“Yet no sooner did the war end than he became a thorough scoundrel again! It shows that we can put little reliance upon men!” said Mr. Yamakawa, flinging himself back in his chair and stretching his legs. In cynical silence he puffed at his cigar.
“By what you say, do you mean that he acted like a hypocrite?”
“Yes.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you. I feel sure that what he said at the time was sincerely meant. Also, if I may be permitted to quote the newspaper, when ‘his head suddenly fell,’ perhaps for a moment he saw similar visions again. I should explain his death in this way: As he was drunk he was quite easily knocked down. The suddenness of his fall had opened his old wound, and with the long pigtail hanging from it, his head came off and fell with a thud upon the floor. Perhaps he again beheld his mother’s skirt, a 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.