which he was accustomed, having been raised in a strict, unaffectionate family, and then educated at a military academy. Never had he had an intense emotional experience, and never had he been touched by compassion.
