Ngugi wa Thiong'o

He felt low. He had been like that for two days now. He could not understand it.

A clear drop of water was delicately suspended above him.

As for carrying a gun for the whiteman, well, a time will come when you too will know that every man in the world is alone, and fights alone, to live.”

Gikonyo greedily sucked sour pleasure from this reflection which he saw as a terrible revelation. To live and die alone is the ultimate truth.

He wanted to shout: that is not it at all; I did not want to come back; I did not long to join my mother, or wife or child because I did not have any, Tell me at point, whom might I be able to have cherished.

Mugo had always found it difficult to make decisions. Recoiling as if by instinct from setting in motion a course of action whose consequences he could not determine before the start, he allowed himself to drift into things or be pushed into them by an uncanny demon; he rode on the wave of circumstance and lay against the crest, fearing but fascinated by fate.

Would these things remain after Thursday? Perhaps for two months: and then—test-tubes and beakers would be broken or lie un-washed on the cement, the hot-houses and seed-beds strewn with wild plants and the outer bush which had been carefully hemmed, would gradually creep into a litter-filled compound."

Unknown to those around him, Kihika’s heart hardened towards “these people,” long before he had even encountered a white face. Soldiers came back from the war and told stories of what they had seen in Burma, Egypt, Palestine and India; wasn’t Mahatma Gandhi, the saint, leading the Indian people against the British rule? Kihika fed on these stories: his imagination and daily observation told him the rest; from early on, he had visions of himself, a saint, leading Kenyan people to freedom and power.

In any case how many took the oath and are now licking the toes of the whiteman?No, you take an oath to confirm a choice already made. The decision to lay or not lay your life for the people lies in the heart. The oath is the water sprinkled on a man's head at baptism.

I would hate to see a train run over my mother or father, or brothers. Oh, what would I do?” [Mumbi] quickly exclaimed.

Mugo's throat was choked; if he spoke, he would cry. He shook his head and stared straight ahead." **Chapter 3, **page 23

But whom do we see in the motor cars and changing them daily as if motor cars were clothes, it was not those who took part in the Movement...some even outright traitors and collaborators.