violent. But it went from day to day without a pause. The spell of sunshine which
always came in the middle of the wet season did not appear. The yams put on luxuriant
green leaves, but every farmer knew that without sunshine the tubers would not grow.
That year the harvest was sad, like a funeral, and many farmers wept as they dug
up the miserable and rotting yams. One man tied his cloth to a tree branch and hanged
himself.
Okonkwo remembered that tragic year with a cold shiver throughout the rest of
his life. It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the
load of despair. He knew that he was a fierce fighter, but that year-had been enough to
break the heart of a lion.
"Since I survived that year," he always said, "I shall survive anything." He put it
down to his inflexible will.
His father, Unoka, who was then an ailing man, had said to him during that
terrible harvest month: "Do not despair .1 know you will not despair. You have a manly
and a proud heart. A proud heart can survive a general failure because such failure does
not prick its pride. It is more difficult and more bitter when a man fails alone."
Unoka was like that in his last days. His love of talk had grown with age and
sickness. It tried Okonkwo's patience beyond words.