Towards Independence 1960–1962 119
This was to be his last summer in Algeria; probably he guessed
as much without admitting it to himself. For French Algerians, fear
had become tangible. An elderly man was murdered in El Biar, just
a short distance away from the family home. Charlie, the son of one
of Derrida’s female cousins, came to live in Fresnes for a year, with
Jackie and Marguerite, as his family was gravely concerned that
he might be assassinated. Here he developed a liking for work and
study, and later said that this stay had saved his life.
It was in this unsettled context, in July 1961, that Derrida fi nally
completed his Introduction to The Origin of Geometry, the manu-
script of which he had written on paper headed ‘Faculty of literature
and human sciences, History of colonization’. At the start of the
academic year, he brought the typescript to Jean Hyppolite, who
said he was eager to see it in print. In October, in one of his most
laconic letters, Hyppolite assured Derrida that he had read ‘with
great interest (this is not just an empty formula)’ this meticulous
analysis ‘which closely follows the meanders of Husserl’s think-
ing’.^12 This opinion, in its brevity, could hardly quieten Derrida’s
considerable anxiety at submitting this fi rst text.
On 24 November, he sent a long letter to Paul Ricoeur, in a very
deferential tone: he was keen to submit his Introduction to him before
it was published by the Presses Universitaires de France: ‘Your
judgement is worth more to me than that of anyone else.’ In particu-
lar, Derrida wanted Ricoeur to endorse the several allusions he had
made to the latter’s works; he said he was ‘especially troubled by the
problem of references to living philosophers’, and afraid he might not
be fi nding ‘the right tone’. He also regretted not having told Ricoeur,
on their fi rst encounter, of ‘the huge and faithful admiration’ that he
had for his work, and he wanted to explain ‘the accidental reasons’
for which he had not asked him to supervise his thesis.^13 A few weeks
later, surprised that he had not received the least reply, Derrida had
to re-write his letter and send it off a second time, since Ricoeur had
lost it. Fortunately, Derrida had kept a rough draft, as he did for all
his offi cial correspondence in those days. Ricoeur apologized for his
carelessness, and said this time how touched he was by the way his
young assistant’s letter was so full of ‘confession and modesty’:
I can sense perfectly well how diffi cult it is to get the tone right
from one generation to another. In the United States, I used to
think that relationships are easier, in the same circumstances,
between academics. Allow me to tell you that I would very
much like to see the diff erences (that our reciprocal position
makes inevitable) disappear in communication and friendship.
Let us place our trust in the boldness of expression, and in
time.^14