Diary of a Heretic

My name is Etienne Allard, and I was born in Marseille, on a bright May morning, in the year of our Lord 1870. Though I remember them vividly, the details of my very early childhood are immaterial to my purpose. It will suffice to say children born of privileged homes often fill their days with careless amusements and wonder seeking. And mine was one such home. Situated on a hill overlooking the sea in the Vauban district, in the shadow of la Garde where now stands the great basilica, it was an estate set unto itself. I recall its parlor and great hall playing host to many a gathering of the local haute bourgeoisie in its day.

My father, Jean Allard, a cunning and intelligent man with no small measure of charisma, made his fortune at twenty after founding the Compagnie Générale Méditerranéen et de la Côte d’Ivoire in 1860 with just two small ships. Employing questionable business practices and a lion’s ferocity for stomping out competitors, in short order, he acquired three more, expanding his small operation running cargo along the Mediterranean coast into a full-scale enterprise conducting regular ferries between Marseille, Assini, and Grand-Bassam—sending out settlers and speculators, bringing back palm oil and cocoa. Within a few years, the Compagnie amassed a capital of nearly twelve million francs, expanding to a fleet of ten cargo ships and four steamers all running scheduled routes to Algiers, Tripoli, Athens, and numerous ports along the Levant.

It was from my father I would receive my first introduction to the perplexing and devious animal that is man. His study overlooked the gardens and described a veritable temple to the gods of commerce; cabinets displayed artifacts of exotic stone and wood from the dark continent, while the walls hung with the skins of beasts slain of the savage wilds. No sooner had I taken my first steps than he had me sit in a corner armchair and silently observe him run his empire from behind a massive oak-and-marble desk.

“Read a man as you would a book,” he would instruct. Only after the endless parade of subordinates and sycophants had ceased for the day would he deign to address me directly. “Every man’s face tells a story. It doesn’t matter what language it’s written in either. You just have to know how to read. You can read, can’t you?”

But at the age of three, I could not.

My formal education did not begin until my fourth year, when my father deemed it necessary I be groomed in his image. He wished me well positioned to succeed him when the time arose, and hired a battery of tutors for the purpose, the best his money could buy.

There was arithmetic and reading and penmanship. There was history and grammar. Daily instruction on piano and violin by an oily-haired Teuton named Haberlin was followed by Latin with M. Martin, then Italian and English with M. Faure. Further on there were the Greeks, Dickens, Gogol, Milton, and the humanities, which proved increasingly at odds with my ecclesiastical studies. Religion, specifically the doctrine of the Catholic church, was delivered at my mother’s behest through regular visits by a certain Abbé Frère. Middle-aged, pasty-faced, and balding, he eagerly relished the opportunity to visit our home to instruct me in the ways of heaven and hell, if only to seize upon the opportunity to be nearer my mother, upon whom he bestowed unnatural attentions obvious to even my youthful eyes.

Beautiful yet reserved, and some years Jean’s junior, Aline had been raised a Maronite Catholic in Ottoman Lebanon. It was there where he’d found her. Entranced by her Levantine exoticism, or more likely her servile nature, Jean’s attentions enticed Aline’s father, who was anxious to see his eldest daughter married. His promise to take her back with him to Marseille in luxury and wealth, and with no small sum delivered to her father in exchange, sealed the arrangement. A businessman through and through, Jean’s marriage was nothing more than a bill of sale—a contract for a new piece of equipment, with terms negotiated and all the proper requisitions signed.

But my mother was out of her element in the social circles of Marseilles. More trophy than wife, the men entering Aline’s sphere found themselves captivated by beauty only to be repelled by her unwavering piety and intractable devotion to God. If my father was a slave to his business, then my mother was enslaved by her faith. Truly, her place was in a convent, not by my father’s side, and I know not how it was fate had brought them together, so clearly mismatched as they were in the stuff from which they’d been made.

Her days were her own to fill. A small army of servants artfully kept the house in order, so what time Aline didn’t spend looking beautiful and acquiescent by my father’s side as he made the social rounds, she spent alone, either in her rooms or in the private chapel Jean had built for her in our garden. There she whiled away the hours in solitude and reflection, an anchorite under her own roof.

If my mother took little interest in her marriage or home, she took even less in the raising of her only son. My presence seemed only a constant reminder of her general melancholy. It is why my fondest childhood memories concern not my mother but rather our family’s chief servant, a Rumanian girl named Lipa. Barely twenty when she arrived on our doorstep looking for work, quick-witted, and a quicker study, who hid more intelligence than she let on, she soon earned the trust of my parents and found herself the favorite of the household. I’d just turned five.

With my father absorbed in the tedium of running his empire, and my mother’s increasing isolation, the responsibility of my caregiving fell to her. When I wanted food, it was Lipa who fed me. When I played a trick, it was she who laughed. When I fell, it was she who tended to my bruises and wounded pride.

Early adolescence brought with it burgeoning self-discoveries. When not at study, my time was increasingly filled with more competitive pursuits. To not put too fine a point on it, I’d developed a singular penchant for games of chance—rounds of teetotum or draughts among friends or with servants. Card games I liked the best. Lipa taught me le Pouillex and Triomphe, while Alphonse, my father’s driver, taught me Bassette and Bouillotte, the latter of which eventually became my game of choice. Though only twelve, I found myself sneaking off with Alphonse to clandestine games with chauffeurs, merchants, and others in some of Marseille’s less-than-noble establishments.    

By the time I’d reached my fifteenth birthday, my father’s edict that I “learn to read” had borne fruit. I had learned to read, and read well, both books and men. The hours spent in his study watching him work, observing his trade with the singular goal of learning to read a man—his hopes, his fears, his desires, his strengths, and his weaknesses—proved more effective than he could have possibly foreseen. I had a perspicacity for the subtle, often finding that when I concentrated, I could instinctively sense what others were feeling or thinking. If the seeds had been sown in my father’s study, then they truly blossomed around the card table. Every man’s face did, indeed, tell a story if you knew how to read it. And I excelled in observing the unconscious, involuntary movements of others, what they refer to in gambling circles as the tell—a faint falter in breathing, a quickening of the pulse, a nearly imperceptible deflection of the iris. Things easily missed by the casual observer were plain as day to my eye. Detecting them became a study in and of itself, and I found the practice both fascinating and educational beyond measure.

Accompanying this insatiable curiosity for the human condition and all its quirks and nuances, I soon discovered I had also been endowed with the tremendous, almost preternatural gift of good luck. Countless times, through simple observation and only a modicum of cunning, I successfully brought off all manner of trickery and deceit among not only my closest compatriots—for how simple really are the minds of children—but also the adults who congregated about me. My machinations did not escape the attention of Alphonse, and together, fleecing the local merchantmen became a particularly enjoyable pastime.

Gaming aside, I often exploited this gift to increasing success with the female sex, for concurrent with my flowering intellectual talents came the realization, despite all her faults, that my mother’s beauty had contributed in no small measure to my developing into a young man of notable attractiveness. I was tall for my age, standing almost a head higher than my closest peer. My hair grew full, wavy, and black like the wings of a crow. A heavy brow, a gift from my Levantine ancestry, lent my gaze gravity, and a strong jaw gave balance to a somewhat drawn face. Women visiting our parlor often discreetly commented to my mother, sometimes describing my carriage as almost statuesque. To these whispered praises, I would take nonchalant actions, preening as it were for them, to earn further attentions. I worked diligently, perfecting my poise and posture, as I performed routine tasks such as raising a cup to my lips or standing at the window, gazing upon the garden so as to give the impression of being in deep philosophical reflection. As I approached manhood, it was not lost on me that being an object of women’s baser desires was a goal worthy of attaining. I used my skills honed at the gaming tables to observe their gazes, ascertaining the perfect moments to strike a pose, pout my lips, or arch my brow so as to elicit the maximum amorous desires. Later, a particularly splendid endowment would prove to be of great utility in the boudoirs of the continent and further afield, though, at the time, I had no foreknowledge of this.

Mere grist for the mill that was to come, these flirtations laid the foundation for my downfall. I have come to learn all men are possessing of a single sin. Mine was and always has been vanity. A prideful child I was, and I prideful man I was becoming. Everyone entering my circle became potential targets upon which to test the mettle of my skills—adversaries to be humbled by my intellect and unnatural good fortune.

I blame my father for this, as many men who reflect on the injustices they have suffered are wont to do, though I live with the full knowledge every injustice wrought upon my head was of my own doing. His, too, was the sin of pride, pride that made him believe, despite my education and all he taught me about the illicit nature of men, he could conceal from me his own inner demons. But, in time, I could read him as expertly as I could any man. And I saw in his actions and heard in his words his own sin.

To be sure, I never witnessed his adulterous acts. But it was easy to see the many women he’d had over the years. In my youngest days, I could not perceive the forces both tearing and coalescing the fabric of my family. My mother’s beauty was undeniable, but for Jean, she was merely another item in his collection of chattels acquired in his travels. Steadfast in his work, yet prone to distraction, and weak in the face of temptation, it would be from my father, and not all those books and tutors, that I would learn the caprices of man. By the time I had reached my eighteenth birthday, I had become only too aware of his deceit. As I have said, my father was a man of great intellect and cunning—an imposing figure whose personality dominated lesser men. And where they would shrink from his overpowering presence, women would inevitably surrender to it. But when his charisma was at its strongest, his willpower was at its weakest. I had learned to read men well, as he’d instructed. But perhaps he’d not intended me to open the pages of his own life?

I cannot in good conscience continue my story without first admitting, though I could not understand his motives for dishonoring my mother, that I loved my father. And though I could neither understand why she tolerated his infidelities nor why she chose to stay with him despite them, I loved her just as much, but respected her little. In fact, you could say I indeed laid blame for his behavior as much upon her shoulders as his, lost as she was in her piety in the hunt for virtue in a man clearly lacking it. It could be equally said, quite convincingly, I might add, this view was sorely misplaced, and the fault was Jean’s and his alone. Today, with so many years passed, I cannot but agree. My father, for all the charms that allowed him to lord over his vast empire like a king and impose his will upon all who came within his orbit, was at his core a wretched, sinful man.

And like father, like son.

However, I feel I am getting ahead of myself, and so shall leave my childhood behind.

By my eighteenth year, having learned all I could from my tutors, and with Lipa in tears at my departure, I left Marseille to commence my studies within the venerable walls of the Sorbonne. It was the year of our Lord 1888.

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