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"Ah! now I catch glimpses, and seem to half-see, somehow, that the uttermost ideal of moral perfection in man is wide of the mark. The demigods trample on trash, and Virtue and Vice are trash!..."
"...Thou, Pierre, speakest of Virtue and Vice; life-secluded Isabel knows neither the one nor the other, but by hearsay. What are they, in their real selves, Pierre? Tell me first what is Virtue:—begin!"
"If on that point the gods are dumb, shall a pigmy speak? Ask the air!"
"Then Virtue is nothing."
"Not that!"
"Then Vice?"
"Look: a nothing is the substance, it casts one shadow one way, and another the other way; and these two shadows cast from one nothing; these, seems to me, are Virtue and Vice."
"Then why torment thyself so, dearest Pierre?"
"It is the law."
"What?"
"That a nothing should torment a nothing; for I am a nothing. It is all a dream—we dream that we dreamed we dream."
"Pierre, when thou just hovered on the verge, thou wert a riddle to me; but now, that thou art deep down in the gulf of the soul,—now, when thou wouldst be lunatic to wise men, perhaps—now doth poor ignorant Isabel begin to comprehend thee. Thy feeling hath long been mine, Pierre. Long loneliness and anguish have opened miracles to me. Yes, it is all a dream!"
Swiftly he caught her in his arms:—"From nothing proceeds nothing, Isabel! How can one sin in a dream?"
"First what is sin, Pierre?"
"Another name for the other name, Isabel."
"For Virtue, Pierre?"
"No, for Vice."

Pierre; or The Ambiguities, by Herman Melville

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