Forty. Foolish and vain!
Twenty. And have you then become wise?
Forty. I have become wise enough to know that you are foolish and your thoughts vain; I have become a full grown man.
Twenty. You have, indeed, attained a full growth in the wisdom of those of sordid views and narrow foreheads! But can it be really so? Are you what you seem to be? I have felt, more than once, a suspicion creeping into my mind, that I might be, after all, mistaken. It must be so; and 'how art thou cast down, O my soul!'
Forty. Be not disconsolate, my young friend; your soul is not so much cast down, as turned aside into another channel of thought and mode of existence.
Twenty. Do you mock me, with your 'be not disconsolate?' If you speak the truth, there is nothing in life to live for. Had I not calculated well? Had I not found the means to be used in order to arrive at a certain position? I thought means and the result were connected; but you have undeceived me. Or else, I am too weak and cowardly to follow out my plans: in either case, I am of no worth in the world, and had better quit it at the outset.
Forty. To quit the field, you think less disgraceful than to suffer defeat in a fair and manful fight?
Twenty. The world's opinion is nothing to me, and I don't know the meaning of disgrace. Fame, you say, is an empty breath, happiness delusion, and knowledge vanity; these are the chief things that fill the minds of men, and they are false appearances. Why, then, should I value them?
Forty. You cannot say that all life is not a dream.