In the coatroom of my laboratory there is a small window that looks out onto the back of a used bookstore. Leaning out this window, I see a whole pile of books presented such that they look like a single work encased in cardboard with a large black stain on the spine. The books form a set, which looks homogenous to me. The theme is a contemporary school with a medieval name—the Gay Sçavoir or the Saincte Sapience—which name is written in delicate calligraphy in black pencil. Scattered in this pile are some large Derrida books, an art book (maybe Claude Roy) and some thin pamphlets. I know the whole thing belongs to the collection of a friend of J.P., and it strikes me that these are exactly the books I’ve been searching for for a long time. The bookseller’s price is extremely modest, given the value and rarity of the titles, but I can’t quite make it out (29 francs? 37 francs?). I would obviously go see the bookseller to make a deal, but of course the store is closed.
The cigarette I was smoking falls into the store and I am quite anxious (not so much out of fear that the butt will set the box of books on fire, more for the disturbing feeling of leaving a sign of my indiscretion) until I realize the butt has fallen onto a marble plaque on the parquet floor, on which there is already one butt, even several butts.
Later. The morning. I get a phone call from J.P. He asks if I’m interested in a stack of books he doesn’t want, because a large black stain on the case is a blemish in his library. I tell him I saw them and am planning to buy them. Then he retracts his offer and tells me that, despite the stain, he’s keeping them for himself. I am furious. Why would he offer them to me if only to change his mind a moment later?