_Spirit_. No one has any real acquaintance with it, because pleasure is not a reality, but a conception. It is a desire, not a fact. A sentiment, imagined not experienced; or, better, it is a conception, and not a sentiment at all. Do you not perceive that even in the very moment of enjoyment, however ardently it may have been longed for or painfully acquired, your mind, not deriving complete satisfaction from the happiness, anticipates at some future time a greater and more complete enjoyment? It is expectation that constitutes pleasure. Thus, you never weary of placing reliance on some pleasure of the future, which melts away just when you expect to enjoy it. The truth is, you possess nothing but the hope of a more complete enjoyment at some other time; and the satisfaction of imagining that you have had some enjoyment, and of talking about it to others, less because you are vain than to persuade yourself that the illusion is a reality. Hence, everyone that consents to live makes this fugitive dream his aim in life. He believes in the reality of past and future enjoyment, both of which beliefs are false and fanciful. _Tasso_. Then is it impossible for a man to believe that he is actually happy? _Spirit_. If such a belief were possible, his happiness would be genuine. But tell me: do you ever remember having been able at any moment in your life to say sincerely, "I am happy"? Doubtless you have daily been able to say, and have said in all sincerity, "I shall be happy;" and often too, though less sincerely, "I have been happy." Thus, pleasure is always either a thing of the past, or the future, never the present. _Tasso_. You may as well say it is non-existent. _Spirit_. So it seems. _Tasso_. Even in dreams? _Spirit_. Even in dreams, considering pleasure in its true sense. _Tasso_. And yet pleasure is the sole object and aim of life! By the term pleasure I mean the happiness which ought to be a consequence of pleasure. _Spirit_. Assuredly. _Tasso_. Then our life, being deprived of its real aim, must always be imperfect, and existence itself unnatural. _Spirit_. Perhaps. _Tasso_. There is no perhaps in the matter. But why is it that we live? I mean, why do we consent to live? _Spirit_. How should I know? You yourselves ought to know better than I. _Tasso_. I assure you I do not know. _Spirit_. Ask some one wiser than yourself. Perhaps he may be able to satisfy you. _Tasso_. I will do so. But certainly, the life that I lead is an unnatural state, because apart from my sufferings, ennui alone murders me. _Spirit_. What is ennui?