Summary — Chapter 34
As Kumalo and his congregation prepare for a confirmation
ceremony at the church, one of Jarvis’s workers brings word that
Jarvis’s wife, Margaret, has died. As the women lament, Kumalo writes
a letter of condolence to Jarvis in which he mentions that he suspects that
Margaret is partly responsible for the great contributions Jarvis is
making to the village. He questions whether to send it, wondering whether
Arthur’s murder is somehow the cause of the sickness that killed
her. He decides, however, that Jarvis is a man who stays by the path
he has chosen, and sends the letter.
At the confirmation, rain leaks through the roof of the
church and onto the congregation. Afterward, Kumalo and the Bishop
meet privately. The Bishop thinks that Kumalo should leave Ndotsheni because
his son killed Jarvis’s son, and because Absalom’s wife became pregnant
out of wedlock. He has found a position for Kumalo where no one
will know of these things. Kumalo is crushed but swallows the Bishop’s
arguments and obeys. As he and the Bishop are talking, however,
a timely letter arrives. Jarvis has written back, thanking Kumalo
for his sympathy and assuring him that Arthur’s murder had nothing
to do with his wife’s illness. He wants to build a new church for
Ndotsheni. Elated, Kumalo shows the letter to the Bishop, and the
Bishop agrees that it is God’s will for Kumalo to stay in Ndotsheni.
Kumalo comes home to find his wife and other church members hard
at work on a sympathy wreath for the Jarvis family. He sends a local
man to gather the appropriate flowers for a white man’s wreath.
Summary — Chapter 35
Napoleon Letsitsi, the agricultural expert, teaches the
people new ways to plow. He plans to build a kraal, where
the cattle will be kept. The villagers work with new spirit, but
the ones who have had to give up their land are sullen. The future,
Letsitsi tells Kumalo, will hold even bigger changes, and he hopes
that the people will see the need for these changes themselves and
not have to be convinced.
Kumalo praises Letsitsi, but Letsitsi is worried that
it will take time for great improvements to happen. Letsitsi also
speaks eagerly of the time when the people will not need to take
the white man’s milk but will instead be able to provide milk of
their own. Kumalo is disturbed by this sentiment, but Letsitsi is
insistent. He is grateful to Jarvis, he says, and to other good
white men, but though they pay his salary, he works for Africa and
not for them. It is the white man’s policies that have made such
improvements necessary, he says, and these efforts are only repayment
for a debt long overdue. Letsitsi assures Kumalo, however, that
he is not there to make trouble. Kumalo gives Letsitsi a final warning
about hatred and power and is glad to see that the young man is
interested in neither. Kumalo stands for a minute gazing at the
stars and reflecting that these new, radical politics have come
too late for him. There are some who might call him a white man’s
dog, Kumalo thinks, but it is the way he has lived, and he has done
with it what he can.
Summary — Chapter 36
Kumalo has a place he goes to contemplate the weightier
things in life, and on the night before Absalom is to die, he travels
to this mountaintop to keep vigil. On the way, he meets Jarvis,
who informs him that plans for the new church will arrive shortly.
Jarvis thanks Kumalo for the sympathy wreath. They speak of Arthur’s son,
then reminisce about Arthur himself. Jarvis asks where Kumalo is
going, and when Kumalo replies, he says that he understands. Kumalo
thanks Jarvis for all he has done for the village and tells Jarvis
that he has been touched by God.
In his place of solitude, Kumalo goes over Absalom’s
letters from prison, in which Absalom assures him that if he could
return to Ndotsheni, he would. Kumalo repents for his own sins and
gives thanks for the many blessings he has received during his time
of trouble. He wakes up and turns his mind to the suffering of others—the
missing Gertrude, the people of Shanty Town, his own wife, and above
all, Absalom. Kumalo reflects on the plight of Africa and on Msimangu’s
whispered fear that by the time the white man learns to love, the
black man will have learned to hate. He sleeps and wakes up just
before dawn, wondering what his son, who will be hanged when the
sun rises, is doing at that moment. The light rises, and the narrator
wonders when the light of emancipation will come to the forsaken
land of South Africa.
