"Yet on the face of it this is wholly irrational. It is absurd. On the face of it, I could leave when the exodus begins. But the human heart, Damond . . . I have come to the conclusion that it is mad. It knows no practicality, nor does it care a whit about self-preservation. The heart cares only about its own SENSE of well-being, even if that means ignoring its PHYSICAL well-being."
"That sounds like a very old story I once heard," said Damond, "about an old miser who hid his treasure in his attic. The weight of his treasure steadily grew, and the attic, he thought, was the one safe place he could hide it. One day, of course, the attic collapsed on the old miser."
"That exact analogy," said Brogan, "is the one I've often thought best explains my own life. For example, any fool could see what was going to happen. Even the old miser must have known. But that knowledge changed nothing."
"But the moral to that story is that the miser's greed was his undoing," said Damond. "If he had given away his wealth, he would have lived."
"I don't think the miser's greed was the point of the story at all," said Brogan. "In fact, I don't believe the story has a point. I believe it is an observation of people's behaviour. Keep in mind, in its oldest form, there is no mention in the story of a moral."