110 Jackie 1930–1962
tended to bring everything back to Kant. ‘You can tell a great
philosopher from the way you fi nd him at every crossroads,’
he used to say. He would screw up his eyes when he was telling
us about particularly diffi cult things, as if he wanted to help us
absorb his ideas better.More positive are the memories of Njoh Mouellé, who would
pursue her studies in philosophy before becoming a government
minister in Cameroon.
Jacques Derrida was quite reserved and didn’t mix much with
his students. But he did take part in the dinner that we organ-
ized with the whole class. Genette and he were the only teachers
who looked after us on that occasion, accompanied by their
wives. He wasn’t very chatty, and didn’t crack many jokes. One
day, he burst out to one of our classmates who always had a
smile on his lips: ‘Listen, Pellois, your permanent hilarity really
gets on my nerves.. .’ His lessons were both substantial and
serious and, as I’d been pretty good at philosophy since termi-
nale, I personally followed them with great interest. He made
it possible for me to fi nd my feet in Kantianism. I regularly got
good marks from him. Perhaps this was because I was already
really interested in philosophy.^6The more the months went by, the less did Derrida attempt to
conceal his disenchantment. Genette was pleased to have set up
‘a nice little team’ with him but realized that his former fellow
student considered the post as a second best. Derrida brooded over
his failure to get the Sorbonne job as if he were being persecuted.
Initially, his malaise expressed itself in a period of hypochondria.
Every day, he discovered new and alarming symptoms. He feared
cancer or some other deadly illness, and the various doctors whom
he consulted did not manage to allay his anxieties. During the third
term, his depression became evident – his ‘big depression’, he later
called it, since he would never experience one so serious.
When Derrida arrived in Le Mans, he was unwilling to confess
the depth of his disappointment. And all at once, he collapsed under
his despair. He had suff ered for years before passing the exam to
Normale Sup, then the agrégation. He had put up with twenty-seven
months of military service, waiting for the day when life would
fi nally open up before him. All this eff ort, just to end up here, stand-
ing in front of pupils who did not understand what he was telling
them, with colleagues who could talk about nothing but holidays
and sport! All this, to wear himself out preparing his lessons and
marking boring schoolwork! For months, he had not managed to