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108 woman’s foot, etc., in a vision. Perhaps for a moment before death he had been gazing beyond the ceiling of the room into a deep blue sky. He might even have been tortured with the pangs of remorse—but this time it was too late.

“When he was first wounded, our military nurses, after having found him unconscious, tended him most kindly and with the greatest care, but during this quarrel later on, his antagonist, knowing his weaknesses, struck and kicked him. During his scuffle the poor man may have repented again, but in falling, his life ended.”

Mr. Yamakawa shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

“You are certainly very imaginative! But tell me, why did he become such a scoundrel after having shown so much sincerity?”

“Of course, because man is an unreliable creature, but in a different sense from what you mean,” Major Kimura answered, lighting another cigar. Then he continued smilingly and with rather an air of pride.

“We should all try to be aware of our own unreliability—but I’m afraid the only people who are at all reliable are those who realise that fact about themselves, otherwise the people who don’t, like Khashoji, who lost his head, can never be certain of not suddenly losing their own heads. I think that we must endeavour in the same way to try and find an inner meaning in what we read in the Chinese newspapers.”