Doris Lessing
The Grass is Singing
Copyright: 1950
To
Mrs GLADYS MAASDORP of Southern Rhodesia for whom I feel the greatest affection and admiration
‘In this decayed hole among the mountains
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel
There is the empty chapel, only the wind's home.
It has no windows, and the door swings,
Dry bones can harm no one.
Only a cock stood on the rooftree
Co co rico co co rico
In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust
Bringing rain
Ganger was sunken, and the limp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gathered far distant, over Himavant.
The jungle crouched, humped in silence.
Then spoke the thunder’
From The Waste Land by T.S Eliot with grateful acknowledgments to the author and to Messrs Faber & Faber
`It is by the failures and misfits of a civilization that one can best judge its weaknesses.'
AUTHOR UNKNOWN
Chapter One
MURDER MYSTERY
By Special Correspondent
Mary Turner, wife of Richard Turner, a farmer at Ngesi, was found murdered on the front verandah of their homestead yesterday morning. The houseboy, who has been arrested, has confessed to the crime. No motive has been discovered.
It is thought he was in search of valuables.
The newspaper did not say much People all over the country must have glanced at the paragraph with its sensational heading and felt a little spurt of anger mingled with what was almost satisfaction, as if some belief had been confirmed, as if something had happened which could only have been expected. When natives steal, murder or rape, that is the feeling white people have.