Another Life 1976–1977 289
to have much direct infl uence on what we were reading. What
was diffi cult to deal with was his permanent anxiety: when we
were little, he was afraid we’d go and play outside or wander
a bit too far away; later on, motorbikes and drugs were real
nightmares for him. When he was angry, this was always due
to anxiety, especially if we came home later than we’d said we
would.^2Derrida’s friends all emphasize how much he wanted to keep his
sons near him, and how easily he worried about the least little thing.
As Camilla Adami remembers:
In many respects, he behaved like a Jewish mother. He could
telephone two or three times during a meal if there was any-
thing to worry about. But his anxiety was also an emotional
matter. If the children didn’t come to give him a goodnight kiss
in the evening, he immediately got really upset. A ‘goodbye’
spoken without warmth was enough to make him depressed.^3This family life, which Derrida was so keen to preserve, had since
1972 been given a severe jolt by his relation with Sylviane Agacinski.
Haunted by this secret, he observed the greatest discretion possible
and never appeared with her outside meetings on Greph or pub-
lishing business. Only a few close friends, such as Lucette Finas,
sometimes invited them as a couple. But among those close to
Derrida, many guessed at this other side to his life.^4 Pierre himself
understand, as early as age eleven or twelve, that there was another
woman in his father’s life:
At home, a telephone line was reserved for his use: one day,
I picked up the receiver and it was Sylviane at the other end:
she was embarrassed and brought the conversation to a swift
end. A little later, there was a scene that might have come
out of a novel. My mother, Jean, and I had gone into Paris
on some outing. We happened to come across Jacques and
Sylviane, in a situation that was quite unambiguous. But
there wasn’t any big scene: my mother behaved as if there was
nothing wrong and we said hello to Sylviane as if she were
just a colleague... I even think that we went to have a drink
together in a café.^5In private life, whether with Marguerite or Sylviane, the situation
was not an easy one and created moments of crisis and bouts of mel-
ancholy. In several letters to Roger Laporte, who himself was prone
to feeling low, Derrida referred in veiled terms to ‘this whole web’