356 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
had informed him that she was pregnant. The question of having a
child had come up between them ever since 1972. Their ‘absolute
happiness’ had started to turn sour in 1978: by mutual agreement,
but not without considerable heart-searching on each side, Sylviane
resorted to an abortion then. But this time round, she was thirty-
eight. Jacques said that he felt paralysed, unable to face a child even
though he had dreamed of it as an event both desirable and imposs-
ible.* His bond with Marguerite was, in his view, indestructible, and
paternity was a matter of too much signifi cance for him to agree to it
in a half-hearted way. He let Sylviane decide for herself, but assured
her that he would accept whatever decision she came to. He himself
could not support two family homes. As for Sylviane, she found
herself facing the most serious decision of her whole life. The issue
was not just her insurmountable diff erence of opinion with Jacques,
but, more than anything else, the birth of a child. She had to make
this vital choice: there was no easy way out.^2
The relationship between Sylviane and Jacques had already
gone through more than one rough patch, but on every occasion
their passion had survived. This time, the disagreement was fun-
damental, and their aff air never recovered. They did not break
up all at once, however. Derrida and Agacinski had a great many
friends in common and were working together on several projects.
She entered the Collège International de Philosophie in 1986 as
programme director and member of the steering committee, and
then joined the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales as a
professeur agrégée. And, until 1996, she continued to publish in the
series ‘La philosophie en eff et’. When Sylviane and Jacques hap-
pened to fi nd themselves meeting in the same professional context,
their relationship appeared quite untroubled, at least in the fi rst
years.^3
Daniel Agacinski was born on 18 June 1984; Jacques chose his
fi rst name. Sylviane brought up the child by herself and then, from
1990 onwards, with Lionel Jospin, whom she married in 1994.
- The theme of the child runs obsessively through the ‘Envois’ in The Post Card,
written between 1977 and 1979. But the child is also designated as something
impossible. ‘To the devil with the child, the only thing we ever will have discussed,
the child, the child, the child. The impossible message between us. [.. .] Whatever
you do I will approve, and I will do so from the day that it was clear that between
us never will any contract, any debt, any offi cial custody, and memory even hold
us back – any child even’ (The Post Card, pp. 25–6). ‘Between us, I have always
believed (you don’t, I know) that the absence of fi liation would have been the
chance. The bet on an infi nite, that is, null genealogy, the condition for loving each
other (s’aimer) fi nally. It happens otherwise, the child remaining, alive or dead, the
most beautiful and living of fantasies, as extravagant as absolute knowledge. As
long as you don’t know what a fantasy is, nor of course, by the same token, what
knowledge is’ (ibid., p. 39).