This question of belief, this old promise that was never fulfilled, is what makes me think of my father who was deserted¹ at the moment of his greatest need. Up to the time of his illness neither my father nor my mother had ever shown any religious inclinations². Though always upholding the church to others, they themselves never set foot in a church from the time that they were married. Those who attended church too regularly they looked upon as being a bit daffy. The very way they said -"so and so is religious" - was enough to convey the scorn and contempt, or else the pity, which they felt for such individuals. If now and then, because of us children, the pastor³ called at the house unexpectedly, he was treated as one to whom they were obliged to defer⁴ out of ordinary politeness but whom they had nothing in common with, whom they were a little suspicious of, in fact as representative of a species midway between a fool and a charlatan⁵. To us, for example, they would say "a lovely man", but when their cronies came round and the gossip began to fly, then one would hear an entirely⁶ different brand of comment, accompanied usually by peals⁷ of scornful laughter and sly mimicry⁸.
My father fell mortally ill as a result of swearing off too abruptly⁹. All his life he had been a jolly hail fellow well met: he had put on a rather becoming paunch, his cheeks were well filled out and red as a beet¹⁰, his manners were easy and indolent, and he seemed destined

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