An End to Autumn
“He saw a number of people whom he knew and who nodded at him in slight surprise, glancing at his mother who smiled in an almost queenly manner. As he waited for the service to begin, looking around him at the bright hats of the women, the tall blue cross on the pulpit cloth, the varnished pulpit with the microphone, the narrow windows with their stained-glass panes, he thought of what he was doing. His mother sat beside him, staring straight ahead of her, her hands in her lap, passive in the silence, and he sensed that in some way she was repossessing him, that by doing what he had done he had taken an irrevocable step. For what he was doing, and his motive for doing it, was unusual. Not believing in religion, he had placed humanity above ideology as if by doing so he was setting himself beside her in the world, as if he was showing that he was not ashamed of her.
This extraordinary achievement—the clearsightedness with which he had seen the issues at stake—warmed him with a righteous glow.
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