an anecdote on masochism.

A man sets out to discover a treasure he believes is hidden under a stone; he turns over stone after stone but finds nothing. He grows tired of such a full undertaking but the treasure is too precious for him to give up. So he begins to look for a stone which is too heavy to lift. He places all his hopes in that stone and will waste all his remaining strength on it.

Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure, 176.