Memoirs of a Geisha

When Chiyo visits the geisha school to bring Hatsumomo a hair ornament at Auntie's request, Hatsumomo cruelly taunts Chiyo by claiming that she will never be a geisha. Feeling that she lacks any purpose, Chiyo begins to cry, but is comforted by a well-dressed older man. When they part, Chiyo uses an oxymoron to express her mixed feelings of happiness and sadness: 

I watched him walk away with sickness in my heart—though it was a pleasing kind of sickness, if such a thing exists. I mean to say that if you have experienced an evening more exciting than any in your life, you’re sad to see it end; and yet you still feel grateful that it happened. In that brief encounter with the Chairman, I had changed from a lost girl facing a lifetime of emptiness to a girl with purpose in her life. Perhaps it seems odd that a casual meeting on the street could have brought about such change. 

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