《焦灼的心灵》读后感

18 英二杨钦雯
Recently, I read Stefan Zweig's "Beware Of Pity ", which shocked me deeply. This novel tells
a story of a Cavalry Lieutenant Hoffmuller of the Austro Hungarian Empire who met EidIt, a girl
with paralyzed legs. Hoffmuller often accompanies, cares for and helps her out of sympathy. For a
long time, EidIt fell in love with him. Hoffmuller found that Edith was in love with himself, and
he was at a loss. After a painful and contradictory inner struggle, Hoffmuller agreed to marry
Edith out of sympathy and pity, but regretted it immediately. EidIt learned that Hoffmuller had
broken his contract, was in agony, and jumped to commit suicide. As a result, Hoffmuller has a
heavy sense of guilt and hatred for life.
This is Zweig's only full-length novel, and Zweig also shows his good ability at
psychological description in this novel. The theme of this novel is love and sympathy. The hero is
not in love with the heroine, but out of sympathy, which is not positive sympathy. Compassion is
like a double-edged sword. We usually think that compassion is a good moral character, but it is
not the case. " There are just two kinds of sympathy. A kind of sympathy is cowardice and
sentimentality ,it is actually just the anxiety of the heart. Seeing other people's misfortunes, I am
eager to get out of the way as soon as possible, so as to avoid being moved and falling into an
embarrassing situation. This kind of sympathy is not to feel the pain of others at all, but to resist
instinctively, so as not to touch their own hearts. Another kind of sympathy is the real one. It is not
sentimental, but full of positive spirit. This compassion is very clear about what you want to
achieve. It is determined to go through all the hardships with others patiently until it is exhausted.
"Unfortunately, Hoffmuller’s sympathy was just a heartburn. When he found out her love for him,
he was eager to get out of it. In contrast to this is Dr. Conrad, who is a real, self serving, positive
empathy. He runs with all kinds of patients every day, and he is determined to patiently accept all
the hardships with the patients. He is not only compassionate, but also practical. And Hoffmuller's
sympathy is mixed with the sense of achievement of been needed, the satisfaction of entering the
upper class society, and the self expansion of the giver. It's even hard to say whether he is doing
everything for Edith or just to satisfy himself. However, he is not a bad person, on the contrary, he
is a righteous, kind and compassionate young man. In other words, none of us could be able to
deal with this kind of thing better. Now you see how terrible the compassion is. At first, we are out
of kindness, but things will always move in to a direction which we didn't expect. So if you don't
have the courage and patience to be with the people you help all the time, then don't show your
sympathy, it can become a weapon to kill others. Compassion is not that simple.
After reading this article, I was moved by the encounter of the characters in the story, awed at
the author's excellent writing skills, and thought deeply about the topic of "sympathy". I hope that
we can think twice before we do anything, and also hope that we can all really have the ability of
positive compassion.