Another Life 1976–1977 295
now, he left with his family for Conca dei Marini on Italy’s Amalfi
Coast, where the Adamis had rented a house: ‘I’m going to swim as
much as possible. I’m in poor shape physically. I’ve put on weight
(as always when I’m tired) and I feel as heavy as a bag of lead.’^21
Derrida was thrilled to discover this region, and greatly impressed
by the ancient and still very well-preserved site of Paestum. This
was also the fi rst time he had visited Pompeii, a place which he liked
to revisit in later years. Nonetheless, August did not live up to all
his expectations. Perhaps this was because he had not fulfi lled his
desire of ‘jumping over towards Sicily’, something he had dreamed
of doing with Sylviane.^22 This was probably also because he had
not really managed to relax. He explained all this in a long letter
to Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, asking him to share its contents with
Jean-Luc Nancy.
I’ve been trying to work and to work on myself in a slightly dif-
ferent way, but it’s diffi cult, at the moment, to say how much
I’ve succeeded. In short, I came home yesterday [.. .] exhausted
and overwhelmed-worried-discouraged by what lies ahead. I’m
leaving on the 10th for Yale (the schedule is overladen there,
too). Anyway. [.. .] Joliet has asked me to write a text for
‘Champs’, so I’ll revamp ‘Le facteur de la vérité’, preceded by
an essay on Beyond the P[leasure] P[rinciple] and a preface,
the whole to be called Freud’s Legacy. I’d thought I might
fi nish it this summer, but I’m late. I still hope to submit the
manuscript at the end of October for publication in the winter
or spring.^23In every respect, the piece was far from the shape that The Post Card
would fi nally assume, in 1980. At this stage, the ‘Envois’ were not
part of the project at all.
On 10 September 1977, Derrida left for Yale, but the absence
of Paul de Man, who was on sabbatical in France, meant that his
stay there was less agreeable than in previous years. ‘Your infl u-
ence in the United States is growing, with all the aberrations and
hardenings of position that this implies,’ de Man had told him.^24
Having left them to one side for eight months, Derrida resumed
his notebooks on 12 October, just before his return from the United
States. These personal notes are interwoven with the writing of
the ‘Envois’, a manifestation of that new ‘writing without inter-
ruption that has been sought since the beginning’, and in which
autobiography takes its full place, in a lyrical and often painful way.
I have lost you [Je t’ai perdu(e)]: I no longer possess you, no
longer possessing you, provoked your loss, I have forced you
into the loss of yourself.