Showing posts with label Letter from an Unknown Woman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Letter from an Unknown Woman. Show all posts

Friday, 14 April 2023

Beware of Pity

(Ungeduld des Herzens*)

In homage to Stefan Zweig


             This blossomed tree grown crookèd on the hill

             an onshore wind espouses lest desire

             reveal that void – cathedral of the soul –

             whose hawk in spirals weaves a twisted spire. 

         Catherine Eisner 

 

*The Heart's Impatience, a powerful psychological study of emotional betrayal, is a 1939 novel by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and it was his longest work of fiction; published in English as Beware of Pity. The protagonist, a young lieutenant, moved by compassion is trapped into a tragic engagement to a wealthy heiress, wheelchair-bound and infatuated and overwhelmed by a make-believe romance than can never be realised.      

 

See also: Sternstunden, Toxic Pacts and the Silent Woman’s Tryst of Blood  https://catherineeisnerfrance.blogspot.com/2013/12/sternstunden-toxic-pacts-and-silent.html