520 Jacques Derrida 1984–2004
For several days and nights, I have been wondering in vain
from whence I would derive the strength here, now, to raise my
voice. I would like to think, I hope to be able to imagine again
that I am receiving it, this strength that would otherwise fail
me, from Maurice Blanchot himself. [.. .]
Maurice Blanchot, for as long as I can remember, through-
out my adult life, since I started to read him (over fi fty years
ago), and especially since I met him, in May 1968, and he
never ceased to honour me with his trust and his friendship, I
had been used to hearing it, this name, diff erently from that of
someone, a third party, the incomparable author who is quoted
and from whom people draw inspiration: I heard it diff erently
than as the great name of a man of whom I admire not just
the power of exposition, in thought and existence, but also
the power of withdrawal, the exemplary modesty, a discretion
unique in our time [.. .].^4According to Avital Ronell, Derrida dated the symbolic origin of
his fi nal illness to this day:
He felt that everything was cracking up inside him. His sev-
entieth birthday, 11 September and its consequences, the
electoral campaign of 2002, and this really dispiriting ceremony
at Blanchot’s death, with this impression of talking into a
vacuum: all these events, so diff erent in level, helped to weaken
him and bring back a deep layer of sadness that went back a
long way.^5A few years before, Blanchot had asked Derrida to be his execu-
tor. Shortly after his friend’s death, as he himself was starting to
suff er from a mysterious ‘bar in the stomach’, Derrida went to
Gallimard to speak up for a Pléiade edition of Blanchot’s works.
But Antoine Gallimard showed little enthusiasm: while Blanchot’s
name did rouse passions, sales of his fi ctional works had always
remained extremely modest. Derrida would, in any case, not have
time to bring this task to a conclusion. When Cidalia Fernandez
asked him to come and examine a suitcase full of papers, he would
no longer be in a condition to do so.^6
In the fi rst days of April, Derrida fl ew to Irvine. He was not in great
form. As Marguerite remembers: ‘He kept complaining of stomach
aches, but the examinations he’d had didn’t detect any problems. I
didn’t feel very well either, but I hadn’t mentioned this to him as I
didn’t want to make him worry for no reason.’^7
One of the events Derrida was very keen to attend, that spring,
was the conference in honour of J. Hillis Miller organized by