450 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
historians and anthropologists such as Philippe Ariès and Louis-
Vincent Thomas.
For Der rida and most of the guests at Cerisy, these ten days were
an ‘incredible success’, as well as an ‘unprecedented festivity’. This
made his return to everyday life all the more diffi cult, as he told
Catherine Malabou: ‘Nothing better [than this conference] could
have happened to me, but, ipso facto, with a taste of love and death,
and, more intense than ever, the spectrality that attends all my joys
and enjoyments.’^31 Since his return home, he had suff ered from the
after-eff ects; and while he had settled back to work without a break,
it was neither out of inclination or compulsion, but merely because
he had promises to keep...