The View from the Quai Voltaire
Extrait des 'Memoires' de J. Anatole Noziere

There is no modest way to relate the events of my eleventh, 'heroic,' year. I was a genius by then, and knew it. Although if God had granted me an older sister, instead of making me the despotic older child, I imagine she would have said, "He's not really a genius, he just acts like one." I was beginning to understand how free an agent I was, and how little authority I had to yield to; realising that in most situations I could rely on my wits, and make-do with last-minute, seat-of-my-pants improvisation, preserving and augmenting my personal freedom, while getting in many a jibe at the soft underbelly of conventional moralistic decorum. My greatest shot, and the one that upset the greatest number of people, was refusing baptism in the Lamont Free Methodist Church.

After all, it was a Mephistophelean sort of bargain: During Lent, the scant dozen children in the Sixth Grade of the Lamont Public Grade School who were, or who were intended to be, Free Methodists--nearly all of them--were given Wednesday afternoons off from school to attend catechism classes in the Methodist church taught by Mr. Hamlin, the Methodist Minister. At the end of Lent, on Easter Sunday, the deal was, we would be baptised and become Christians. I paid attention, read the material, and argued hard every point that was proposed. By the fifth Wednesday, I had taken my position: I did not agree that I was sinful by nature, that I needed, or wanted, Salvation, or that Jesus would be my preferred Saviour if I did need or want it. I had had my five Wednesday afternoons off to talk theology, but I was done with it. I was annoyed therefore, contemptuous and incredulous, when on the sixth and last Wednesday before Easter, Mr Hamlin reverted insistently to the topic of our "need" for Salvation. Sweetly, looking right over me, he invited us to raise our hands for Jesus, and ask Him to accept our gift of Contrition in exchange for His gift of Salvation.

It took my classmates a few seconds to realize what was being asked of them; but I knew immediately what he meant (I had smelled it coming), and I was the first to raise my hand: I laid out my case, as above; perorating that, given the choice, I would by much prefer Apollo to Jesus. Foolishly, Mr. Hamlin tried to argue with me--and lost every throw. I shall remember as long as I live the look of baffled fury on his face when I asked him tauntingly just what sins he thought that I, as an eleven-year-old boy, might need saving from. "Pride," he finally croaked. And I replied, for I was angry, and quick, "Pride is a virtue, not a sin!" Then with brusque impatience, motioning me to silence, he addressed the rest of the class: Would they, at least, put aside the foolishness of this world and accept Jesus into their hearts? And lo! his humiliation was complete. Because my fellow classmates had been listening to the foregoing confrontation on the Hill of Mars, and like good Athenians were persuaded by what they thought the better argument--mine. One by one, they were singled out by Mr. Hamlin and besought to abjure apostasy and accept baptism; and one by one, though blushing from the extortion being practised on them, they refused, citing my arguments ("like Anatole said") as the reason for their refusal. I was as astonished as Mr. Hamlin to hear it. I won't say that it didn't gratify me to know that my fellow sufferers agreed with me, but it had never occurred to me that they might. In the end there were no pubescent children baptised that Easter in the Lamont Free Methodist Church--and it raised an enormous stink throughout that remote, strait-laced corner of Whitman County. Word of the mass apostasy of the Lamont Methodist Catechism class, spread like wildfire as far as Hooper, St. John, Endicott. Perhaps understandably, the mothers of my fellow apostates were furious. A couple of them made peremptory phonecalls to my mother, demanding that she do something with me; which rather put her back up, but she answered patiently, "I'm sorry, but I can't do anything with Anatole. He knows his own mind."