Derrida: A Biography

50 Jackie 1930–1962

of them. That’s the only way I can read.’^26 He would, however,
remain faithful to some of the authors he mentioned. He read Plato
patiently: ‘If I had the strength, I’d wax enthusiastic about him.’
And he was really excited to rediscover Francis Ponge: ‘Never has
anyone surprised me... so little. And that’s why I fi nd him so
marvellous. I’ll bring Proèmes for you.’^27
The sun and the sea gradually reassumed their rights. Jackie
renewed his friendship with Taousson and Acharrok, the companions
of his teens, but this fi lled him with a kind of remorse:

For the past few days, I’ve allowed myself to be distracted a bit

by a gang of friends who’ve been taking me out, pretty much

everywhere, unwillingly – and with my car. It was mindless

fun: the sea, dance halls, alcohol, life in the fast lane, etc. And

having tasted anew these things of my youth (don’t laugh: I did

have another youth, diff erent from the Parisian, student exist-

ence of Louis-le-Grand) I have now defi nitively lost any taste

for them; and in any case, my health won’t allow me the least

misdemeanour.^28

Over the weeks, the letters started to dry up, on both sides, and
Derrida found this worrying. If Michel were to withdraw his aff ec-
tion and trust, Jackie was sure he would soon become ‘a nasty little
earthworm, pretentious, narrow-minded, and shapeless’. More than
ever, he needed the support of his friend:

Here, I am faced by countless challenges that have left me

exhausted. Never, even in the worst hours of my collapse, have

I known such a state. I can’t sleep any more: I sometimes get

up in the middle of the night to slip barefoot through the house

and try to get a little peace or confi dence from hearing the

breathing of my sleeping family. Pray for us, Michel...^29

Monory was still a practising Catholic and at this period went on
retreat in an abbey. This was an opportunity for Derrida to describe
his own religious convictions, or rather his own anxieties:

As so often, I wish I could do the same as you. But I can’t.

Firstly because a certain religious ‘condition’ prevents me;

secondly, and above all, because I would still be too weak, if I

am not too anxious, not to transform prayer, silence, achieved

peace, hope, and meditation into spiritual comfort; and even

if this comfort would be the end (the conclusion and the goal)

of a dreadful torment, I don’t feel and will probably never feel

that I have the right – if prophecy isn’t stupidity in a case like

this – to accept it.^30