University of Nebraska Pras Lincoln and London %, Jacques Derrida English Translation by Jobn P. Leavey, Jr, and Richard RandPrepartion of this volume was made posible in pare by «gras From the Progra fr Tansaions ‘ofthe National Endowment fo the Humanities, an independent federal agency, Publication was also supporce by a grant from the Nesonal Endowment forthe Humanities ‘Copyrighe 1986 by the Universicy of Nebraska Press. All ighes eseved Manufactured in the Uniced Sates of America Fics published in France as Gla, « Editions Ga 1974 “The paper ia this book meets the minimum require ments of American National Stands fot Information Seiences~ Permanence of Paper fr Priced Library Marerias, ANS 239.48-1984.@ Libary of Congres Ctaloging-n-Publicatioe Daca Derrida, Jacques Gia, ‘Trandation of: Gls 1 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm redrch, 1770-1831 2, Genet, Jean, 1910-86. 1. Tile 82948.04613 1986 19385-28877 'S@N 8032-1667. (alaline paper)Note to the Translation ‘The translation of Glas was a joint efor. Richard Rand provided ‘he fre draft translation of the column on Jean Genet and I of che column on Hegel. [chen ineegrated and reworked both columas for accuracy, continuity of anguage, and sylistcs For che critical apparatus co the translation, thac is, explana- soos of pacticula terms and their cranslaions, commentary oa individual lines, nd che location ofall cited passages, 25 wel as incoductory stays, the ceader is referred to Glasary, by Jobo P Leavey, Je, with an esay by Gregory L. Ulmer anda foreword by Jacques Derrida. Glasary, also published by the University of ‘Nebrasia Pres, is the complement ofthis translation and indicaces alleferences cit by page and line number. ‘The translation follows cheseexrual principles: German terms within parentheses are Derrida’ citaions or emphases. German terms with translation alteraatives or explanations wiehin square brackets are Derrida’. German terms alone within square brackets are the eranslators' addition for clarity. French terms within square brackees ae likewise the translators { would like to thank che fllowing: Dr. Susan Mango and the “Translations Program of che National Endowment for the Humani- ‘ies for a granc tha allowed full-time work during 19808; the University of Florida's Division of Sponsored Research, College of Liberal Ars and Sciences, and English Department for thei sup- port of cher pats ofthis project; Clark Butler for aking available (© me his translation of the Hegel lecers before publication by Indiana University Pres; Indiana University Press for permission co cite fen Hoge: The Later, crans. Clark Buslet and Cheistane Seiler, with commentary by Clack Butler (Indiana University ress, 1984); Barbara Fletcher for her help inthe early stages of the translation; and Marie A. Nelion fr hee time, good spirits, and patience in eying and correcting the entire manuscripe— without her this project would sill not be finished. T would also like co acknowledge the support that Paul de Man and John Sallis gave this translation from its inception. J. Hillis Miller has always been available and helpful with any problems ‘hat might aise. He made chis work possible. Gilbere Debusscher wwas kind enough 0 review parts of the cranslzion and answer questions on particular passages ia the French. Finally, 1 want 0 ‘hank Jacques Derrida himself. His friendship, patience, and gen- ‘rous answers co my many questions continually guided me in this translation. JLwhat, after all, of the cemain(s), roday, for us, here, now, of a Hegel? For us, here, now: from now on that is whac one will not have been able to think without him. Forus, here, now: these words are citations, already, always, we have learned chat from hien Who, him? His name is so strange. From the eagle it draws imperial or historic power. Those who still pronounce his name like the French (here are some) are ludicrous only up to a certain point: che restitution (semaneically infallible for chose who have read him a licele—but only a lick) of magiscerial coldness and impercurbable seriousness, the eagle caughc in ice and fost, glass and gel Le ehe emblanched femblon] philosopher beso congealed. ‘Who, him? The lead or gold, white o black eagle has not signed che text of savoir absolu, absolute knowledge. Even less has. ‘he nd sagt Boo, setomrenenitetestinetsnat water Sa 8 ths Simonewtiscaaiang ee vets SEAS IISSCASE, siento, wheter ‘maculate Concepcion. A property singular © written OF has CETTE CSS rine count wg. let SMUT ig Tet rcs Way coms srs Setanta tating, TE Thannsbords is cme, to ‘Whether it lets itself be evi borders assigned {eneign], signed, cnsigned is not yet known. Pechaps there is an incompatibility (eather than a dialectical contradiction) beeween che teaching and the signature, a schoolmaster and a signer. Perhaps, in any case, even when they let themselves be thoughe and signed, these ewo operations cannot overlap each ocher {1 ravuper). les/His {Sa} signacure, s thoughe of the remain(s, will en- ‘velop this corpus, bue no doubs will not be rer) $0 84 Contained heen eee Sp This is—a legend. tere now bur wil a: Nota fable: a legend. Nota novel, nora ready hare been puto family romance since that concerns Hegels Seer te ote family, bur alegend {orm more” ar lex The legend does noc pretend to afford a to the ast of wha reading of Hegels whole corpus, texts, and fe seareer SM 5 plans {decal}, just of cwo figures. More caro precisely, of ewo figures in che act of effacing themselves: two passages “what remained of a Rembrands torn into small, very regn- lar squares and rammed down the shithole” is divided in. cwo. As the remain(s) [reste]. Two unequal columns, they say distyle {divent-ils}, each of which — envelop(e)s) o sheath(es), incaleu- lably reverses, curns inside our, replaces, remarks, overlaps [recoupe] the other. The incalculable of what remained calculates itself, elaborates all che coups [strokes, blows, etc.], cwists or scaffolds chem in silence, you would wear yourself out ceven faster by counting them. Each little square is delimited, each column rises with an impassive self- sufficiency, and yet che element of contagion, the infinite circulation of general equivalence relates each sentence, each stump of writing (for example, “je me ”) co each other, within each column and from one column to the other of what remained infi- Of the remain(s), after all, there are, always, over- lapping each other, two functions ‘The first assures, guards, assimilates, interiorizes, idealizes, relieves the fall [chute] into the monument. There the fall maintains, embalms, and mummiifies itself, monumemorizes and names itself—falls (to the tomb(scone)) {tombe}. Therefore, buc as a fall, it cerects itself ehere.Two very determined, parcial, and particular passages, cwo examples. But pethaps the example rifles withthe essence. First passage: religion of lowes. In Phoomarlay of Spirit, the developmenc of nara religion always has che form of 3 logis the mediare moment, “plane and animal,” includes a religion of| flowers, Flower religion snot even a moment or station. Leal but exhausts itself in a passage (Uberehen), a disappearing movement, the efluvium dosting above a procession, the march from inno cence to guilt. Flower ligion would be innocent, animal religion culpable. Flower religion (a factual example of this would come from Africa, but above all from India) no longer, or hardly, re- ‘mains; proceeds co its own placement in culpability, very own animalization, co inocence becoming culpable (eupble] and thus serious. And this insofar as the same, the self (Seléit) has not yet taken piace, has given itself, still, only (in) its representa sion (Verlag). "The in- Die Unc derSkmenragion de mar cence of the Amer rei- ‘eos Holga Sete fon gon which ie merely the Ser tna te KojodenLoers in oe ar mel Oe Schaar Teranpn Ra ind Oh = Ina r acowede mantener, pases Inco the ‘Draven Farther” ousnes of warring lif, ico the guilt of ain! reigns; the quiet and impotence of contemplative indviduaicy pas into Aescructive being forsele” avy lok sewn toward nda inorder Second passage: the io" folow ths engrave pases eh phallic column ef Indi. passes very badly berweenthe Far Westand “The Agsthetics describes its Seta tne nda Erop rer Chra A Kind of here sompiany socom. form inthe chaprer on Connaredu Girnar aueriondcony “Independent or Symbolic kr ps of Herade who NE Architecture.” It is sid ~ maperti somewhat shifting channel the East‘West- to have spread toward ExXturan pute ane urowssA Phrygia, Syia, and Greece porcelbecsmrg whee, inthe coure ofthe Fre voy porns ohan changed rane, SHE: renetiea The pronecary as been Dionyiac celebrations (ac- Sct Hom Cae Nore Dineirfoe, cording 0 Herodocas as Bion Tk (Sera) cited by Hegel) che women ‘were palling che thread of phallus chat thus stood inthe air, “alowe as big a the es ofthe body." At the beginning, then, the phallic columns of India, The other — lets the remain(s) fall. Running the risk of coming down to the same. Falls (co the tomb(stone)) — cwo times the columns, the waterspouts{#rom- bes] — cemain(s). Pethaps the case (Eall) ofthe sing. Jf Fall marks the case, the fall, deca- dence, failure or fis- sure, Falleequals trap, snare, springe, che machine that grabs you by the neck {cou}. The seing falls (co the romb(stone)) ‘The remain(s)is in- describable, or almost so: not by virtue of an empiric approxi- mation, but rigor- ously undecidable. “Gatochresis...m. 1. Trope wherein a ‘word is diverted from its proper sense and is taken up in commen language to sesignace another thing with some anal- Oty tothe obectintialy expressed: for ‘example, a tongue [langue], since the tongue is che chief organ of spoken lan- sage: a looking glass ... 2 leaf of Paper... Iiralzoacatachrenis to ay: Ironclad with gold: 10 ride a hobby- horse... 2. Musical term. Harsh and tnfamilar dissonance. “TE. Kararypnars, abuse, from xa, against, xpis, wsge.” *Cotoflque ... n. Phorm raed as an honor, in the middle of 2 church, to receive the coffin or efigy of & scented "Ele. catofole; Low Latin ctaotus, cadefaldus, codofole, codapals, coda Phallus, chofels. According to Du ‘Cange, cata drives from the Low Latin cous, a war machine called catafeer the aniral: and, cording to Diez, from cntare, to see, to regard: afer all [du reste, finaly, these two etymologies merge, since cots, cat, and cote, £0 regard, share the same root. There re- sais fle, which, given the variants of the Low Lacin where p appear, can be only the German word balk (see 8a ony). Cotfalque is the same word as Soff (ee that word [échafeud}. “Cataplottim ...n,Term from ancient eerature. The use of abstruse words. "HE Karayhurniouss, trom Kar, indicating abstruse, and yAoova, word, ‘tongue, language (tee toss Upfose})* Litre “The ALCs sound, clack, explode [éclo- tent} reflect and (return themselves in every sense and direction, count and ddscount. themselves, opening —here (ci) in the stone of each column 3 ve riety of ina judas holes, crenels, Vene- tian shutters [fous loopholes, to 80 to I not to be imprisoned in theenormous formations, pillars, rowers, larger at the base than a che op. Now ac the ourset —bucasa serting out are. bated he a cha alteady departed fom icsel— these col- tet die a oH mns were intact, vobreached {inewamés), smooth, And oniy later (eat spd) are notches, excavations, openings (Ojfmnger ind Ausboblungen) ade in the columns, in the Hank, sfsuch canbe said. These hollowings, holes, chese lateral marks in depeh would be ike accidents coming ‘over the phallic columns at fist unperforated of apparendy unper- foratable. Images of gods (Giterblde) were set, niched, inserted, embedded, driven in, eattoved on the columns. just as chese small caverns or lateral pockers onthe fank of che phallus announced the small portable and hermetic Greek temples, so they broached! breached the model ofthe pagods, noc yet altogether a habicaion and stil distinguished by che separation becween shell and kernel (Sthaleund Kern). A middle ground hard to determine beeweea the “Howpadchichn inden un gingen vn deer At der Verebrung er Zeupungsroft oder Frm der Zesgungspede? auch Domerke in dest Gestalt und Bedeutung a engeheureSou- fenarige Geb, 20 Sci we Tame asi feet, tren beet os abn. Se wore uspelnglech fr sh seler “Zneck, Gepestande der Verhrang anders ste! fig mer on ‘Ofrungen tnd Aushonngen doin 2u machen und Goto Ianemaustelen, wes ch noch inden grchschen Herman Dor tauren Tempebouichen, erhalten het Den Asgengsunkt be biden nen ee anausgehiten Pholsalen, de Sch speer ttn Scale und Ken teen and 34 Popoden warden” CCorrespondences the moment immedael folowing ot) the flower religion and the pale cohenns 2 moment at Felevrthrnforrwith art were, it Mernnon, te Ferran Cooma sec (alse longs) tae producer Kong tnder the incidence ofthe sun's ray The Keng ammounces ‘he end ofthe ower raigion and he ple columns, be not yet voice of language: Ths engi, sonorous igh rever- Beratung as on stone bl [che] already no longer ute, bt no yee speaking (ou Klang und nie Space). These Strucural correspondences can be verfiedwnong all the de- Serpcns of Klong n de Aesth, the Phenomenology of Spt he Philosphy of Nour et. columa and the house, sculpture and architecure. ‘So.n0 one can live there. Whether dead or alive. Ic is acther a house nor a burial place. Who contemplates sucha structure, who cando so, one wonders. And how can an altar, habitat, ora burial ‘monument, town planning [arbaniime] or a mausoleum, the fam- ily and the State, find their origins there. Lee me admit —a theow of the die) [cup de dé}—thac {have already chosen ehese ewo very compressed passages, this angle or todd channel in order to introduce, strictly, in/eo Hegel’ name. cols atcsin heeded sh fa Pre boy a sneer eg encpe Tang tre genase oe tier of balny or Se bree Femineats tothe cof pout rage dou ro yec cafe Mergesl te trol He pote ages rovigbagerndoeger tore yu Es vecem osal fk BeBe palin he pick ot texture” whee hcl op Eimear upYouve px secre os blr ory pron {Ges Eryn evry rer Nqet ou don need me toa Foca rel reas ly We (dedicat youu (crac hs era you td taco Mbp coved ree wor Ws ready he age at Sun tary wa ted othe 2 forcus pape rig be tend Sere are o Roper eps esanaes anes edge toinc owe The ah at author's rights: “that eee kat ae ‘that you sonic (4) comes (back) to Your mma rercundswsfinity yn he me,” the seing belongs “stones” that “say.” “famiary.” death upright, the bordel [le claque}, the tome. i rut [epes he pees ‘The stake of the we womb petra [act oe ma , OL Me ism pecs mc oh signature — does the Supe [etgnpoee the nae signature take place? = Compton anon te ewes trd sep [rch por For where? how? why? fran lst te and a exe for whom? — chat bereyouazestl ferenrnedty ths tex sca heed decomposes will be treated prac- Se'adure’ ofthe word ne ae tically, in passing: an clatter (él), gas, etc) in every sense. indie mele Yr ie tote non dre inary to the explana- tion of (for example ‘icerary") formality with all the muscled ‘rins.on your ow, and accuse Youre, 2 does be, a the one who writen in Your own tongow. Atlas “Pero judges who interrogate it from apparently extrinsic instances (question about the classified —biographi- cal, historical, economic, political, and so on—sub- Between the words, between the word it- self as it divides itself in two (noun and verb, cadence or erec- tion, hole and stone), (to) insinuate the deli- cate, barely visible stem, an almost im- perceptible cold lever, scalpel, or stylus, so as to enervate, then dilapidate, enormous discourses that always end, though more or less denying it, in attributing an wonted to eccuse myself in my own tongue.” You wil aso have to work the ‘word tongue like an organist 3Einfibrerg, as Getman philosophers say, introduction into He ‘gel. Einftdrang demands the accusative and s indicates the active ‘movement of penetration. Not to stay here at or be content here with the skire of che Hegelian thicket. Not ro stop immediarly in all the dificaeies, inesinsic o excrnsc,intinsically extinsic— and supplementary—that the decision of such a stroke (cap) inscigates. There have been many introductions to Hegel forsale and generally available. And the problem of the introduction in/to Hegel’ philesophy is al! of Hegel philosophy: (he) alnady posed throughout, especially in his prefaces and forewords, introductions and preliminary concepts. So, already, one would be found en- eaned in che circle ofthe Hegelian beginning, sliding or endlessly axrip cher. I mark the decision aod interrupt che vecigo with 2 Gexive rule {rig this operation —che glas of Sa, las as Sa—is addressed to chase who have noc yet read, heard, or understood Hegel; chs pechaps is the mose general sicuaion, in any case mine hereand now. In order to work on/in Hegel's name, in order to erect it, the ‘ime of ceremony, Ihave chosen to draw on one ehread. Ics going 10 seem roo fine, odd, and fragile. Ic is the law of the family: of Hegel’ family, of the family in Hegel, of the concept family according to Hegel. In the major exposition of che Emyclipedia or the {Elonent of ‘te| Philaophy of Rig, ee “objecive spies developed in cree moments: abstace right (Rat), morality (Morlitit), and Sit lice —x cer eranslated in various ways (ethics, ethical lif, objective mocaiey, omne macs), but wont ry to teansateit in my curn. (One day, elsewhere, Il ell why [love this Getman word.) Now within Siticblit, che thied term and the moment of syn- thesis berween rights formal objectivity and monly’ abstract subjectivity, a syllogism in cua is developed, Ics firs cetm isthe family. ‘The second, civil or bourgeois society (birgeliche Galichafi) ‘The third, the State or the constitution of the State (Staaisver- fas). Even before analyzing these dialectical syllogisms and the ar- chiteceonics to which they give tise, we see the stake and che incerest of this familial moment. Ies interpretation directly en- ‘gages the whole Hegelian determination of right on one side, of politics on the other. Irs place in the systems structure and develop- 4 ject). As for general textuality, perhaps the seing represents the case, the place for (topically and tropi- cally) overlapping the intrinsic and the extrinsic. Inicialing che margin, che incessant operation: signing in che margin, exchanging the name against a revenue, paring down, trying to reduce the margin and letting oneself be rushed into the angles— daedalian frame. Case and scrap [recoupe]. What remains of a signature? First case: the signature belongs to the inside of that (picture, relievo, discourse, and so on) which it is presumed to sign. It is in the text, no longer signs, operates as an effect within the objecc, plays as a piece in what ic claims to appropriate or to lead back to its origin. The filiation is lost. The seing is defalcated. Second case: the signature holds itself, as is gener- ally believed, outside the text. The signature eman- cipaces as well che product that dispenses with the signature, with the name of the father or of the mother the product no longer needs to function. The filiation again gives itself up, is always betrayed by what remarks it. In this double case che secreted loss of the re- main(s) overlaps itself. There would be only excre- ment. If one wanted to press, the whole cext (for example, when it signs itself Genet) would gather itself in such a “vertical coffin" (Minuce of the Rose) as the erection of a seing. The text re(mains)—falls (co the tomb), the signature re(mains)—falls‘ment, in the encyclopedia, the logic, and che Hegelian ontotheol- ‘gy, is such thar the displacements or the disimplicacions of which i will be the objece would noc know how to have a simply local characte. Befoce arcempting an active interpetaion, verily a critical displacement (supposing thac is rigorously posible), we mus yet patiendly decipher chis dificule and obscure text. However pre- Timinary, such a deciphering cannot be neutral, neuter, oF passive Ie violendy intervenes, at leat in.a minimal form: he choice ofthis, pice and this moment, the family, inthe Hegelian systematics ‘This choice is fa kom being innocent. Noc only does ie result from theoretical ltecior moxives(arritpensés], undoubcely also from tome unconscious motivations chat must be puc in play and to work wichoue any preliminary theorizing about i being posible The concepe family very rigorously inscribesiself in the sys- tem: within dhe Enccopedia andthe Philspby of Right, hose fnal forms that are subsequent to che great Lape. Must che analysis be limite to this final and systematic placement? ‘The analysis can be limited in two ways. One could be satisfied with making che most of hese last texts, one could consider chat wwe can read everything preceding a a development teleologically oriented, without rupture, without essential displacement, (0- wwatd this nal accomplishment ‘One can dream of a channel beeween these evo lms that asa smarcer of fact are only one. Bur there is no pure solution, no solucion in principle (de prncpe] to sacha problem. Whac always remains irresoluble, impracticable, connoemal, ‘or nonnormalizable is whac interests and by demu, fis and constrains us here. Without paralyzing us rare, iol tle Se buc while forcing us on che cause [dé tSecing erwperme Marche): zigzagging, oblique to boot, wah the borders jostled by the bank {rie] o be avoided, like a machine during a dificult maneuver We cannoe feign to begin with the chtonological beginning, pretty much with The Lif of Jou: there's no sense in privileging here the law of temporal or naracive unfolding that precisely has a0 internal and conceprual sense. This already has a resonance with Hegel teaching. And at che limit, even if we accepted proceeding in tac way, somewhere we would have co anccipate, even were it the end ofthe frst sentence of he Bs ext. (combs)—the text. The signature remain(s) resides and falls (co the tomb), the signature remain(s) house and comb. The text labors to give the signa- ture up as lost {en faire son deuil}. And reciprocally. Unending overlap [recoupe] of noun and verb, of che proper name and the common noun in the case of the cast-off {rebut}. The great stake of literary discourse—I do say discourse: the patient, crafty, quasi animal or vege- table, untiring, monumental, derisory too, but on the whole holding itself up co derision, transfor- mation of his proper name, rebws, into things, inco the name of things. The thing, here, would be the looking glass [glace], the ice [glace] in which the song sets, the heat of an appellation that bands itself erect [se bande} in the name. Genet has often feigned to define the “magnify- ing” operation of his writing by the act of nomina- tion. The allegation seems frequent enough chat we could suspect ie of a certain refrain-effect {effet de rengaine). ‘What is a refrain? Of what does the ace of “magnifying” nomination consist? OF giving the form of a common noun to a proper name? Or of the inverse? In both cases one (un)names, but is this, in both cases, to appropriate, expropriate, reappropriate? What? What is a thing? Whar is the name of a thing?‘Genealogy cannor begin wich ee father. ‘Anticipation of precipitancy (he risk ofthe precipice and the fall (hue) isan ireducible structure of reading. And celeology does noc only or always have che appeasing character one Wants {0 sive it Tecan be questioned, denounced asa lure ofan effect, but its near cannoc be reduced. ‘With ee ls ean also be found the cif pi). Where one can ‘et foothold oF fal (co the tomb). In positing the teleological ncessicy in effet we are aleady io(co) Hegel. He did nothing buc powerfully unfold the conse- {quence ofthis proposition. So we can neither avoid nor accept as rule ot principle eleo- logical ancicipation, neither accepe nor avoid as rule of principle the empitco-chronological delay ofthe narrative, the rc. A bastard course. Is there a place for the bastard in ontotheology of in the He- {gelan family? Thatisa question tobe lef oo0e side, cobe hed on the margin ora leash when enering a true family ofthe family of tch, No doube the question isnot so exterior ro chat of he Klang; at least, without corresponding. with the Hegelian concepe of ‘exterorcy, its exterionty prestes another excerorcy coward the ‘question scence. ‘bastard pth, then, that will have o feign to follow narualy the circle of the family, in order to enter it, or parcel ie out [peragr 0 partake of (partager] i a5 one takes parti acommu- ‘ity, holy communion, the ast supper scene, or pat (aartage] it as cone does by dissociating. 1 shall say no more about procession or method. As Hegel ‘would say, they will speak of for) hemselves while masching begin with love. ‘This concept does not leave much room, despite appearances, for chitchar, of for declaration Ic is conseructed in the ehied part ofthe Philsophy of Right, the pare treating Sittichheit, after the frst ewo parts had treated respec- tively abscract right and mocaliey. Sitlchbes relieves [rlév}, in departing from, Monulitét. These cwo words are dfficule eo erans- late and even as words, if not as concepts, dificult co distinguish. “Hegel explains himself here on a certain arbiteasiness. And he does so by way of showing: (1) chat he adhered to distinguishing the signifier from the concept, (2) thac he did not entrust eo erymology 6 For the moment, lee’s drop {laissons tom ber} his personal case. When Genet gives ‘names, he both bap- tizes and denounces. He gives the most: che name is not, as it seems on the fist ap- proach, a thing en- countered in nature or acquired in com- merce. The name seems produced, one time only, by an act without a past. There iso purer present, no generosity more inau- gural, But a gift of nothing, of no thing, such a gife appropri- ates itself violently, harpoons, “arraigns” Larraisonne} what ic seems to engender, penetrates and para- lyzes with one stroke [coup] the recipient thusconsecrated. Mag- nified, the recipient becomes somewhat the thing of che one who names of sur- ‘names him, above all if this is done with a ame of a thing. has chaste “Armand was away ona trp. Although | heard that he was sometimes called by other names, we shall keep thisone. Am | nypetf noe up to my ffzenth or six- ‘teench name, including Jean Galen, my current one!” fe will be necessary t0 hallow out the arbitrariness of this ‘ame-—Gallen—if not of this sium [JG And what this random peeudonyrn formed something like che matricl frst ame of the text! ‘As for the sighim in Funeral Rites ic}. Jean D. “The excutcheon with capital D embroidered in iver had been for day, che family’s blazon.” "My contact ‘with the concrete wounds my sen- lity crully the black escutcheon adorned with the siver-embroidered “D' that saw on the hearse..." The ‘capital D, to which falls representing the family name, does not perforce re- vere to the father. In any case, it cone {erne the mother, and she isthe one to benefit from i tl, “the mother wat ‘ennobled by this escutcheon on which the capital D was embroidered in silver” As for the one who organizes the Funerol—ie, Iterary—Rees of JD. is one to say is the author, the narrator, the narratee, the reader, but (of what! He tat once the double ofthe dead (colossos), the one who remains alive after him, his son, but also his fa ther and his mother. "The sar of my friendship rose up larger and rounder Inco ny Sky. | was pregnant witha feel- ing that could, without my being sur prised, make me give birch {eccoucher] fo. strange bue vable and cercaly [2 ‘coup sr] beaueul being, Jean's beings father vouched for that” He has always ben afraid that someone would steal his death, and since this could not fail to happen to someone ‘who has only one of them, he has in ‘vance, occipied all the places where that (ga des Wel played? Who makes, ‘who says the dead betterthe righe co regulate a concept’ content. What a word propery smeans (0 say) cannot be know by refering back co some would- bepcimicviey orauchencc primordialcy. This did noc prevent him from playing with dictionaries ina productive and genetic, verily poetic, way. Thar che same word ot swo words of analogous roc can have two conceptually diferent, verily oppesite, significations proves that a word is never a concepe.. Which immediately disqualifies the etymological instance, atleast as philosophical, logical, concepeual recourse. Hegel says this a the end of che Ineroduction, when according to the proceeding of all his system atic expositions, he presents the schema of che incernal division, of self-difereaiation as self-deteemination and sel-production ofthe concept. When the Eilciune (introduction) becomes Einelang (division). Then he explains che passage from Moralitit to Sit lis ae cies co justify the almost abicrary choice ofthese ewo words. Because chis choice is arbitrary, the translations uceuate. “ Moralct and Sittichkeit, which pethaps usually pass current 38 syaonyms (die geusblich erua als glechbedend glen), axe caken, here inessentalydiferene senses ind bern wesetich verschiedenen Sinne genonnen). Yer even commonplace thinking (Vortellmg) seems co be distinguishing Kents creque of praca ptinophy or. SE aoe eth Wren them; Kane genecally pre- ‘Sores te panage Irom Morcitt fo se (rs cO use che word Marl Tekket Foc Hepes Kare cannot does not zat and, since the principles Tihtecct orate orreuomeese 0 2ti0n ia his philosophy Payed (thor wahou Hoge) nuns ate always limited co this ‘sot moment Saket Uae te am- concept, they make the ie So there would rot be ay Kenan vies Cecopetthetenipanyphirhciceg- tandpoine of Silichh Shy teacble md rysrasiy mapese completly impossible, in ‘concept that escapes the chitchat of an em- fact hey explicitly [aus i mevopaogy Tere no Rar formally} ull Diswsowetactereategstrnirwnn, itch, formally) nally Ge laser inplerlove, (ronoganoss) and spurn it. Bur even erage andiboweatthece—cu be Morlit and Sincbht eanctnble Kr Sve by pine a84meane the sme ching ithe wa otis reg risotto a (lihbdatend) by deriva raturd von come to be sdnowidged | tion (ibrr Etymelgic nach), tow Id ad emenig 10 4 wih your char wouldin no way hinder tir but prevouly I was the sede ‘ing now fam eaten them, once they hed be- come different woeds, fom being used for diferent concepes.” Is the question of vocabulary heze marginal? Hegel as noe skirted the problem of philosophical language, of philosophy’ tongue. Is ita naurat language (tongue) or a for mal one? Here the important ching is that Hegel has not separated this “question from a family question. ‘The thing: magnificent and classed, at once raised above all caxonomy, all nomenclature, and already identifiable in an order. To give a name is always, like any birth (certificate), to sublimate a singularity and to inform against it, co hand it over to the po- lice. All the police forces in the world can be routed bya surname, but even before they know ic, a secret computer, at the moment of baptism, will have kepe them up to date. To “arraiga’ is co ask for identity papers, for an origin and a destination. Ic is to claim eo recognize a pfoper name. How do you name without arraign- ing? Is that possible? When Genet gives his characters proper names, kinds of singularities chat are capitalized common nouns, what is he doing? What does he give us to read beneath the visible cicatrix of a decapicalization that is forever threatening to open up again? If he calls Mimosa, Querelle, Divine, Green-Eyes, Culafroy, Our-Lady-of-the-Flowers, Divers, Sibyl affect of arbitrariness in the immaculate choice, inthe conception of syllables that rare and open glory. ‘The convention dethrones and crowns {couronne) at ‘once. The ablation ofthe rst name, the sursame alone doing the job, accumulates the powers ofthe overap, remarks and abolishes, tothe point of infty, oneness In the common, seaters i inthe ramelessness ofthe variable and dversifable, rom the moment the angular indivdual—a prisoner under common law—is named Divers A nomination more solemn, more inaugural and ako more instiutve, when the thesis of the name ‘erects the attribute, the adjective, the epithet, what is ‘ot yet even the name of the thing but the supervening ‘accident char unnecessarily adds ef to che substance1 begin by accumulating the results of his analysis: che family speaks and doesnot speak; iis Family staring from che moment ic speaks-—pacsing from Kiang, if one likes, to Sprache, from reso- nance to language Uangue]—bue ie destroys itself a family che ‘moment ie speaks and abandons Klang. Like natural language, like language in general, i ceases to be what i isthe moment it posits itself a8 such; 1 denies itself as nacure in becoming what it is tatu, just ike (che nature isl (of the erains) afterall “The Jena cents describe the development of ee family within the Volbsgeist, the spiicof people. The family is essen- tally spiritual. And lan- guage too: “Only as the product or work (Werk) of people is speech the ideal Lidale) exit ofthe spirit.” So spiritual language is natural as well. Belonging othe people, the family then is always. speaking; there is no biological fam- iy. Buc the language it speaks isnot, at lease 50 it seems, formal or arbitary. Nevertheless, by reason of the seruceare of language's incernal development, what is elaborated here destroys itself in thar very elaborae Sion or athe submits itself to the process [pr] ofthe Aufberg, elieves. ese In posting itself as a system of natural signs, a existing io exteri- ore, language sss itself tothe concep (dea interior significa tion) and from then on denies islf asa system of nacural signs The thing (he referent) is elieved (rele, au/eeodve) in he sigo: nised, elevated, spisitualized, magnified, embalmed, inte- riorzed, idealized, narmed since the name accomplishes the sign In the siga, che (exterioe signifier is relieved by signification, by the (ideal Lil) signified sense, Badetung, the concepe. The con- cept relieves the sign cat relieves che thing. The signified relieves the signifier cae relives the referent. "In this way, then, speech is reconstructed (ensue) ina people, in chat although iti che ideal Cidade} nullification (Varnchen) ofthe exeral, ic is itself something outward (cin Ausseres) that must be nullified (seriht), relieved (aufehiler werden, in order to become meaningful lan- ‘guage (um ar bdeenden Space 2 werden), cowacd what i isin there tno family without Get. no Geit weno fami Cele eset spr 3¢ once ‘he posi of repetion (ration. hs tory) and of breath [sufi] holding Hee tack in the sonorous bration (mpeation, ‘expatin). Gest i abo consonant wiet ‘death according to Hegel spiritual fe with acura death fa order to heat co under Sand somethag according to the spre, ‘imal some expiration, Some. expiring repeution Lethe noc preven wing te sme words for eierere concepts, and order to be- ‘ray langage. homonyns and fsa ety Imolgies for analogous concepts “Tru word are unchnned. They drive the Aitionary wid Language [ange] tas noe ‘ahen pce fas no pac, Fas no sre place. Dacourae isthe ger of same, but a 8 |pidebook oF a former—comes to be: ay neowore Todo funds over, delvers (Gore, ere) the sere, but inorder to lowe che iateaton in the repeccon, The (Gc supper) scene of nguage mist sways bermade to depend on one ee mary [faut {tjours alert achne deo ange su an de ‘pl The oppostion (angage/ discourse) denounces sl and the others 8 and can always detach itself fcom the substance, in Corder to fall (o the tomb). Whats the epichet? What is ie seat other words, how is status conferred on ie! ‘And whae if loversly, all status were (rom the epi- ‘hese! “The fat that is name was Diver conferred on himan earthly and nocturnal dream quality sufficient to enchant me. For one isn't caled Georges Divers. or Jules or Joseph Divers, and that nomial singleness set im on. throne, af glory had recognized him when he ‘was stl in the children's hell The rame was almost a ‘Aickrame, royal bref, haughty convention. And soe _alloped in and took possesion ofthe world, hats, of ‘me. And he dwelt within me. Henceforth lenjoyed him a: i were pregnant with him” (Miracle of the Rose, “Nominal singleness”stifer, tightens the name. in one Single piece, coward the point or the infiite. This sSingleness reduces the clssiying gap [écat] between the name and che frst name. One's own proper, ub- lime, glorious body is gathered into an organess vo- ‘able. And is signed in 2 monogram. “The black ‘escutcheon adorned with the siver-embroidered 'D,"* the “vy monograms” ofthe Funeral Rites form the ideal ‘of che seing. Querelle de Brest “took his rife and cuta hiy stylized design of his inital inco the hurd bark ‘of an acacia... Querelle kept a double watch on him sal. thought offered up tothe Holy Virgin. Around bis own altar, Querele embroidered a protective vel, ‘with bis own monogram on i, equivalent to the gold: ‘thread on blue aks cloths the celebrated.” and so on, does he violently uproot a social identity, a right 0 absolute proprictorship? Is that the most effective political operation, the most significant revolution ary practice? Or else, but this is che refrain of con- traties ceaselessly overlapping, does he baptize them with the pomp and che sacredness—glory ‘the word glory he uses proportional, almost as often 2 the translator of the Gospel, of whom he iin sum ‘the most destructive parodying double. | see him work (over) the Gospels and all the mythological texts, of ‘which he a connoisseur and which he inhabits parve- Ukaly by name, tke 2 miner who is not sure of geting ‘out from the depths ofthe earth ale, and who, in he {aley, essays explosions, biastings. Gallery, however, rust be deciphered the galery speaks, writes. Onis legendary walls Writes to him says much co him, ‘Why (wha was he going todo there!) ise x0 fond of. _sleret! Notonly those tat keep you. orient you, and(inselfaccording its concepe (ex dem, was seam sch, rem Berrie nach ist); thus language i in che people, a toral other (alm fatal Anders) than itself, and becomes totality when i is relieved (aafgchoben) 2 other, and comes to fruition i ies concep.” ‘Language accomplishes itself, chus becomes signifying only by relieving within itself the (sensible, exterion signifier, traversing it and denying it with a view to che concepe. With a view also t0 its very own proper concepr of language. Language becomes language only by delering/conserving itself in the concept. Tradito is “Axfebung. Language reoins its own proper concept only by going tothe end of what induces it, by going tothe end of ts own proper ineernal negativity, according to a schema of che essence as nega- tivity that veifies itself and unceasingly elaborates ise. This becoming (naditia) of language, or rather ofthe linguistic, _procluces itself then in che heart Lie] ofa people, ofa people's spitie that would not be posited without this becoming. Linguistic nega- tivity is nor reduced eicher co the rooting oF the uprooting of a language with regard co the ground of the historical communi. Uprooting, denaturalization, explantation ofa language achieves the rooting essence of language. Language belongs oa people as finite cocaliry: thus it is "natural language,” a finite, particular, dlecerminate language. But ic ceases to be such as sooa as it posits itself as such; ic achieves its esence as “natural” language only by recovering from chis [er dawnt), by relieving the nacural limits of its system, by delimiting, de-bordering, overflowing, itself toward the concept’ universality. Language then is immediately ‘universal language thar destroys within itself natural language “The dialectic of language, of the tongue [angel is dialec- cophagy ‘Wichouc this overflow of language, of the congue chat swallows itself and eats itself, cat is silen, tongue-tied, or dies, that also vomits a natural remain(s)— its own—ie can neither assimilate nor ‘make equal ro the universal power of the concept, language would not be language— a living language hears, understands itself. Language would aot be what iti in (ede, ways finds it wichin itself, and exists in itself and (close) by itself (dei sich). Matter has its Substance ouside if pi, cn the other hand, is being close byrisel (das Beil) which sche same thing a edo. For if am dependent, 1am beholden to something other than myself, and cannot exist without this exteral other thing. Lam free if I am (close) by myself (bei mir selbst bim)."” ‘Thus: spies. Alone, Its contrary, maccer, is only inasmuch as i is noc what ic is, inasmuch a5, in order co be what i is (falling ‘weight and the tendency of dispersion to unity), ie becomes what isnot: spirit Sprit is. Alone. Being is being (close)by self. Weight and dispersion, che essence of matter, could noe qualify an esence, “Marre has no essence its esence isis contrary, its essence is not having an essence. Dispersion, like weight (nonunity and_aon- ‘deaicy), has no essence. Thus isnot. Being is idea ‘Thus cobe, macter will-already-have-become spitit. Aad since matter will have been nothing before becoming spirit, spirit will always have preceded or accompanied itself up to the processions Nor that the mere nothing is. Perhaps we can say shereis [il ya} the mere nothing, (chat bands erect). No sooner than shere is [il n'y a], there bands erect (an impersonal complement) in a past that was never present (the signature — already {fia} — denied Inia] it always): i banded erect {il banda] (an imper- sonal to band (erect) bande aways to dose up [sere 22 ted (banded erect) o tigen, with 3 bard 4 irdle [goine), a cord, in a bond [len] (lana, ivy (irre), ‘or la). "Bond ns -.€. Wallon Baie: Nauran, bamde: ouch, bane: par, bene: Proven, and Te bende Spanish, vende frm the ald high Germ binds tod. Germ Binden, to bin Susie bond, £0 bind Compare the Gaelic ban, a band, bond." Higher “They nursed thei chidren without swadaing them tether bindag them up in band nor swadding Clothe’ Amot” Litre, whoxe whole article Fat to be fead, order a leat puto rele chereyrelere) that bands, printing tera, are "pieces f tron at- tached tothe ewo tongues nthe mide ofthe pest ‘rade, on which the trai rolls” Double contra sen, 3 leas of the word banded (erect). What i caled ‘bandaging [ponser] complement) is equal to it bound {il lia}. Lock [Serrure} A certain mere nothing, a certain void, then, ereces, ‘The bells [coches] were unleashed a moment ago [il yawn instant). Now reconstitute the chain chat sets all the glas machines in motion (you will fit all its pieces together later on), its annuli, its links: the erection (of the ccuttable-culpable flower), che liana’ undulation (or the ivy’s: here, the lashes), the rhetorical reading of lilies and of the bed (here, the coffin lying on the virgin mother {mére}), the unsheathed bell chat strikes a seing—and it all flows out like milky sperm, 23fend. Matter precedes or re- £9 Gest anon repeat repeats own ee ee yas ‘pircing (away) (soe. halingehaing ly ‘eet EMvaom or sublmat,the repeton spit: in raising or erecting, of aprng (away) maintains tse above whar falls (co che tomb). sci. the pice of man (vr). The pure ctiy of the sprite spe produces swt (the tomb) owe mater Sich TRpsttonuvocs eiinereciomtan What isthe relation be- Siocon Getmeen af andacriptne ween this being-close)- Sere canbe wicca prevem he by lf another ay of y- tom repeat ‘an be iy being) and the family? SLUTS ater oh in and emily the pombe oon ad asrsecton one says hae limited, bat how coud Cent be prevented spitic is—alone—thac it tran reper Tu eperaton wich on wrowdeeekocwhowteceatewheder cg fat i own proper essence, ind ar el sporaness or cc-_it6 OWN proper center, and der & spits ht regen supreme its own proper unity in i- key eet vera conra sel, chat it not a timple eb peraionery wothng nd yt rrater mittee (tthe rwatsunnenr aNd taucological_afirma- SSeterul pac) bh fermen ne at cion. This. proposition is tn decomposts marr net yet. a> speculative in che Hegelian rear aespreprownd tbat re nee ofthe words it sates Sel mat fem Bec oft rt OO icra ideniey of ‘dentcy and_nonidentiy. Spires being close by-slf actively produces itself cheough an unlimited negatviey. Spirie becomes fr-itself, (close) by itself, only in actively denying all chat limits its freedom from the ouc side, ts essence is ative, dynamic, negative: “When the sprit stcives (srt) cowards is own center, i strives © perfect (vr- tullkermen) its own freedom; and this stivingisfundamencalroies nature. To say tac sprit exists would at ist seen co imply chats isa completed enti (eas Fertga). On the contrary, itis by nature active (Taig), and activity (Cagis iesescace; is Se CTE OS ice own produce (Pret), ‘Simon othe or who producer or and i therefore its own be- treshenel by debinghinsell sion la ginning and its own end. iy er my ton aod mal fy name Te freedom doesnot consist 2 my tar, Bac the Pong producing owleg haat seuntes ine te puns in static. being (rubede Sineyin ara dvi psy, n+ Sein), ut in a. constant (sc at cbcurlybesce/iouces th nepation ofall that that {Sher pera ed begs torn the breast {sein} <> child <> excrement © penis >). The signature keeps nothing of all i signs. Plant che genér there, the cavalier inscription falls offic, the funerary monument is a plant 4 genét: chat writes, i., speaks without an accent “Moments later, likewise muffled, but remote, a voice, which sounded to me like that of the inmate, cried out:oan eevee caged his ct fou i uni mere being of 3 one ghominable, “The great caged (Traurpiel) (GS tre Sti. Fhe Jenah peopl tno Creel tragedy i ‘can rouse neither certoe noe picy, fo Boch of. these arise only out of the fate which follows from the inevitable slip ofa beautiful being (cinen Ween); i can arouse horeor (AB ‘eben alone. ‘Tae fate ofthe Jewish people isthe face of Macbeth ‘who stepped out of nature zl, cling to alien Beings, and so in their service had co trample and slay everything holy in human fare, had at lst to be forsaken by his gods (since these were objects and he their slave) and be dashed to pieces on his faith insle.” ‘As incerpreted by Hegel, che Greek flood has more afinicy than the Jew withthe spri of Christianity: reconciliation, love, and the founding ofa family. The opposition of Jew and Greek is pursued, precisely regarding the family. The contrast beeweea Abraham on the one hand, Cadmus and Danaus on the other, reproduces in its sigoificacion the contrast berween Noah or Nimrod on the one hand, Deucalion and Pystha on the oer. Abraham abandons Chaldsea, his naive land, in che company ofhis father. Thea in che level plains of Mesopotamia in dor Ebenen ‘Macpocamions, be eepeats and aggravates the break. He wants become a leader and make himself absolutely independene. He breaks with is family (riser sich auch... rolled vm sciner Familie 4h) And thac in 2 decisive, nearly arbitrary way, without having been injured of driven out, without having suffered the least of those pains that answer some injustice or cruel; those pains ‘would sil testify to a wounded bue living love, a love trying £0, find again a new fatherland in order “co flourish .. . there.” No, ‘without che leas fection, che lease affect, has Abraham rorn apart he Bande, the bonds of communal life and chus breached broached his history and engendered the history of the Jewish people. “The first ace which made Abraham the root father of « nation (Starem- ‘utr einer Nation) is splicing (Trenung) which soaps the liga ments of communal life and Jove (die Bande det Zusammenlebes und dr Lib). The enter ofthe relationships in which he had hicherto lived with men and nacute, these beauifil relationships of his youth Joshua xxiv. 2), he spuzned.” “The Jew does no love beauy. Suffice ic to say that, nothing else, he doesnot lve Undoubcedly, Abraham ruses: a genealogical eee, a family, a people, a nation, Bur whose lineage, a ic were, never couches the cath, Te cakes root nowhere, never cconciles itself wieh nacure, remains foreign everywhere. Cadmus and Danaus had also aban- ddoved cheir fatherland, but their departure had been mocivated, had caken the form of abate. After chat they had searched for 40 “*Regards to your fanny {4 ta lune} from my prick!" “The guards in the office heard it coo but didn't bat an eyelash. Thus, as soon as I arrived I realized that no convict’ voice would be clear. Ie is either a murmur low enough for the guards not to hear, or else a cry mulled by a thickness of walls and anguish. “As soon as each of us gave his name, age, occupa- tion, and distinguishing marks, and signed with the print of his forefinger, he was taken by a guard to the wardrobe. Ie was my turn: “"Yourname?” “Genet. “Plantagenet?” “Genet, I tell you.” “Whar if [ want to say Plantagenet? That (G2) upset you?" ‘Given name?” “Profession?” “No profession.” “The guard gave me a dirty look {coup dil mé- chant}. Pechaps he despised me for not knowing that the Plantagenets were interred in Fontevrault, chat their coat of arms—leopards and the Maltese Cross— is still on the stained-glass windows of the chapel. Second movement of the crowd on the theoreti- cal agora. Departed are those who thought the flower sig- nified, symbolized, metaphorized, meconymized, that one was devising repertories of signifiers andanother land in order to be “free” and to “love.” Abraham, he “did sat want co love, did not wanc co be fre co love He does not carry his Lares with him, like the Greeks, he forgoes the hearth, the home, every residence, every at-home sedentariness, He does not stay, not even (close) by himself. Deserc, fnomadism, errance with herds on an arid and “boundless” (grenzen- Juen) land. No place of his own. A conflice with nature, a struggle for him to gee hold of water, a war with foreign nations he pene trates and undertakes to control. “The same spirie which had carried Abraham away from his kr led him ehrough his encouncers with foreign nations during the res ofis life; this was ee spicit of self-maintenance in sttict opposition to everything —the being- ‘thought (Gadacte) raised to be che unity dominanc over the nacure which he regarded as infinite and hostile (for the only relationship ‘possible between hostile entities is mastery (Herchaft) of one by the other)” ‘What comes and deposits itself in the Abrahamic cut? Two ‘remarks on this subject: (c) Emace, eb wor with ature and nation, there, he conta, the violence do no dole the Jewish family. Oa the ‘ont, the Jews family ort ea nel, hea cus lau oft ney the fewenes os endoguy. Abate sit have ct his andy ith famed herald become the stronger father of a more decetminate family. What ‘remains off fom the cue becomes stronger. inde to mack he ule rovfoe the enicaon, to call acl amily (fay Jes natural than the peeing bur ail oo atu by the vey ce th it epee ante Ccumchion is a demining ce permits cating bata che sune tne ad inte ume ake (oop, toi teach eothe ct The ow aunges inne tar thecarpe ie supe] remain atahed to the at, Jw cree ied by sShernc andthe countereut The Jew cutng oly nore enn ea thy to cons te cs wth Hs on sie Aisor-«be (Abraham steadily persisted in cutting aE dee himself off fom others, and be made this wnSleme ae Compicvous by apical popery impure ipetageum eee ompenge yan ood "Wich ts symbolic Caron tha He- gelian discourse lightly glides over, Abraham associates endog- tty: "Even hs son he abe ory any Cananish Woman but made him rake a wife from his kinsfolk, and they lived at a pew dance Com io" anthic figures, classifying flowers of rhetoric, com- bining them, ordering chem, binding them up in a sheaf or a bouquet around the phallic arch (arcus, arca, &pxt), which trap you fall into doesn't matter). Departed then are, save certain exceptions, duly so considered, the archeologists, philosophers, herme- ents, semioticians, semanticians, psychoanalysts, thetoricians, poeticians, even perhaps all those read- ers who still believe, in literature or anything else. “Those still in a hurry co recognize are patient for a moment: provided that ic be anagrams, anamor- phoses, somewhat more complicated, deferred and diverted semantic insinuations capitalized in che depths of a crypt, cleverly dissimulated in the play of lecters and forms. Genet would then rejoin this powerful, occulted tradition that was long preparing its coup, its haywire start from sleep, while hiding its work from itself, anagrammatizing proper names, anamorphosing signatures and all chat follows. Genet, by one of chose movements in (n)ana, would have, knowing it or not—I have my own views about this, bue that doesnit matter—silently, laboriously, mi- nutely, obsessionally, compulsively, and with che moves of a thief in che night, set his signatures in (the) place ofall the missing objects. In the morning, expecting to recognize familiar chings, you find his name all over the place, in big lecters, small letters, as a. whole or in morsels deformed or recomposed. He is no longer there, but you live in his mausoleum or his an(2) Opposing himself to hostile, infinitely aggressive navure and humankind, Abraham behaves as a master. Through his io- finite opposition, he reaches thac chought ofthe infnice che Greek lacks. Jn this sense the sprit of Judaism elaborates a negativity oF an abstraction indispensable co the production of Christianity. The desert, nomadism, and circumcision delimi¢ the finite. The finite overflows and unbungs itself ehere. Burin the same stroke, by founding Jewish law through chis passage to mastery’s abstract infinite, Abraham (a historic, finite, deerrninate being) submits himself co infinite control. He becomes its slave. He can tame nature only by contraccing relation withthe infinite mastery ofan all-powerful, jealous, violent, ceanscendene master, che God of the Jews, Abraham is noc the master chat he is, since he also has a master, since he isnot the mastery thac he disposes of by contract. ‘As finice subject, he is under the infinite force that is loaned, ‘entrusted him, Constructed, raised on cis slave relacion, “he could, love nothing,” only fear and cause to fear. He could noc even love his son. Just as he imposes on himself the sign (or simulacrum) of castration, he is constrained t0 cut himself off from his son, or at last ro engage the operation that remained, it too, a simulacrum of sacrifice. His son was his only love (einzge Leh), “the one mode of immortality he knew.” His dlisquiec was appeased oaly when he undertook Co assure himself that he could overcome ehis love and kill his son “with his own, hand.” Circumcision and the sacrifice of Isac are analogous gescures. Problems of reading that must be taken note of here. “The rwo operations conjugated under the concept "simulacrura ‘of castration” appear on the same page. Although they are 00¢ forcitously see apart in advance by Hegel from all the cats and events ofthe Abrahamic gesture, we must recognize that (1) che ewo operations are not immediately placed in relation with each ocher. Bur they are, according c0 a shore mediation, related co each other witha single jerk by the Hegelian ineerprets- tion. Boch signify che curling, the cut, the transcendence, the absence ofthe subordination of love. All of that comes to (Full the concepe ofcastration, Is more and something else said when the ‘word castration is pronounced? A question all the sharper since castration has an essential economic relation here with the simu- lacrum and does not lec itself be though as areal “event,” in the current sense ofthese words. ‘2) Hegel puts forward neither the concept nor the word cast tion. Taking into account everything that has happened since ‘Hegel on thac matter, do we readin the text that Hegel reads, in the one he writes as well, something that be himscf, verily Abra- thar, could not read? Apparendly and in many regards that is not very contestable. The word “castration,” che very rapidly recon- 2 latrines. You thought you were deciphering, tracking down, pursuing, you are included. He has affected everything with his signature. He has affected his signature. He has affected it with everything. He himself is affected by ic (he will even be decked out, later on, with a circumflex). He has tried, he himself, properly, to write what happens between the affect and the seing. How does one give the seing to an affect? How does one do it without a simulacrum to attract the atten- tion of all? By postiches, fetishes, pastiches? And finally, will one ever know whether the seing has ar- tived at signing, whether the signature has arrived at ies cexe, whether che text has itself arrived at a proper name. Visibly dreaming about becoming, so as «0 resound, his own proper (g/as), co attend Ais oun interment after giving birth to himself or performing his own decollation, his own ungluing, he would hhave been wacchful co block up all thar he writes in the forms of a comb. Of a tomb that comes down to his name, whose stony mass no longer even overflows the letters, yellow as gold or betrayal, like the genét. Letcers withour a pedestal, a contract with writing as a funeral rite. More precisely, the contract does not have the bur- ial (place) as its object. Burial is not an event to come, foreseen by a contractual act. Burial isthe signacure of the contract. So much so chat in determined places— those that seem Co interest us here—this so-called literature of betrayal would itself betray itself, con-stituted chain, che seyleof deciphering, ehe selection of lexemes, all thar stands out clearly [mance]. Lf Hegel had though chat (2), he would have done and said as much (comme ga) But these diferences, however important, are not enough fo confer a rigorous status on the gap {éart] berween the cwo read- ings. They can be secondary, external, nonconceptual. From the conceptual perspective, what is a difference of style or rhythm, verily of narrative space? ‘Not insignificantly, che concept reduces the diference to thing ‘Once the difference is reduced, is something, some other thing added co Hegelian discourse by relating the Abrahamic figure to castration, verily to self-castration, supposing some such ching, cxises? Is something else or more being done than placing chem, like Hegel, i relation to che process of the Auftehung, of eeuth, of the law? One cannot fil co recognize that Hegel proposes a power- fal systematic articulation of them, Uhave always said that, Hegel ‘would respond co the doctors of castration. Besides, what do all of you understand by castration? Here we are nor concerned with a real event but with an economic simulacrum: che property is constituted by castration le oraimet fit, its truly feigned (circurn- cision and the interrupred saci “Hegel: if we are noc concerned with a ral event, all of you must ‘alk at great length, even spin tales, in order to describe or fulfill, the conceprual structure of what you name castracion; yOu must recount a legend, make a whole neework of signifcations inte vene; frankly speaking, you must make the whole world of sig- nification intervene, beginning with the relief, cruch, being, law, and so on. That is whac I have done since the works on Judaism and (Christianity up to the philosophy of right and passing through che encyclopedia and he greater logic. And all of you cannot even ‘understand what you wane to say by castration if you do noe eake charge of all che idealism of speculative dialectics. ‘And thac is cue Soicis noc certain that something more or different from Hegel is being said, chat something more or diferent from what be himself read is being read when the word castration and other similar things are put forward. Ie is not certain thae one concep- tually incervenes ia his logic. To do cha, one would have 10 displace concepeually the conceptual articulation —for him mani- fesc—berween Aufhebung castration, eruch, law, and soon. Forces resistant to the Aufbbumg, to the process of truth, co speculative negativity must be made to appeat, and as well that these forces of resistance do noc coastiute in their urn relievable of relieving negaivicie. ‘In sum a remain(s) that may noc be without being nothingness: ‘remains that may (no) be. cealing, stealing the signature would have its stoolie in the text Verily {Voire]. This word will henceforth come down co saying the euth (vers, voirement), but also the undecided sus- pense of what remains on the march or on the margin ‘within the true, but nevertheless not being false in no longer being reduced co the true. Elsewhere defined: Je emsiment feint: che truly feigned, the crue lies fine. “What Remained of a Rembrandt” develops over its two columns a theory or an event of general equiva- lence: of subjects—"every man is worth another’ —of terms, of contraries exchanged withoutend, of the “je miée. . .” (je mlécoulais,” "L was flowing” in my body, in the body of che other). S’éouler, to flow: a syntagm, relayed through “éaeurenent” (disgust), the “ex- changed regard,” the “feeling of séouler" (flowing), “jem dais &oulé” (I had been flowing), "/érivais” (Iwas writing), je mérivais (I was writing myself) in “rant éaeurement”™ (50 much disgust), so much “sadness” — (che word returns six times in fewer than ten pages), Of the infinite exchange beeween two columns that regard themselves in reverse. X, an almost perfect chiasm(us), more than per- fect, of two texts, each one set facing (er regard} the other: a gallery and a graphy that guard one another 8“That is not easy. From the vieupint of che concept, chet is foreceably impossible “The question is of the ode of he comapt. One muse question the ‘order of the concept or, better still, muse question the form of the ‘question thats aranged inthe conceprual instance in general ‘So here ic isa matter ofthe relation or the nonelation between castration and the concep, berweencaseration and ruth "A desere question tac most be lf ime co wander chi. ‘Abraham could love nothing. His heart was cut of rom all in son all ich arondernde Genit)—a “circumcised hear.” Hegel makes no allusion co the fact chat che sacrifice of Isaac had been Interrupted —by the one who was gong co grant che benef of the operation. Buc he does note the economic advantage, the amortiza- ‘don ofthe sicrfce engaged: more than che beloved son ofa father to whom he as offered his son, Abraham becomes the Gumi, the Ginling, the single favorite of God, and this favor is ered tary. Abeaham reconseiutes 3 family—which has become much ‘stronger—and an infinitely privileged nation, raised above the others, separated from the others. But the privilege ofthis mastery stays abstract, thus simultaneously inves elf nto its contrary: this peivilege implies an absolute slavery with respect to God, an infinite heteronomy. The Jewish reign isa reign of death: ic de- sctos che life of other nacional families, commands fom out of is ‘very own death, symbolized by the submission co a transcendent, jealous, exclusive, miserly, presentless god. The Jew is dead, cs. traced: by his father who chu is nota good father, thus nota fachet. From out of this position, he kills, transforms co dead, chat i, materializes everything he touches and everything not his own, He brings into play his death of castration inorder to enslave (always the question of knowing—who plays dead betrer). Ever since his ‘own castration, he catats. He perifes, makes everything uBly. transforms everything into mater, His castration is 4 macetialise, ‘atm of weapon, A materialise and warlike “How caddtbertave= people with the Medusa'ing power: stteg of tea who Conta (Beberichang) was the only pos- Sane FY sible relationship in which Abraham could sand ¢0 the infinite world opposed to him; bbuc he was unable himself fs a finite individual} to realize this control, and it therefore eemained ceded to his ideal (God. He himseif alo stood under his ideals mastery (Horrchaf), but the idea was presen ins spirit, he served the idea, and so he enjoyed his ideals favor (Gam); and since is divinity’ was rooted in his contempt forthe whole woe, he became its one and only favorie (gare allen der Gitlin. Hence Abraham's God is esentaly dliferene from the Lares and the national gods. A family which reverence its Lares, anda nation which reverence is national god, fas admittedly azo tolated ieself, partioned (geil) what is 44 and disappear from view. But the pictures are writ- ten, and what (one) writes (oneself) is seen regarded by the painter. The word “regard” chat opens che right column fixes you again at che end of che lefe column. You think you are the one who regards, and itis the text of the picture (Rembrandt) that oversees and informs against you, sketches and denounces you—what? from elsewhere. “The remain(s), all che remain(s), seemed to me the effect of an optical error provoked by my appearance itself necessarily faked. Rem- brande was the first co denounce me. Rembrandt! ‘That severe finger that brushes aside {éarte] showy rags and shows . . . what? An infinite, an infernal transparency.” In order to see you must therefore reverse the per- spective and the remain(s), so as to give yourself the right distance (recul}. “You do not really have the right distance in the museum at Cologne. You have to place yourself diagonally, at an angle. It is from there that U regarded him, but with the bead below—my oun—turned upside down, 50 10 speak. Blood flowed to my bead, but bow sad twas that laughing face!” Now this double theory (or double column taking. note of the general equivalence of subjects or con- traries) describes che text, describes icself as it feigns to recount some pictures, some “works of art,” as the suspense of the verily: remain(s) beyond the true and the false, neither entirely tue nor entirely false. ‘That (Ca) is stretched between two subjects absolutely in- dependent in cheir distress but nonetheless inter- laced, interwoven, entwined like two lianas orphaned from theie tree.unitary, and shuc the rest out ofits god's share (Tale). But, while doing so it has conceded the existence of other shares; instead of resecving the immeasurable co itself and banishing others there- from, ic grants co others equal cights with itself it recognizes the Lares and gods of others 2s Lares and gods. On che other end, in the jealous God of Abraham and his posterity there lay the horrible demand that he alone and ths naion be the oaly ones tohavea God, “But when ie was graced to his descendants to reduce the gap separating their actuality from heir ideal, when they chemselves ‘were powerful enough to realize their idea of unicy, then they ‘exercised their mastery (herschien) meccilessly with the most re- voleing and harshest cyranny,thac ucery extirpated al if; fortis, only over death that unity hovers. Thus the sons of Jacob avenged with saranic atrocity the outraging of theie sister even though the Shechemites had tried to make amends with unexampled gener- ‘sity. Something alien had been mingled (gemisct) with chee farn- ily, had willed co fasten a bond (Verbindung) with them and 50 to disturb their segregation. Outside ehe infinite unity in which nothing but they, che favorites (Lieblngen), can share, everything is macter—the Gorgonis head transformed everything (0 stone—a stuff, loveless, with n0 rights, something accursed which, as soon as chey hhave power enough, they treat as accursed oss fen ee ae ‘ist auch so behonde, and then assign to its proper place if it at- them, das sich reg MS CO raise anything {a finger, voice, Sia ey Seto erat ne BO mom The head of Medusa, one of the three Gorgons, is between dashes. Like the Gorgon, the Jew mater alizes, petites everything he ses and everything that regards him, that rises, for exarople the eyes, roward im. An analogous accusation had been hurled against Socrates, and che analogy af fonds many readings. Hegel docs aot exploit farther this small phrase between dashes. This phrase seeme co efet, on the surface, a sor of conven- tional, illustrative, and pedagogical mythological recourse. Just that and nothing more. A Greek mytheme nevertheless seem 0 him persinen for describing a igure of Judaism, One could ase oneself, in Hegel’ terms of otherwite, about the general and pre- Philosophical power ofa mytheme born ofa songly determinate Culeure, which is opposed even, should the case arte, co that of Judaism. So Hegel makes che Gorgon upsurge and maintains her be- cween dashes, as berween parentheses or brackets, In the same way the had, in passing, situated circumcision and sac saciice. “Bue what isthe stone, the oniness of the An effect of the wide onc! Sone «the plus tha sy open mouth. Convergence: High up on che left: “Only chose kinds of truths, those that are not demonstrable and are even ‘false,’ those that we cannot, without absurdicy, conduct to their extremes without going co their negation and our own, those are the truths that ought to be exalted by che work of are. They will never have the chance or che mischance of being applied someday. May they live through the song they have become and suscain.”” (On the right, coward the middle: "As a matter of course everything I just said has some importance only if you xcept that everything was almost fale... . Now I have been playing.” Remain(s) — the almost? Lower down, at the end of the right column: “And as a matter of course every work by Rembrandt mates sense—at last for me—only if know that what I have just cwritten was false.” Buc if 1 only know it. Remain(s) to (be) know(n). Ie was a matter of what lets itself be discovered, verily withdrawn “under the skirts,” “under the fur- trimmed mantles,” “under the painters extravagant robe, where “the bodies do do ther functions.” ‘Twofold anatomy lesson in che margins, and in the margin of margins. 45answer chat saying soytting if he phan Sinfct the things concealing, ee meaing? ‘Ae what if cccupying jo center, having ‘eer pice follow. pach of ts oom, {he palo has no siguictin, elds every sxblatng rele (Aufebung),extacs the ‘ery movement of sgnfcaion. the sig- ‘ler siti retation. tom al Auber, {nee drecon or te other, both types Coming down umacly tothe se! And ‘wae the auumpson or deri of esr: lon shold ako, eangely enough, come ‘down to he sae. one can of nat ‘Gees apotropacs would sways fave mere ‘han one sarprie up Ke eve In thi con ‘ection t woud be apropos co sate fora ereadng Freud and the scene of Wing. the march dat opens and doves the 96 ‘eatin ofthe als, he shor aaa of Des Mediserbope (To decapiate = to a ‘uate, The teror of Meda hua terror ‘of canration Ua is Unked tothe sight of Something” Freud goes on to explan that wine ums to mone does wo fora in rot (Of the Pld’ severed [cupée] Dead and ‘wideopen movth for and in front ofthe Imother isla at she reveals her gems. “The hie upon Mledua's head & (ecuenty represented in works of artis che form of Sake, tod these once again are derived from the cstraion complex le rerarks able fact hae however higher they may bein therscves, they nevertheless Serve seuly a 4 Metigaton of he horror, for they replace depen the absence of which {ste came ofthe horror (deen Fallen de Usseche des Grvers st). This confers ‘om of the technica rule according which 2 mmultipaion of penis symbols signifies ‘stration (Vevtalgung der Penistele BedeueeeKeszovon. The night of Meus head maker the spectator sf wh error, turn hn to one, Observe that we have here once agun the same orgn rom the ‘stron complex and the se trandor- Imation of alee! For becoming sf (ss Staewerden) means an erection. Tus in the rigal stanton ofers consolation to the specatarhe isle possesion of» pei, and the stfening ensures him of he fet. W Meds head take he pace of * presenation (Dantelun) ofthe female fies or rather wots thet hor Ing eflects om thei pleaare-giving one, Imay be recaled Oat dopayng Ue gon ‘a i familar nother comecuore a8 an apotropic ace What arouses horror nes wil produce the sae fect upon ‘he enemy against whom one seeking to ‘eiend ones. We red in Rabe of ow ‘he Devi cook to fighe when the woman 46 the Jew effects (on) himself a simulacrum of castration in order to mark his own- ness, is proper-ness, his property, his name; co found the law he will sufer in order to impose ic on fochers and co constiture himself asthe favorie slave of the infinite power. By fase incising Cemamant] his slans, he defends himself in advance against the infnive thaeac, castrates in his euen the enemy, elaboratesakind of apotropaic without mea- sure, He exhibits his cas- tration as an erection that defies ehe other. ‘The logical peradox of the aporropaic: casteating oneself alrady, always al- ready, in order to be able 10 castrate and repress. the threat of castration, re- rnouncing life and mastery in order to secure them; puccing into play by ruse, simulacrum, and violence just whar one wants to pre- serve; losing in advance what one wants (0 erect; suspending what one ruses saufbeben. The relief is ic deed the apotropaic essence of ‘life, life as apatrope Now being is life; being is Anfbdbung. The Medusa provides for no off-scene {horsicine). She sees, shows only stony columns. Judaic destiny, how- ever, sonly one example on the Scene, So it is true that che flower signifies, symbolizes, figures, and thetoricizes, and further that Genet ana- grammatizes his own proper(ty), sows more than any ‘other, and gleans his name over whatever it falls [tombe}. Gleaning equals reading. ‘Verily, for that is not all. If chis (double) signifying and anagrammatical operation were possible, abso- lucely practicable or central, ifthe ierepressible desire that activaces ic were effected (by death or by life, here chey come down to the same thing), there would be neither text nor remain(s). Even less so this text here. The summary would be absolute, and it would be carried off, would remove itself with the stroke of a wing Lun coup daile). Objection; where do you get that shere is text, and after all, remain(s), for example this cext here or this, remain(s) here? There is does not mean (to say) exits, remain(s) does ‘not mean (to say) is. The objection belongs to on- tology and is unanswerable, But you can always let- fall-(to che comb) {laisser-tomber]. And at least not take into account this remains) here. This regards you from elsewhere . There is what counts: the operation in question engages several proper names. And glas, a profusion of names sleeps in those letters.showed tim her wiva. The erect male freun to haan spotropac fect, but thanks co another mechanism. To dspay the pens (or any os srrognes) 1 07 “Tart no rad of you. dy you. ave 8 Deni” Hr, then, is another way often Seating the Ev Spr), and the remain) Intapeary faion one coud lay ov the ‘italy opened and wrned-tack cman of ‘hese equivalents: stone —fals (Wo the tomnb)—erecr—rif-—dead ete. Dae ‘von wil aways have threatened gf ‘aon dere” Bue the example re Tiewes itself in(to) the onto- logical The Jew could secure himself mastery and carry death everywhere in che world only in petrifying the ‘other by becoming stone himself. Playing s0 not too badly, he has become Me- ddusa tohimself. Buc he does not exist, thar one (he), the Jew, before hhaving become Medusa to himself. So ic (Ga) has become Medusa to itself before him. ‘The Jew isa stone heart. He is insensible. Now feeling, sensing (Empjinder), bas been determined asthe hearth, the living unicy of beings family. Thereis no cue family where fling has lt ieslfbe anesthesized, cut, denied or petrified: no true Jewish family, and first of all because no relation of familiarity was possible between the Jew and his God. ‘This insensbility, chs incapacity o form a true family isnot an ‘empiric tai; isa structural law thac organizes the Judaic figure jn all the forms and places of its manifestation. For example, contrary to what could be expected, Joseph's and Jacob’ seden- tarization does not interrupt the effec ofthis law. Mastery remains slavery here. Ths relation persists even in the manner in which the Jews live then thet liberation, che moment Moses comes to ofr it ‘othem. “Hegel specifies: that is unintelligible cous. We would not know how co grasp with our understanding (mit ams Vertande) the Jew’ becoming-feee. That depends on the ovedfiowing, the de- bordering, of the intelectual order. The ierupcion of the infinite, then of reson, rages like a passion inthe Jewish destiny. But che irruption remains abscract and desert; it does not incarnae itself, docs noc concrecely, actualy unite itself tothe forms of understand. ing, of imagination, or of sensibility. ‘Such isthe insensibility of ee Jews. It caches, asin ice or as, all chee history, theie political practice, their uriical and family ‘xganization, their ritual and religious procedures, theit very lan- ‘uage and their shevoric. For example, since the liberation of the Jews by Moses is inac- cessble co che understanding (Vartand), if otto ceason (Vermunf), ‘one could believe that, for want of rational discourse, a form of imagination (Phantaie) has been, would have been, able to repre- senc the phenomenon adequately ‘This time the theoreticians of the ana—ate in for discouragement because the proper names overlap themselves when they sow [sément), just as the semes pervert themselves when they overlap themselves. Thus the flower (which equals castration, phallus, and so on) “signifies” —again!—at least overlaps vir- ginity in general, the vagina, the clitoris, “feminine sexuality,” matrilinear genealogy, the mother’ seing, the integral seing, that is, the Immaculate Concep- tion, That is why flowers no longer have anyching symbolic about them. “They symbolized nothing.” Demonstration. For castration to overlap virginity, for the phallus co be reversed into the vagina, for alleged opposites to be equivalent to each other and reflect cach other, the flower has to be turned inside out like a glove, and its style like a sheath [gaine]. The ‘Maids pass thei time reflecting and replacing one sex with the other. Now they sink their entire “ceremony” into the structure of the glove, che looking glass, and the flower. The onset is supported by the signifier “glove.” Gloveis stretched asa signifier of artifice. First words: “Those gloves! Those eternal gloves!” They will have been preceded only by che stage direction indicating “Aowers in profusion” and a hairdressers looking glass, to which Claire turns her back. But these gloves are not only artificial and reversible sig- nifiers, they are almost fake gloves, kitchen gloves, the “dish-gloves” with which, at che close of the ceremony, the strangling of Madame is mimed, and 4‘An impossible adequation: when Moses comes to alk to the Elders about his plan of liberation, he cannot speak the language of incellece co chem, not chac of sensibility ether. If che Jews have rebelled, itis noe because the heart (Geni) revolted against the ‘oppression (Unerdickume), not because they felt any nostalgia for pure airand freedom. They have not feed chemselves in order co be free, but inorder t0 proceed from one place of seclusion to another. “They have no sense of freedom. How did chey lec themselves be convinced? Neither by intelligence, noc by sensibility By imagination? Yes and ao. ‘Yes, because Moses, still in the grips of enthusiasm, in effect acts on their imagination (Phaniase). No, because, by reason of this cut [coupure} berween infinite reason and che determinace orders of understanding, imagination, and sensibility, ehe appeal ( imagination remains abstract, disordered (déréglé], artificial, inadequate. The incermedite schema ofan incarnation is wanting. ‘This inadequation explains how the Jew is incapable of compre- hhending 2 concrete symbol and how he is insensble co art. The ‘Acthtis makes a place for Hebrew poetry, but under the category ofthe negative sublime: an impotent, crushed, overwhelmed effort for expressing the infinite in che phenomenal representation, ‘When Moses proposes to the Jews to set themselves free, his sherorc is forcefully cold and artificial. He resorts co atifices, 0 ruses (Kins) of eloquence. He dazzles more than couches of convinces. A stranger othe symbol, to the concrete and felt union beeween the infinite and che fnice, the Jew has access only to an abserace and empey thetoric. That is why he writes very badly, as if ina foreign language. The spit becween the infinite and the finite blinds him, deprives him of all power co represent to himself che infinite concretely. His conoclasm itself signifies the coldaess of his heart seeing in the sensible representations only wood and stone— -matter—he easily rejects them as idols. Ie is always the sume law: they deal only with stone, and they have only a negative relation with stone. They do noc even think death as such, since they celate only to it. They ate preoccupied only with ehe invisible the infinite subject is necessarily invisible, insensble), bue since ehey do noc se che invisible, they remain in the same stroke (du méne cup] riveted to the visible, eo the stone that is only stone. They deal only with some invisible and some visible, with some insensible and some sensible, buc they are incapable of sceing the invisible, of feeling the insensibe, of feeling Guch is the mediatizing, agglucinating function of feling) the invisible in che visible, the insensible in the sensible of leeting themselves be afected by ther unity: love and beauty, the love of beauty open co this unity of the sensible and the nonsensibe, of the finice and che infinite. “The infinite subject had to be invisible, since everything visible isa being limited (ein Babrinkt). Before 4B which, in sum, circulate between places (the kitchen and Madame’ bedroom). The Maid: are gloves, the gloves of Madame. They are also called “angels.” Ac once castrated and castrating (spiders or umbrella case), full and void of the phallus of Madame chat Madame does not have, they exchange their first ‘names and transform them unceasingly into adjec- tives oF common nouns: “CLAIRE {calmly}: I beg your pardon, but I know what I'm saying. I'm Claire. And ready. I've had enough. Enough of being the spider, the umbrella- case, the shabby, godless nun, without a family! I've had enough of having a stove for an altar.” So the ceremony continues between two pairs of gloves being curned unceasingly inside out before a looking glass. “I've had enough of this frightening mitror.” Buc becween chese pairs of gloves, flowers, only flowers, too many flowers. Their displacement is like the law, the metronome as well, nearly inaudible, the lateral cadence, dissimulated, of each gesture. Ma- dame’s two onsets pass through flowers. The one mimed by Claire, at the beginning of the (re)presen- tation, and then, in the middle, the “real” entrance onstage of Madame. In both cases, flowers forewarn of death. Again announced with a je m'ée: (1) “CLAIRE [she's fixing herself up in the looking glass}: You hate me, donit you? You crush me wich your atcencions, your humility, your gladioli and reseda. [She stands up and with a lower tone.) We're loaded down, uselessly. There are too many flowers. Ie is deadly. [She looks at herself again. (2) "MADAME: More and more. Horrible’ gladioli, such a sickly rose, and mimosa! . . . One lovely day I shall collapse {je m'éroulerai}, dead beneath yourMoses had his cent (his tabernacle), he dng the eit ot showed othe satis only re and loads 265 which kept the eye busy onan undecermined ions od tate te way. play of continually changing shapes without JTwocokimes acohima fixing it ona form.” Free play without form, fre durmg he fh paruraland sublime play a once, but with- Sar of outs dor seme! ee aout formal determination, an infinite play Tuctd never fledto but without art, pace spirit and pure matter. fp telore the people “An idol (ein was just stone ot Seresea Se ool wo then iam weit he ht pir re dng he i . igre (Excau 3122) etc.—with cis litany they fancy themselves wonderfully wise; they despise the idol be- cause it does not manage them, and they have no inkling of is deifcation (Vergitlichng) in the enjoyment of beauty oF ia the incuition of lve.” ‘Chrisianicy wil have precisely performed this relief of che idol and of sensible representation i(¢o) the infinite of love and beauty ‘Sach a blind secession paralyzes art, word, rhetoric. Buc fist it tas fractured the steucare ofthe tabernacle. ‘The tabernacle gives is came and is place to che Jewish Family dwelling. That establishes the Jewish nation. The Jewish nation seccles in the tabernacle, adores therein the sign of God and his, covenant. Atleast such would be believed Now the tabernacle (tecure of "bands whose excess we must continually reuse, Exodus 26) remains a signifier without sig- rifled. The Jewish hearth forms an empty house. Certainly, sen- sible to che absence ofall sensible form, the Jews have cried co ‘produce an objec chat gave in some way rise, place, and Figure C0 the infinite. Bue cis place and this figure havea singular structure: the structure encloses its void within iself, shelters only its own proper ineririaed desert, opens onto naching, confines nothing, contains a ts eeasure only nothingness: a hole, an empry spacing, ‘death. A death or a dead person, because according to Hegel space is death and because this space is also an absoluee empriness Nothing behind [devitre] the cureains. Hence the ingenuovs sut- prise of non-Jew when he opens, is allowed ro open, or violates the tabernacle, when he enters the dwelling or the temple, and after so many ritual detours to gain acess tothe secret center, he discovers noching —only nothingnes. "No center, no heart, an empty space, noching. One undoes the bands, displaces the tissues, pull off the veils, parts (dari) the curtains: nothing but a black hole or a deep regard, without coloe, form, and life. I is the experience of the powerful Porapey atthe end of is greedy exploration: “Though there was no conczete shape (Gatalt) for feling (Enpfindang), devorion and revereace for an invisible object had nonetheless to be ‘given ditection (Richtung) and a boundary (Umgrenzang) ioclasive flowers. Since it's my comb you are preparing, since you've been accurnulacing funeral flowers in my room for several days!” In both cases, the gladiolus, gladiolus, licle glaive, of the iris family (Provencal: glavial; to the common gladiolus other therapeutic and nutritional powers have often been accorded; the gladiolus of the harvests ‘extract from the V. Wartburg, ater the article glacées and before the articles plans, glarea, which will be Proftably consulted: “gladiotus schwertiie, “L Fr. poieu!‘tladioh (see 13. jh, R16, 600) af. Jog- feux (pl. 13.1. Gt Goleran, jopol Ancid Nie. af ini. glogol (Ese: Cotgr 161), a ploge! HMond mit logeul Mosus, glopeur Modus, jageu! Modus, glopou CCotgr 1611, aan. elagiot (15. fh). apr. glue hap) slaugel (pr. 14. jh), glongo! (1397, Pas), Colembere slater Vier 55, pik boul. ghjew, Formerie id. G 17, NNoyonglju Dem, iris peudacorut nom. jeu! ‘gisiut, Bray. yér. have plogeur, Thaon padre rs Prcudacoruy, pode, Vie. logeu, hag. fader (ph zr) ‘qloeu, Guern. gta Yellow fg. Jers. plogeu “qsieul,gljeur Z 13.591, bhogieu, Cane loge, rant lojau, sine. gos... Agen grooyjl, glove, Pex “raul, edible mollusk’ cog gor “horse-collar made with ried aquatic plants’ ABret 18,473. “Abit—Afeglilo m. ‘place placed with sadiol (13 ih, Ga R11, 143} —Apic. ol (ea. 1330) Mir. facewe (rs tncure (Reims 1340) —Afr.jogole “which has the color of it" (1260). loge (Douai {400)—Aple. ale “strewn with gadoh verdue. flowers in gen. (of 2 hall’ Bueve 2: englaiié (ca 120015. jn, Ga; Bueve 3b) “l,_Nie plodiole ( “giieu! (Boise 1829—Besch 1858.—Able Nic. gloioé ‘arranged inthe manner of adit (@f another plant) (et Basch 1645, auch 1501, Huysm); lodologe ‘particularity of writing that causes the height of letters to dmansh from the begin- ring to the end ofa word (sit Lar 1930; Bor). 4) Der ersatz von -c- durch -au finde sch auch bet uous. Es lege wobl eins eines andem wortes zugrunde. Int handschriten und glosaren, die vor 9of che object. This, Moses provided in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle and the subsequent Temple. After Pompey had ap- proached the most incerior place of the Temple, the center (Mit- ‘elpunks)of adoration, and had hoped to discover in ic the roocof che ‘ational spici, co find indeed in one central poine the life-giving, soul of this remarkable people, co gaze on a Being fan essence, Wiese} as an object for his devotion, on something, significant (inmelles for his veneration, he might well have been, onentering. the secret (the family and secre intimacy, Geheimnis} mystified (getuacht) before che ultimate sight and found what he searched for inan empey room (in einon laren Rasim.” “The Jewish Geheimnis, che heart in which one looks for the center under a sensible cover feeloped—the cent of the taber- racle, che stone ofthe temple, che robe chat cloches the texc of che ‘covenant—is finally discovered as an empey room, is n0¢ un- covered, never ends being uncovered, a ic has nothing co show. That che absolute fumiliaccy ofthe Gebeimnis proper is thus ‘empey ofall proper conten in its vacane cenrer would signify chat the Jewish essence is cotally alienated. Its ownness, its property would be infinitely foreiga co iself Sohe cannot enjoy (this). Since everything is obtained ehrough the favor of transcendent and separate God, what the Jew enjoys is under the seal of expropriation. What I enjoy does not belong to sme. My life and my body are not mine. Hegel recalls that every firstborn could be put to death: “Consecrate all the first-born 0 me, the fist issue of every womb . . .” (Exodus 13). Since the hhuman body belongs eo God, i had to be kepe clean {Jem prope), but like a disguise [maveststemen. like the livery of «servant. The Jew bears everything asa gift rather a loan: garment, livery, name. ‘The Jewish people identifying itself with one of the cribes from ‘which i received its appellation was God's classed propercy, the ‘manager or the servanc of thac domain. It administered God ‘goods and property, defended his rights, organized itself in the hierarchy from the most humble servant :o the minister. This lst ‘one would not be considered the guardian ofthe secret (Bewtbre ‘des Gees) but only of secret o¢ Family things (na der geben Ding) detached, in order to represent it, from che inaccessible secret. The Geamnis is not even at ee dispsal ofthe leader who remains a minister of God ‘Theic ownness, theie property remains foreign ro them, their secrec secret: separate, cut, infinitely distan, certifying. “The secret proper was itself something wholly alien (Das Gebvimnis lst war etwas durchans Frende), something ineo which a maa could noe be initiated; he could only be dependene on it. And the conceal= ment (Vedorgenbxit) of God in che Holy of Holies hada significance ‘quite differen from the secec (Gebeinmis) of the Eleusinian gods. From che pictures, feelings, enchusiasm, and devotion of Eleusis, 3° dem 11h legen, finden sich mehrfach sehretbungen wie glardus, clouds, goudio, welche offenbar die ile testen belege fir dese formen mit -au- sind. Vg. Birt, Der Hiasts bei lavtus; Marburg 1901, s.279. “gladius sehwert, “1 La Awad, go ‘wor ploy ance’ Chay ayn. floc R30, 224—Abe_ Ape eliar to ll we & ‘weapon’ GitBor,desglaor Gir Born “>. Ape glam. ight (Fh) —AbIe Apr: erin ‘to frigheen inmate’ Kolsen 171 bdsuph clay v.20 surprise, delight vr to be surprised, w roar with laugheer [rie cur eces). meauph.eyglod, bdauph estlyé. Queyr ely "to frighten. lng. erg. Bah. expo tightened’, Aus elie. Ap. expo “Wight: sorrow: uproar. Tear [cite]. SHon, Queye “Yea [foyer cast ela, Carat esplach‘excicerere {email eth 135, Teste eigldy Year pushed to mad nes’. Mdauph, elo (‘astonshment. heary lnugh- ter, bdauph eplyade, Mésuph.gyglaéye ‘the one who surprizes, who causes Iughter eyployamé “a= onshment outburst of aught “*e.Ape oi ee lace) (hap) ADR: Daph cigtayé “eie, to have 3 shde [foe une glisade]” Ch, huph say: epayodo ‘the’ “Lr lol ‘gaeut (Bon SMaure— 1709, Tre: Ga Chresien, Lemaire; Tristan H), jdt. glid Rs, aram. glare Haust Med, Cherb, gh irs faesidasia’Joret Fi, Troyes glas “plied? Gr, Esternay por ii, HMarne gye ALF 1599 p 2B, glo ALF Suppl p 128, Marne gle reed ALF 1166 p 138, Vouth. id ‘gieu', Brilon, Dombeas gid, Cum, aur. iri’, Metz gy ltou le ey, san. dye, Brorce "yeliow Nag’, Gruey dy, bress. di. Plancher hyo, ey, CChiten. i i, fourg. a, Schwein 6, rhod.glai‘isel ScAndréV. loys ALLo 332, périg. tla af. fi place where giadiol are growing’ Gerber, glo! Gloss Dovas 244, alte ploy (ca 1320), nf gai ‘mass of ghdiolt forming an island ina pond [étang) NM rust 2, 582— Betch 1858), "Able —Afe. got (“gaieu (oth. ca. 1220), gle Gt ‘Vat 1020, mf loge Bai lye ‘iris’ (Cotgr 1611: Oud 1660), Esteray gloje gles, is, etc (Ceol), Reims aloes ‘large plants on the edge of ditches and rivers'S, Rethel ‘pile of glaiol’, Guin. giage ‘ash’ périg. gto ‘reed’ M. Chabrac gla. Puyb. gloyé RPGR 5, 263— Rhod. low f. its’. périg. glows “gaieut:—Maug. lovort ‘yellow lag’ — glo glaieu (Corer (611; ud 1660)... Afr. glogeure ‘strewn’ Ruteb, Cum. CChate.‘all verdure spread on the path ofa high person- ‘on the route of the Corpus Christ! lon glalures.—Agn. deglagier “co fell”from these revelations of god, noone was excluded; but they mighe not be spoken of since words would have desecrated them. Buc of their objects and actions, of the laws of their service, che Israelites might well chareer (Deuteronomy soc. 11), for in these there is nothing holy. The holy wasalways outside them, unseen and unfelt (angen und unggibt).” How could one havea secret? Absolute expropriation makes the secret of the sacred inacces- sible eo that very one holding is privilege. In chi absolute aliena- tion, the holder of the inaccessible can just as well peacefully, manage its eects or phenomena, can chatter about therm, manipu- lace chem, The invisible remains invisible, out of reach; the visible is only che visible. Simultaneously the most familiar, secret, proper, near, the Heimiche of the Gebeimnis presents itself as che most foreign, the most disquiering (unbeimlihe). (One cannot even decide the expropriation, cut through to a decision regarding castration, or run afer its truth, A. systems uundecidabiliy is here more powerful chan the value of teuth, Like this tex of Hegel, Das Unbeilicbe should de-border, should have de-bordered che opposition, verily che dialectic, of the cruel ‘To make a political discourse bear this problematic chain, is hae co limit the extent of this chain? Is that co narrow the feld of ‘general question elaborated afterall [ax rete} in other places? Hegel, for example, and his discourse, depends on truth ‘Whence che political accusation hutled against che Jew. ‘The Jew cannot become, as such, a citizen; he Cannot have any tue laws of Sate. Why? Hege! holds a dialogue wich Mendelssohn, author of Jensalom cer iter reigise Macht und Judentiem, 1783, a philosopher of che Enlightenment, a Jewish philosopher of the Enlightenment for ‘whom Judaism was noe a revealed religion but a revealed aw; this, law prescribes acts but enriches our knowledge with nothing Hegel seems co approve: the Jewish religious laws provide us no knowledge, no consciousness, 90 eternal truth. "Mendelssohn reckons it a high merc in his faith cha ie prffrs no eternal eeaths. There is one God, that is what stands on the summit ofthe States laws. . ..” That cannot be called cruths, save tosay that chere is no ‘more profound cruth for the slave chan the affirmation by which he hhas a master. Buc Mendelssohn is right noc call cis ruth, Since God does not manifest himself, he i nor eruth for the Jews, total presence or parousia. He gives orders without appearing. “Hence the presence of God (Dein Gattes) appears to the Jews noe as & ‘ruth but as « command (Befib).” The Jews were slaves, and one cannot be a slave t0 a cruth or beauty: "How could they have an inkling of beaury who saw in everyehing only matter? How could Edm.— Afr. sorglaiger ‘overwhelm faccabler" (hap) “1. Ape: glzim. ‘sword: every cuting weapon’ (13— 14h) Cantal las ‘sword’, lm. glaze. Ubertragen ape. glani‘masacre, carnage’; mort de lez! ‘sudden ‘death’, plazi (Lv SFR 7, 168); pérg.glse ‘gate! — ‘Able. Apr. glover ‘a one who takes up arms cruel, bloodthirsty: m. massacre’ glais ad, ‘murderous. “2 Bigorre, Gers gas to frighten’ Pr lim ‘grief. — ‘Ape. expose ‘possessed by the devil autre, terible (of a blow (un coup)’ thap), pr. eiglarié ‘possessed, demonic: enraged alarmed’ mars. explana ‘filed with trepidation, hoc-tempered, beside onerlf [hors de 0, ‘troubled’ A cigloriat A, Se-Simon eplosct ‘erred Gers, bear. eslosié to frighten’. Gers esgésio."ter- ror’ BAlpes eiglri m. ‘sudden disquet mixed with fear, Alis elo ‘right. Barc. esploric‘to frighten’ — ‘Apr: deglazor to kill with a weapon!:—Apr.oglazor; ‘plezodor‘ssassin' —Apr.englesiat ‘possessed by the ev" Jafre. Aridge engas ‘to frighten’ Am. Toulouse cenglézi "right G. Tarn, east id; Puls. enlas ear "ML, Alf. rf glove mf. lane, javelin’ (12.—14. fh, Gaf: Gay; Chrestien; R 21, 292; Beneie Th; Arch 97, ‘44; Edm: Huon Abe; Pere: Fle Ponth: Tourna 1280, AF 25, 132: Eust: Beau Cout Ibn Ezra: Pe), lave Brendan 1713, clave Pert, glove Veng Rag, clove Veng Rag, jue, grove (1100, RSe |, 186), rf. gleve “small pike (S-Quentin 1340), glove “ance” (¥4, jh) apr elo (lang 14 jh, Lv; Boni), clavi Cons Alb. Ubereragen inf. plave m, solder armed with a lance" (V4. jh Ga, unk) apr. glow (14h, Lv: Mila 1358, Doe 113) — Mtl lave ‘sword! (sic 15. fh), mf. glove (Moi Mist). Bella lieve ‘curing (vonchant' fara lve “koe bellu dv, “Able — Mtr lavelt ‘smal pike” (14. jh.) —Me. lovot “Kind of dagger (or pike) (15. jha Gay) Nt. glova- toi ‘angel hat bears the glave”(1891, Huysm). = — Mfr glameur‘gacator’ (1531, Mir. hyetoral XIV. 36 (Db) —Afe glovoier ‘to plerce witha gaie (13. ih ‘Aff. deglaierv. a. "to kill by the glave’(13—15. th, Gd, TL; Gaimar 3000); af. deplavets ‘massacre™ ‘Wace. Af. mfr desplavier ‘to killby te gai’. “2 Ale elaive m “massacre, carnage’ (norm. 12. jh): “epidemic, calamity’ (ca. 1201380, GdfIoner, St- ‘Omer to die d gave en masse (in ies of epidemic) (1790), pie. St-Pol i. (dazu pe. aplover de sof to be very thirsty Manche églavd ‘starved to death’ Dm); Lille it rains’ a glve in torrents’, Metz ¢ lof andr. Toure ago ‘in profusion, much beaucoup} "2 Fr. plodigur ‘man made to fightin the amphitheatre, for the people’ amusement (according to the ancient Romans} (sec 13. jn). "duelis, hired kiler swords rman’ (Retz 164¢—Lar 1872); ‘esp. the Dauphin's 3hey exercise reason and freedom who were only ether mastered oF Serangers to reason and fieedom, the Jews no more then had any tational laws. The absence of obligacion is not a sign of freedom, indeed on the contrary. The Jews have no political obligation because hey have no coacept of freedom and of policial rationality. Icis the reign of violence. This unfetering does noc correspond 108 liberation co some political progress: would the Eskimos have the cighe to consider themselves superior co the Europeans because they pay no excise on wine nor taxes on agriculture? ‘Once mote the analogy berween Greek and Jew is limiced «© appearance. As for property rights and family goods (second mo- men of the family syllogism in che Pbilaphy of Right), ee Sse texts on the spirit of Christianity bring certain dispositions of the Mosaic law closer together with such rules [rgla} established by Solon and Lycurgus. In boch cases one wants co put an end to che inequalcy of riches. “Socialist” laws tend to neutalize a dispropor- tion that theeatens political freedom. Boch legislaions pur in place complete judicial process [praasus: iis necessary to preven che theft [va] that allows one family to enrich isef beyond cereain Limes Buc che Greek process founds right and politics, constitutes family subjects as citizens. The Jewish process, on the contrary, scofs at right and politics: in order co lime che property right and thus of expropriation/appropriation, it foresees in effect cha a family’s goods belong co ie for always. The one who has had ro sll his goods or his person because he is in ned "was to enter on his real rights again inthe great jubilee year, and in ocher cases on his personal rights in the seventh year.” This i in effec foreseen in Leviticus. Likewise, the one who had inherited excess felds was ‘ot their owner, only the manager, and was to rescore the supple- ‘ment ona determined dae. This system of compensation, despite its appearance, denies civil right such as Hegel incerprecs ie. Civil right supposes family property. As the Philaephy of Right will confirm, there can be internal public right only if che propercy of family goods and the right of inhericance are intangible. Now Mosaic law limits che right of inheritance and the right of property in subjecting them to an exer! rule. The proper {Le propre) is determined from the outside, equalized, leveled by extrinsic mea- sures. The family name becomes secondary; ic falls to the rank of subject accident, “Thus family goods depended rather on some- thing acquired from che outside than on what was most peculiarly the familys owa (Eigelihsen), on a characteristic otherwise indel- ible, onones descent from cerain parents." Theevil, then, sa radical expropriation chat constitutes propery as management ot administration, possession as loan {ex pri], and then the name lee oan encerptis, che prét-om. 32 (oiste 1829—Lar 1872)—Nit.glodiarice “woman who fights with the sword’ (Balzac G;Prévost Trev 17) “S. Nf. lod in sword-form, wit sharp edges (bot) (Gel Boiste 1803)” ‘The sword or the gland acorn, glans) in the phoneme, the pls in the phenomenon. Panglosia. Is there gin every natural tongue (languel? gl... ph. te (Ga) shines [brife] and sharers (se rise] used co pass for an aphrodisiac and emmenagogue). In one single case, the reseda, a yellow flower (re- seda lutea, luteola) chac furnishes even the yellow color, and to which medicinal and apotropaic vireues used to be attributed. The frocks, of “The Man Condemned to Death” in particular, are “reseda.” In both cases, the threat is also a defense, it forewarns, the flower that kills embalms, the weapon barricades (gladiolus, reseda morbis): “I had a terrible decision to make, for it meant breaking the barrier of flow- ers, fighting my way inco che realm of the fabulous. ”.. [stood . . . looking perfectly nacural so that neither the guard nor the flowers would suspect what Iwas up to” (Miracle ofthe Rose). The Maids: “CLAIRE: . . - Tact underneath, camouflaged by my flowers, but you are helpless against me. .. . SOLANGE Madame thought she was protected by her barricades offowers. . . . I'm going back to my kitchen: There find again my gloves and the odor of my teeth. The silent belch scording 1 Pliny reseda was supposed to deface the tumor, and prevent i¢ from ‘welling oF growing bigger, povided es 2p plleaton was accom panied with the for- ‘mula. reseda mort:Here the Hegelian incerpretacion concems acerain “spirit” of Mosaic law. In its leer, one ees poorly what in effect distinguishes Mosaic law from the dispesicion envisaged by Solon and Lyeurgus. Bu the same literalty wll have, according to Hegel, acompletely diferent spice in the Greeks: and fst of alla spieie and nothing ‘se, an inner sense animating the law of the inside, The limitation cof propery is destined to prohibit violence, to guarantee the ci 2eri freedom, to see coc that every subject finds itself in tselfand nota foreigner in che city. Fr that reason every subject has ro have its own proper goods [sn bien repre. In chis sense all Greeks are citizens; no Jew has any erue cit s2enship, any true right of the city. Hegel cites Leviticus: "You can, alienate (seriusien) nothing, for the land belongs to me, you are foreigaers and he nationals of a foreign nation (Einheimiche vom fronder Nation) wich me.” fone follows this value of the proper, of propercy (popritt, igen, Eigenbit, Eigentim), one must conclude that the fee citizens independence and quality go on a par with private propery. “Among the Jews, the source lay in the face that they had no freedom and no rights, since chey held ther possessions only on loan and noc as property (nich als Eigentum), since as citizens they were all nothing. The Greeks were to be equal because all were free, in- dependent, the Jews equal because ai! were incapable’ of independence.” So there is no “for itself," no Jewish being-(close)-by-self. A.question ofthe Lecter. Hegel refers co the spire ofthe law and acknowledges that the only thing that counts for him is the legis- lacor’intencion. Ifinthe Jewish “legislators soul,” in his “intention (Absict),” the question were truly asin the Greeks, limicing the inequality of riches and assuring che citizen freedom, there would be a whole system of ocher converging, measures. Hegel says he does not find these in Mosaic law. So the Jews are all slaves of an invisible sovereign: becween them and their sovereign, no legal and rational mediation, only heads of tribes appearing or disap- pearing according co the sate of forces. The powers are real, not juridical. There are indeed empiric powers, officals or "scribes ( Schreiber)” Buc the scribes are noc guided by the spiric of a law. ‘They obey empirical rules, precepts, and commandments (Be- fible). Theic writing is heteronomic. And as this literliry re- ‘mains empiric, the prescripcion can always be violated when che sicuation of forces permits or requires ic. The process of Pharisaism. “In the case ofthe Israelites having a sudden nocion co be ruled by a king like other peoples, Moses gave only a few commandments (Beeble, some so fashioned that the monarchical power could for a sound understanding ofthis “sane belching,” one must remember that Solange is the one who pro- rnounees the word here and who claims the ching: fur- ther on she complains cae "the plas tll” for her and ‘dat her hangman lil her. Allths happens not very far _way from the stove ofthe Holy Virgin, to be sure, but is forced to pass frst through a bell (coche, a glottis, and a throat. Like toxe milk, f you wish, and the milkman, he who poisons the desire of the three women, is never very far from the toesin, Unusual sound, the very rarky of the association (toesin- rrikman, tocsin-morning, tocsin-deight) confirms the distant but powerful constraint of agglutination ("Her morning mileman, her messenger of dawn, her del- ‘ous tocsn, her pale and charming master. That's al finished. Take your place forthe bal) Uke a spermatic pharmakon that you spit out again ‘Ths play, encumbered with glad is aso the spitting stage [le stade du crochet) "Everything yes everytieg that comes out of the kitchen ssp! Go. And takeaway yourspitings! ve told you, Clie, without spit Let Te sleep in you, my child... Do you think I find ie pleasant to know that my (ot i enveloped by the veils of your salva!" This foot induces—the whole eext “SOLANGE... The game! Will we even beable co go on with ic! And if Thave to stop spicing on someone who calls me Claire, my spitingsare going to choke me! My pure of salva is my spray of iamonds!» cuARE: Spie in my face! Cover me with mud and fh. ‘Cover me with hae! With insults! With spi” Whom, what does one want “to cover" in ths way, with 2 “veil” with a drape ora winding sheet. with flowers or spit! And what, in the gos, i Induced fom spe! Wht of the sink. You have your flowers, 1 my sink.” ‘Thus the flower plays the part of a kind of counter- poison poison. One negative works against the other. ‘Madame’ exit, like her entrance, also marks a flower’ return: a ceremonial {de gala] poison that one ‘would have co vomit right off. “MADAME: You want to ill me with your tea {with phenobarbital], your flowers, your recommendations. Tea! Poured into the ceremonial tea set! . . . Take away these 3abide by chem or noc asi pleased, ochers with no bearing whatever (not even only in general) on the founding ofa constcution or of any popular rights against che kings. What cighes could be fel co be in danger fora people which had none and in whom there was ‘sothing lft ro oppress?” ‘Thus chere is an abyss beeween the divine all-powerfulness and the empiric unleashing of forces. No law comes to schematize the abyss that leaves che dead letter to che scribes, Hence the failure [dher} of Moses. A double failure: he uojustly died for having, disobeyed only once, for having marked his inde- pendence “when he struck one single uabidden blows (i einem cinzigen unbfoblenn Schlag)” And the structure in question left room for only one Schlag. Then Moses did noc succeed in rating the Jew, in grasping him and uprooting him above his literal and “ervile earthboundness, in bearing him away toward the heights of freedom. The Mosaic Aufhebung has noe raken off. ‘There is nothing accidental in this flue, chis all cba) the Jewish figure does not submit co weight as a contingent event. It does not fll ic has fallen, That i its essencial mark. Moses’ failure has noc reached the Jews. Judaism is constituted staring from it, as the impossibility of Moses to raise his people, to educate and tclieve(ereben and anfbben) his peopl. ‘To raise the Pharsac lecer ofthe Jew would also be to consti- tute a symbolic language wherein the literal body lets itself be animated, aerated, roused, lifted up, benumbed by the spiritual intention. Now che Jew is incapable of this in his family, his poliics, his religion, his cherorc. IF he became capable of i, he ‘would no longer be Jewish. When he wil become capable oft, he will have become Christian, Moses, che dead Jew, the Jew whose death comes from a blow coup} and fxes the figure of Judaisra, Moses was conscious or preconscious ofthis limit. And tosay cis, he uses, Hegel recalls, a “comparison” (Verlicung) ‘The Verglichung has more than one import: in itself, in the correction of che complement that Hegel allots it, and finally because it remarks the rhetoric o rather the rhetorical impotence of Judaism, che figural weakness of a people incapable of appropriae- ing and fasing che lever. “The Vorplachung explains the failure, ee fll {chute}, or chasm, Ie is found in Deuteronomy 32: “la the regard (Deuteronomy rood, 11) cast over his politcal life, he (Moses] compares (ser- lect) the way in which his God had led the Jews, through his, inscrumentality, with che behavior ofthe eagle (des Adles) which Wishes to eran ies young to By —ie continually Acer its wings lover the nest, takes the young on its wings, and bears them forth thereon.” 34 flowers. Take them home with you... . Madame escapes! Take these flowers away from me!" Reciprocally, specularly, Madame, each of whose maids successively occupies her place, poisons the maids wich her flowers. Madame is (a) good (maid) insofar as she poisons. “The apartment is poisoned.” “CLAIRE [remaining alone]: For Madame is a maid, and good! . . . Wich her goodness, Madame poisons us. For Madame is a maid, and good. . . . She showers us with faded flowers. Madame prepares our teas... .” In both cases, the pharmakon is a hymen, that is to say, immediately its contrary: “MADAME: . . . And those flowers that are there to celebrate the contrary of a wedding!” Inboth cases, where “who threatens the other? Eh? You hesitate?” is never known, the most natural flowers are the most artificial, like the virginity of the Holy Virgin, whose altar, hearth, stove, case [le foyer, de fourneau., le fourreau'} watches over the entire scene, “CLAIRE: That’ right. Let's skip over our devotions to the plaster Holy Virgin, our kneelings. We wontt even, talk about paper flowers. . . . (She /aughs.} Paper flowers! And the branch of holy boxwood! [She points 10 the flowers in the room. } Look at chose corollas open in. my honor! Iam a more beautiful Virgin, Claire.” Much further on, ic is also a question of Madame’s womb, stove, case: “We'll never be able to replace Madame. . . . For us, Madame’s wardrobe is like the chapel of the Holy Virgin. When we open it SOLANGE {amrtly]: The cea is going co get cold. CLAIRE: We'll open both doors, on our festival days... . Madame's wardrobe is sacred. It’s her great hanging-closet!” ‘And each maid asks the other to carry het within herself, like Madame's penis. Nacurally, the they would have fed to rangle her“Thus is the eagle sec forth in Moses’ Varglechung. Hegel begins by reproducing the statement. He transcribes Deuceronomy rather accurately. Then he completes and corrects in order to throw the sone back again, co renew it. In every logic itis necessary to be stone inorder co transform the other into stone. Like the Gorgon, the Jew petrifies the other. Hegel sad this; now he marks that che Jew is stone himself. His discourse is not only shetorical, but of ‘thetoric, on the subject of rhetoric. “Only the Israelites did noe complete this beaueil image (Bild); ehese young never became ‘eagles. In relation to theit God they rather afford che image of an cagle which by mistake warmed stones, showed them how to fy, and cook chem on its wings into he clouds, bue whose weight can never become flighe [10], whose borrowed warmth never burst [édata(aufichlag ico the Hane of lie “The logic of the concept is the eagles, the remains) che stone's “The eagle grasps the stone between its calons and eres 0 ris it. ‘The Jew falls again; he signifies what does noc le iself be raised —relieved pethaps but denied from chen on as Jew—to the height of the Begriff. He holds back, pulls the Aufhebung coward, the earth. The case of the Jew does nor refer co a past event. He indicates the system of. figuee ia the synchrony ofthe sprit. He is even shat as such resists history, remains paradigmatic: "AUl che subsequent circumstances of the Jewish people up to the mean, abject, wretched circumstances in which they still are today, have all of them been simply consequences and developments of theit ‘primordial destiny. By this destiny—an infinite power which they set over against themselves and could never conquer—they have bbeen maltreated and will be continually maltreated until they reconcile ic by che spirit of beaury and so relieve (aufheben) ic by reconciliation.” Foc the relief of this destiny, of this death stone [pire one must await Our-Lady, the Messiah, anocher Last Supper scene, another Rock, Peter [Pire}, this tine living, che Church thar builds itself on him, acerain Holy Family ‘The difculcy of the march continues co worse. ‘More visibly sil, one enters che analyses of Christisnity and of | the Christian family elaborated by the young Hegel as che concep- tual matrix of the whole systematic scene to come. There are ‘engendered not only che whole philosophy of religion, che descrip- ‘ion of revealed religion in che Phenomenology of Spirit, cercain fundamental interpretations of the Philaoply of Right, and so on ‘The announced zigzag will be necessary, but the indispensable anticipation will become as rareas possible, Precipicancy is too easy. Bu the question ofthe bearing [dénerche], the teleology or not of the reading, does noe lee itself be evaded. And ic finds iself «already posed, within the “younger” elaborations, precisely as an ‘ontological question, a question ofthe ontological “false author of these paper They mimed the ranging of Madame. : the (sory of banding her erect (of flowers insists thar the 35."927,2f Pantng terest flowers in this piece reachng her grea hangng-close. of (che room {pice}, the shat comes down tthe sane tng a feting id of er, they come to the chamber, in che play other, Monsieur (or) The mika. So {pite)), and in this TA Hees he ung excenee ceremony (representa- one another to what makes the winded tion, “evening,” in (Stange emt canner och the performance [re- never tamper with: The vale lover ‘thai seal the Mans the man with the “dle présentation)), be “real oh Met man wh flowers.” Thisis“How Groot coud not hive another vation. -v,_Thare fa gnctc lw thar Gat one to play The Maids”: ace appad trom now on fom 2 trains, false Cerean angle, to al cscs Tt aw i il] ats uo the cher ta rat ramed frills, che flowers will wmode moter ths sae. be real flowers, the which totandage [parser togethers bed a true bed. The neck [cai] and 2 penltors That 3 ing band ert how mach sit director must under- are" tt how eruch $1 stand, for I cannot altogether explain it all, why the room should be the almost exact copy of a feminine room, the flowers true, but the dresses monstrous. . . .” ‘The lulling executioner, the one who gives the poisoned breast {sein} to Solange, that is to say, by rotation or circular spit, to Claire and to Madame, who spend their time being caught in the looking glass, that executioner is represented solely by each term of che identifying and specular trio. Which one should not hasten to define as homosexual: the fourth excluded, discounted, decapitated, always invisible but never absent, always absent but never without effect, represented by the acorn {gland} fallen from the tree, the gloves, the gladiola or the gobs of spit, the executioner cut off from the stage {seéne], the Monsieur or the Mitkman (phallic homologs) appear at the heart {sein} of what they seem to set in motion 33Te's the question ofthe War (esence) and ofthe copula iras a question, the relation or name of facher-0-s0n. “Toknow for example whether the “later” cexts can be created as the descendant and akin consequence, fiiation, the product, the son of the youthful elaborations thar would be the systems paternal seed; to know whether the second, following, consequent or con- secutive cexs are or are noc the same, the development of the same. tex, chs question is posed in advance, reflecced in advance in the analysis of Christianity. Ie is the question iself of Christianity staged as che Last Supper scene [ison cn]. “The Father is the Son, the Son isthe Father; nd the Ween, the cssential energy ofthis copulation, is unity, the Weeninéi of the first and che second, is che essence of the Christian Last Supper scene. The spirit of Christianity i rather the revelation of the esentalty ofthe essence char permits in general copulaing in the is, saying. Unification, conciliation (Verinigeng), and being (Sein) have the same sense, are equivalent in their signification, (Glecbbadatend). And in every proposition (Satz), che binding, agelutinating, ligamentary position of the copula (Bindewort) is conciliates the subject and the predicate, laces one around the other, entwines one around the other, co form one single being. (Sain). The Sen is consticuced, reconstituted starting from its, primordial division (Urail) by lerting itself be thought in a Bindevors [Now this conciliation that supposes—already—a reconcilia- tion, tha produces in a way the ontological proposition in general is also the reconciliation of che infinite with itself, of God wich himself, of man with man, of man wich God as che unity of facher- {o-son. Ali the “youthful works” elaborate che demonstration of the father’s presence in the son, the end of the opposition in ehe heare {icin} of the divine, the necessity of ehe copula in the following proposition rating the possibility ofthe speculacive family, such as ic willbe maineained in its concept up tothe Philby of Right “The child isthe parents themselves,” or “the united beings separate again, but inthe child che conciiating unification (Vereigung) as become unseparated (unserem). “Thus is opened and determined the space in which the on- tological (the possibility of Ween, Sein, Uneilen) no longer lets iself be unglued or decapicated from the family. And par excel- lence fom the question of che father-son, this figural value of the “par excellence” accentuating {acaiant] what it excludes. ‘Consequently, even before wondering whether the ontological project was frst a Greek event from which Christianity would have developed an ourer graft, one must be certain tha, for Hegel at least, no oncology is possible before the Gospel or outside ic. ‘Then the bond announced berween the question of the copula and the question of the family also bears this consequence: if one 36 only under the nonspecies of a writing, quasi anony- mous, without signature. A writing that will never recur, by some proper or circular course, to its own place. For this writing has no place and its nonplace has no determinable contour. This has to do with the intrigue of a letter denouncing Monsieur, in which the maids hope and fear that cheir writing will be recognized. “Your denunciations, your lecters, it's working out [marche] admirably. And if they recog- nize your writing, its perfect. . . . The game is dan- sgerous. I'm sure we've left traces... . Lee a host of traces I'll never be able to efface. And she, she walks around in che middle of what she eames. She de- ciphers it. She places the end of her rosy foot on our traces.” “MADAME: . .. Who moved the key to the secretary again? ... Who could send these letters? . . . Monsieur will know how to unravel che mystery. I wish someone would analyze the writing and would know who could pull off such an intrigue. - Did anyone telephone?” ‘What would che Immaculate Conception have to do [voir] with those little leccers? The work of art, the ungraspable flower, more natural and more artificial than any other, is the Mir- acle of the Rose.ies to arciculate an apparently “regional” (sociological, psycho- logial, economico-political, linguistic) problematic of the family, ‘onto an ontological problematic, che place that we have just n0W recognized cannot be gotten around [‘ncontaemble If Sein cannor be what itis, cannot post itself, become and unfold itself, manifest iself without eraversing Chrstianicys des- ‘in, chav is fist because Sein must first determine itself as subjec- tivity. Being pethaps lets iself be re-covered and dissembled, bound or determined by subjectivity (Heidegger), bue that is, for Hegel, in order to chink ieself. Firs i Christ ‘Jess’ revolution consisted in opposing the subjective principle, ‘hat is the principle of freedom, to the enslavemene of objective laws of moze precisely of objective commandments. Each time Jesus transgresses one of these commandments, for example a prescripion of Jewish ritual, he does so in ehe name of man, subjectivity, and the heart. Thus, on che Sabbath day he cures 3 ste meal ofthe fan Js remares oa man thee of hand of whch Pe wa deprive “On these ey [te b- Dachau hesed x weeredhand (ae verde ond)” “For the om of an or of he sabbath Ad pang on from there he wert te ter sragoque, id bol here vwors'man woh wthered hand. And they gurioned hn Synge nw to hea onthe “abba They mene £0 ‘hrs charge agnut hen uc he sed so thar Wl ere Teena oly who owrsone step and down le ‘onthe abun wil ot ake hold of and pu out How ‘Tuchboters man stun ashe. Ther head toe an Secoh ow jour nd And be treo and became Sound he tbe ote. Bc the Phraees went oui tn tegen plating gprs nen touestoy Hn” sans withered hand, Nox that Jesus opposed to the hecerogensous and heteronomous ‘bjectivicy of the commandments the formal universality of che law or ofa you must (ru dois] in the Kancian sense. In char cas, the Jewish splic would only be displaced, and ineeriotized. The tyrant Of the outside would become a domestic tyrant. The (Kantian) autonomy would remain apparent; ic would be its cruch ina severe ‘and implacable heteronomy. Hegel does not doub the possiblity of auronomy, Parodying. ‘Kane and Religion Within the Limitsof Reason Alone, cucaing his own sentence against him, Hegel displaces che difference: che profound hheceronomy of the Kantian yuu mut would see ro it that berween the Shaman of the Tangus, between the prelates of che European Church, che Mongol or the Purican on che one hand, the man of formal dury on che other, the difference would not be berween slavery and freedom. The fist simply have theic master outside themselves, and the second within himself, as his own proper This time, Harcamone’s glas is scattered among, eglantine and wisteria {glycine}. Harcamone egancne: one of the popular eres for is going to die. One th, column, sto Knows sO. recalls the “eglantine gore Prema Ot poe took bush” next to the Latinname (aquilegie, oquileo) from the tee ets tetas Sad the coe place where he “fell on prot etan ears beak or sgn from topof he lee girl)” efecto mae on seph epee and ended up cutting expe nhle vie cg, back eee her throat after talk Gnymedeseage domnateste whole corps. reply swoops down on it from bean, holds tig [le sere] and in ts daws bands erect. sere, the beak in the neck [cou} One can 537 an cate, female of heraldic [une ope ing “into the child's neck.” And the wis- teria overflowing the sites of a mimed cru- ciftsion. It — the wisteria — becomes the chriscic body. Fie (i) widow retrenc, ul faion preleen heerer Sree Eager feces he eo Defoe te chmes-asetees Ta Bohan wah'be mess aes hs owe fea Ege: ert ef eo ‘Touched by grace teas wean nbn ssioe under the eye ofa Per- {Se yan Seine boa doux. “Iwas suddenly called — somewhat — Ganymede: "I : Sal bsg al fovea arr re out a coup) couched Sata gue ove te coed by the smell of roses, wth he clear regard ac che eae ie and my eyes were evga at cope ey filled with the sight semy of the wisteria at Met- tray. As you know, it was at the end of the Big Square, toward the lane, against the wall of the custodian's office. I said it was entangled in the thorns of a bush. of cea roses. The trunk of the wisteria was enormous, twisted with suffering. Ie was fastened to the wall by a wire (fils de for} network. Some of the overgrown 7