This chapter's epigraph comes from a famous line in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice , in which the hero of the play is described as being "so talented" that he manages to "find a way out" of a "total encirclement" . It's a quote from the play's opening lines: "A man so talented is not a man so weak." In other words, Shakespeare is saying that even when the enemy is completely encircled, a man can still find a way to get out. This is the kind of heroism that makes the protagonist want to be a hero, even when he's surrounded by enemy soldiers. He wonders why no one has spoken about it for so long, and he wonders if the same guy who was "making a mess" and "caressing a woman" is the same "stupid fatso" who killed and injured more than 30 enemy soldiers and killed seven enemy generals. The protagonist wonders if "this good-looking soldier" and the "sleazey soldier" are the same person, and wonders why "nobody spoken of so long." He wonders if it's "just propaganda" that's been going around, and then he wonders why there hasn't been a single mention of this guy for so