The Seventh Function of Language

The publisher says to Sollers that he might publish Hélène Cixous. Sollers replies: “Poor Derrida…” BHL again sees fit to tell everyone: “I have a great deal of affection for Derrida. He was my tutor at the École. Along with you, dear Louis. But he is not a philosopher. I can think of only three French philosophers who are still alive: Sartre, Levinas, and Althusser.” Althusser does not react to this flattery. Hélène conceals her irritation. The American man asks: “What about Pierre Bowrdieu—isn’t he a good philosopher?” BHL replies that he went to the École Normale but he is certainly not a philosopher. The publisher explains to the American that Bourdieu is a sociologist who did a lot of work on invisible inequalities, and cultural, social, symbolic capital … Sollers makes a show of yawning. “Above all, he is boring beyond belief … His habitus … Yes, we are not all equal—who would have guessed? And, allow me to let you all in on a little secret … shhh … gather around and listen … It has always been like that and it always will be … Incredible, huh?”

Sollers becomes more and more garbled: “Rise above! Rise above! Abstraction, quick!… We’re not Elsa and Aragon, no more than Sartre and Beauvoir. Wrong!… Adultery is a criminal conversation … Oh yeah … oh yeah … And while we’re at it … Here. Now. Really here … Really now … Fashion is often true…” His gaze wavers between the Canadian and Hélène. “The Maoist affair? It was our age’s entertainment … China … Romanticism … I’ve had to write some incendiary things, it’s true … I’m a great heckler … The best in the country…”

Lacan is miles away. His mistress’s foot is still caressing BHL’s crotch. The publisher waits for it all to stop. The Canadian and the Bulgarian feel united in silent solidarity. Hélène endures the great French writer’s monologue in mute rage. Althusser feels something dangerous rising within him.

Kristeva and the Chinese woman finally return with an apricot tart and a clafouti; their hastily reapplied lipstick burns passionately. The Canadian asks how the French will vote in next year’s elections. Sollers explodes: “Mitterrand has only one destiny: defeat … he will fulfil it completely…” Always prompt to issue reminders, Hélène asks him: “You’ve had lunch with Giscard, haven’t you? What’s he like?”

“Who, Giscard?… Pfft, a hypocrite and a degenerate … You know the aristocratic bit of his name is from his wife?… Our dear Roland had it right … a very successful bourgeois specimen, he said … Ah, we wouldn’t be safe from a new May ’68 … if we were still in ’68…”

“The structures … in the street…” murmurs Lacan, on his last legs.

“In America, his public image is as a brilliant, dynamic, and ambitious patrician,” says the American woman. “But up to now he hasn’t made much of an impression internationally.”

“He hasn’t bombed Vietnam, that’s for sure,” rasps Althusser, wiping his mouth.

“He did intervene in Zaire, though,” says BHL. “And he loves Europe.”

“Which brings us back to Poland,” says Kristeva.

“Oh no, we’re not going to talk about Poland anymore tonight!” says Sollers, taking a drag through his cigarette holder.

“Yes, we could talk about East Timor, for example,” says Hélène. “That would make a change. I haven’t heard the French government condemning the massacres committed by Indonesia.”

“Think about it,” says Althusser, apparently emerging from his fog once again. “One hundred and thirty million inhabitants, a huge market, and a precious ally of the United States in a region of the world where they don’t have many.”

“That was delicious,” says the American woman, finishing her clafouti.

“Another cognac, gentlemen?” asks Sollers.

Suddenly, the young woman who is still playing footsie with BHL’s balls asks who this Charlus is who everyone’s talking about in Saint-Germain. Sollers smiles: “He’s the most interesting Jew in the world, my dear … And another faggot, as it happens…”

The Canadian says that she would like a cognac, too. The Bulgarian offers her a cigarette, which she lights with a candle. The house cat rubs against the Chinese woman’s legs. Someone mentions Simone Veil: Hélène hates her, so Sollers defends her. The American couple think that Carter will be reelected. Althusser starts trying to seduce the Chinese woman. Lacan lights one of his famous cigars. They talk for a bit about soccer, and young Platini, who everyone agrees is promising.