46 Jackie 1930–1962
I’m not able to produce anything other than tears. [.. .]
Weeping over the world, weeping for God. [.. .] I’m almost at
the end of my tether, Michel, pray for me.
I’m in a very bad way, Michel, and I’m still not strong
enough to accept the distance that now lies between us. So I’ve
given up trying to cross it even a little.^17Gradually, the violence of the crisis started to fade, giving way
to ‘a subdued, calm sadness’. It was three weeks since Jackie had
left Paris. He was working and reading a little, ‘waiting for the two
months of penitence to go by’. To avoid a relapse, he wanted at
all costs to live outside the school after the Easter holidays. More
immediately, he begged Michel to write to him ‘often, really often’.
He wanted him to inquire about the conditions required for him
to be admitted to the restaurant run by health and social services,
as the food there would defi nitely suit him better than the canteen
at Louis-le-Grand. Jackie also wanted to be sent the programmes
for the certifi cates in Latin, French, and history of philosophy that
he would need to obtain at the Sorbonne, as well as that for the
Normale Sup entrance exam. In spite of these requests, it was not
all one-way traffi c: as Michel was struggling with his philosophy,
Jackie sent him ‘a few notes on the Beautiful’ to provide material for
his forthcoming essay, while claiming that he was not satisfi ed with
them. These fi fty pages intensifi ed the admiration his friend felt for
him; they earned him his best mark of the year.
In spite of the constraints on his own life as a boarder, Michel
did his best to prepare for Jackie’s return. He set off in search of a
rented room that his impecunious friend would be able to aff ord. He
also went to see someone he knew vaguely, an inspector of school
hygiene, who promised to write a letter giving him permission to
have his meals in the medico-social restaurant. And he sent him a
few exercises, even though he thought it must be really diffi cult to
write Latin prose in Algeria: ‘You need these black walls and these
incomplete dictionaries, this sour smell of dust and old tobacco, and
the hum of the cooking pots.’^18
Jackie’s letters were still as sentimental, but they became a little
less sombre:
Just six weeks to wait; then we’ll go out, we’ll go for walks
together again, we’ll think and feel together; together we will
keep silence, too, between long, long private discussions; for
then we will tell each other what letters cannot say. Will we
have any moments of peaceable, trusting joy, Michel? I almost
feel I am no longer capable of this without you, but will I be so
with you? [.. .] Your friend who will never abandon you and
who forbids you to think of such a thing.^19