“What we swore to uphold no longer exists,” says the guest very seriously as he, too, raises his glass. “Everyone has died, or gone away, or abandoned the things we swore to uphold. There was a world for which it was worth living and dying. That world is dead. The new one means nothing to me. That’s all I can say.”
“For me, that world is still alive, even if in reality it no longer exists. It lives, because I swore an oath to uphold it. That’s all I can say.”
“Yes, you are still a soldier,” replies the guest.
(p. 93)
Yellow Crane in the Rain 