Sitting across from Sebastian at Le Bar Royal, Pippa tells the story of The Ass and His Masters from the Fables of Aesop. In Pippa's version, there's a donkey owned by an herb farmer who doesn't feed him well, so the donkey goes to Jupiter, the god of the sky and thunder, to ask for a new master. At the donkey's next job, the potter he works for forces him to carry heavy bricks on his back, leaving him in constant pain. The donkey returns to Jupiter to ask for a new master, and Jupiter agrees to do so on the condition that this is his final master. The donkey agrees, and the next day he's sold to a leather tanner who hangs and skins him.
"The moral of the story is, he who finds discontentment in one place is unlikely to find happiness in another," Pippa says before Sebastian insists the fable is just a story people tell to make themselves feel better. Throughout the film, Pippa is visibly frustrated by the lack of intimacy between her and Thomas and she lusts after Sebastian. After finally sleeping with him, aka seeking contentment somewhere else, she realizes he was out to hurt her all along, making the fable horribly ironic.
