“Yes, but it is not so easy to discover it. Men have however crudely, been seeking for—and working for the object you refer to since the beginning of the world. The men who came first reached perfection at once in this way. We are hardly equal to them.”
One of the three idlers murmured:
“What a pity!”
Then, after a minute's pause, he added:
“If we could only sleep, sleep well, without feeling hot or cold, sleep with that perfect unconsciousness we experience on nights when we are thoroughly fatigued, sleep without dreams.”
“Why without dreams?” asked the guest sitting next to him.
The other replied:
“Because dreams are not always pleasant; they are always fantastic, improbable, disconnected; and because when we are asleep we cannot have the sort of dreams we like. We ought to dream waking.”
“And what's to prevent you?” asked the writer.
The doctor flung away the end of his cigar.