by Alan Paton
— Is that the sin against the Holy Ghost, I said.
— I don’t know, he said, but I hope not, for I once committed it. But I am resolved never again to commit it.
And I dared to say to him, was that your son?
— Yes, he said. Yes, it was my son.
He opened the gate.
— Everything in this house is yours, mejuffrou.
And I answered him lightly, I shan’t take it all.
—Mejuffrou, he said to me gravely, you’re a lovely woman.
But to that I made no answer, it being the first time that such a thing was ever said to me.
When we went into the house, Nella’s father was waiting for us, the tall and fierce old man, with the face like that of an eagle, and the blue and piercing eyes. To him the captain told the story of all, and when he had finished, the fierce old man struck the arm of his chair and said, I would shoot him like a dog.
Then because no one spoke, he said to the captain, wouldn’t you?
And the captain said, No.
— You wouldn’t?
— No.
— But he has offended against the race.
Then the captain said trembling, Meneer, as a policeman I know an offence against the law, and as a Christian I know an offence against God; but I do not know an offence against the race.
So the old man turned to me and said, Mevrou …
—Mejuffrou, I said.
Then he recognised me at last, for all his piercing eyes, and said, mejuffrou, I am sorry ….
—Meneer, said the captain, if man takes unto himself God’s right to punish, then he must also take upon himself God’s promise to restore. If we …
— You are an Englishman, said Nella’s father, fiercely but without offence. You do not understand these things.
— I am not an Englishman, I said, but I understand them.
The old man said, it will not help to stay any longer, and with a brief goeie nag, he went.
The captain said to me, when are you going to take the book?
When I did not answer immediately, he said, I hope you will take it soon.
I said, out of some foolishness, will that help?
He said quietly, if she doesn’t come back, nothing will help at all. You surely don’t think, mejuffrou, that some other woman could save him? And if you are thinking, she couldn’t help before, don’t you see this is quite another man?
— I’m sorry, I said. I didn’t mean to say it.
— I’m not thinking only of him, he said, but of her also. There’s a hard law, mejuffrou, that when a deep injury is done to us, we never recover until we forgive.
— I’ll take the book, I said. Ag, but I’m afraid.
SO WE WERE ALL STRUCK DOWN. Because he would not tell one man, therefore the whole world knew. His father shut the door of his house, and his brother would not leave the shelter of Buitenverwagting, and his married sisters hoped that none would remember their unmarried names. His young sister Martha had given back her ring, and the young dominee did not know whether to take it or refuse; nor did the old dominee know how to counsel him, being torn between his love for the man and his love for the Church, that must be beyond reproach, and not a cause of stumbling. For I said to the old dominee, as the Lord is the Lord of Love, so must His Church be the Church of Love, else will He destroy it. And he replied, mejuffrou, it is His to destroy, not yours or mine.
But it was not left to the young dominee to decide, for the girl herself said that never again would she leave the house, not because of her father’s will, but of her own. Nor did she cling to her lover with tears and despair, but would not let him even touch her. Therefore I write here that her brother’s offence destroyed her also. Life struck her across the face, and brought her from a young girl’s dreaming into a hard and angry world, where love seemed foolishness. And some of its hardness entered into her also, so that she could see her lover before her unhappy and distraught, and not be moved to touch and comfort him.
— So you’re going, I said to him.
— Tante, there’s nothing else for me to do.
And though my heart went out to him in his boy’s misery, my head said to me, he will recover, but we will never.
His voice rose into a kind of protest.
— She wanted that door to close on me, Tante. It was as though she had wiped me out.
He shook his head.
— I can’t believe it, he said. I can’t believe it.
— It’s nothing to do with you, I said.
— I’d have protected her, Tante.
— You couldn’t, I said. A predikant can’t marry a wife that hides. But apart from that, she wants to go back to father and mother and childhood, and be safe again.
— She told me she loved me more than all, Tante.
— Ah.
So he went on his sudden holiday, and never returned, having been called to some other church; and there I trust that he forgot us. But we were reminded of him, for he was chosen to play for South Africa, and had his name in all the papers.
Yes, I understood her, and I understood that she could let him go without tears, and even wait impatient for the door to close upon him. The truth is her grief and shame were greater than her love. The truth is we were not as other people any more.
I thanked God I was in the captain’s house, and could put my hands on the walls of my room and feel them solid, and could not hear what was said in the streets and houses. For I could see, when the people passed, that they looked at the captain’s house, as they looked at my brother’s house, with the front blinds down, and the front door locked, they said, and never to be opened. The schoolchildren walked past it also, not once but many times, talking with lowered voices as they drew near, then falling silent, looking furtively, till that van Belkum, whom I had taken for a fool, angrily forbade them to pass it at all. They walked past the house of the ex-lieutenant too, till that also was forbidden; but he, before he was moved away, knew that they were passing, and by them was made to drink the cup of wrath.
So I sat there in the safety of my room, with the secret book. I should have liked to open it, but that he had said, if Nella wishes. What he could not tell to any man, nor any woman, he had written in a book. I took up the big envelope, and could have opened it, had I not been forbidden. And even then I could have opened it. Therefore I put it in a drawer, telling myself I must take it soon.
And as I closed the drawer, there was a knock at the door, and my nephew Frans was there.
— Mother wants you, he said. Father is dead.
SO JAKOB VAN VLAANDEREN DIED, eight days after he had been struck down. He died alone, and no one knew he was dead until my sister-in-law found him, bowed over the Book of Job. I remembered the drunken fool, and his asking, what’s the point of living, what’s the point of life? And my brother’s answer in the voice of thunder, the point of living is to serve the Lord your God, and to uphold the honour of your church and language and people. But now he had no answer, and sought hungrily in the Book. Therefore I wrote truly when I said he was destroyed.
My sister-in-law went to Buitenverwagting, to see about the funeral, she said; but she took the secret book. She went in the early morning and did not return till night; but when she came, she brought Nella and the children with her. What they said to one another, and whether they read in the book, I do not know, but the girl came back, silent but steadfast, borne on the strong deep river of this woman’s love, that sustained us all.
My brother was buried privately at Buitenverwagting, with his fathers before him. Had things been otherwise, the whole town and countryside would have been there, and people from Johannesburg and Pretoria, and all the Members of Parliament that he had called in jest his span of oxen.
Then the front door of the house in van Onselen Street was opened, and the blinds rolled up, for my sister-in-law said, something must go out of this house; and she and I no longer hid ourselves, because of her will. But she had alread
y resigned as President of the Women’s Welfare Committee, and although they had not yet chosen another, and could have made her President again if they would, yet in the end they chose Elisabet Wagenaar, who is surely one of the world’s most stupid women.
And I write down here that we were there when they sentenced him, not only his mother and I, but his wife Nella as well, all of us thinking that to be our duty. Therefore we heard those words, that a man had been unfaithful to his trust, unfit for his position, unworthy of the love of wife and children.
But it is not true what the newspapers said, that he smiled at us when they took him away. For I can see him now with my eyes. And I say that he bowed to us, humbly and gravely, and did not smile at all.
Now what is yet to come I do not know, except that they will go to some other country, far from us all. I trust they will find some peace there, even if he is to be for ever so silent and so grave. And I too, having lived this story in grief and passion, close it in some kind of peace, remembering God’s mercy, Who gave us all such friends.
Yet my grief can still come back to me, when I read of some tragic man who has broken the iron law. Was he two men, one brave and gentle, and one tormented? And has he friends, or will he suffer his whole life long? And was there one perhaps, who knew why he had barred the door of his soul and should have hammered on it and cried out not ceasing?
And I grieve for him, and the house he has made to fall with him, not as with Samson the house of his enemies, but the house of his own flesh and blood. And I grieve for the nation which gave him birth, that left the trodden and the known for the vast and secret continent, and made there songs of heimwee and longing, and the iron laws. And now the Lord has turned our captivity, I pray we shall not walk arrogant, remembering Herod whom an Angel of the Lord struck down, for that he made himself a god.
But most I grieve for Frans and his wife who live now solitary at Buitenverwagting. The boy Koos is tall and dark, and seems to have some special mark on him of solitariness. Will they say when they meet him, where have I heard your name? And will that trouble him, or is he troubled already? Ah, I pray the world will let it be forgotten.
Now all that I have written here is true, for I have seen the secret book, and all the things he wrote in prison; and my sister-in-law says it is true, though parts she would have written otherwise. And I wish she could have written it, for maybe of the power of her love that never sought itself, men would have turned to the holy task of pardon, that the body of the Lord might not be wounded twice, and virtue come of our offences.
AFRIKAANS A supple and simplified version of the original Dutch language brought to South Africa
AFRIKANER A descendant of the original Dutch settlers, who came to South Africa three hundred years ago
AG An exclamation with guttural “g”, not quite translatable, but close to similar expressions in Scottish and Irish dialect
BAAS Master
BOEREWORS Form of sausage made on South African farms
BOOMSLANG Tree snake
DIAKEN A lay official of the Dutch Reformed Church
DORP Village
FRIKKADEL Mincemeat
GOEIE MIDDAG Good afternoon
GOEIE MÔRE Good morning
GOEIE NAG Good night
HEIMWEE Nostalgic longing for home or homeland. Compare Scottish “hamewith”
HEMEL An exclamation similar to the English “Good heavens”
JA Yes
KHAKI BOS The khaki weed that has a pungent smell
KLEINBASIE Little master
KLONKIES Small black boys
KLOOF Ravine
KOEKSUSTERS An Afrikaner delicacy
KONFYT A preserve
LIEDJIES Songs
LIEFSTE Dearest
MAGTIG An exclamation like the English “Good gracious”
MELKTERT An Afrikaner delicacy
MENEER Sir
MORGEN Measure of land, just over two acres
NEE No
OUBAAS Old master
PANA sheet of water, very often circular in shape, found frequently in parts of the grass country
PANNEKOEK An Afrikaner delicacy
PHALAROPE A small migrant wading bird, occasionally straying from the coasts to inland waters
PIETMEVROU The South African whippoorwill. Both these names are onomatopoeic
PREDIKANT Minister of the Dutch Reformed Church
RUITERTJIE Another small wading bird
SITKAMER Drawing-room
VOLKSWELSYN BEAMPTE Social Welfare officer
ALAN PATON was born in 1903 in Pietermaritzburg, in the province of Natal, South Africa. After attending Pietermaritzburg College and Natal University, he taught school for three years in the rural village of Ixopo, the setting for Cry, the Beloved Country. In 1935, he was made principal of the Diepkloof Reformatory near Johannesburg, a school for delinquent boys, where he instituted numerous reforms. Toward the end of World War II, Paton decided to make a study of prisons and reformatories, and traveled to Sweden, England, Canada, and the United States. It was on a visit to Norway that he began to write Cry, the Beloved Country, which he finished three months later in San Francisco. Paton retired from Diepkloof Reformatory shortly thereafter, and went to live on the south coast of Natal where he wrote many articles on South African affairs, and helped form the liberal Association of South Africa, which later emerged as a political party. Written with simplicity and restraint, eloquence and compassion, his other works of fiction include two novels, Too Late the Phalarope (1953) and Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful (1982), and a collection of short stories, Tales from a Troubled Land (1961). Among his nonfiction works are: South Africa in Transition (1956), Hope for South Africa (1958), a volume of essays edited by Edward Callan, The Long View (1968), a memoir and tribute to his wife, For You Departed (1969), and the first volume of an autobiography, Towards the Mountain. He died in 1992.
Alan Paton Titles Available from
Scribner Paperback Fiction
Cry, the Beloved Country 0-684-81894-9
First published in 1948, Cry, the Beloved Country stands as the single most important novel in twentieth-century South African literature. A work of searing beauty, it is the deeply moving story of Zulu pastor Stephen Kumalo and his son Absalom, set against the background of a land and people riven by racial injustice.
“A beautiful novel, rich, firm, and moving … to read the book is to share intimately, even to the point of catharsis, in the grave human experience treated.”
—The New York Times
Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful 0-684-82583-X
Set in South Africa in the years 1952 to 1958, Ah, But Your Land Is Beautiful revolves around a group of South African men and women whose lives intertwine and reflect the human costs of maintaining a racially divided society.
“As extraordinary as Cry, the Beloved Country.”
—Newsweek
Tales from a Troubled Land 0-684-82584-8
Vintage Paton, these ten short stories are located at the intersection where White and Black South Africa meet.
“These tender, touching vignettes tell the South African story more succinctly than volumes of political reportage.”
— Saturday Review
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