ABSTRACT
For a long time, for a very long time, I’ve feared having to say adieu to Emmanuel Levinas. I knew that my voice would tremble at the moment of saying it, and especially saying it aloud, right here, before him, so close to him pronouncing this word of adieu, this word ‘à-Dieu, ’ which in a certain sense I get from him, a word that he will have taught me to think or to pronounce otherwise. By meditating upon what Emmanuel Levinas wrote about the French word ‘adieu’ – which I will recall in a few moments – I hope to find a sort of encouragement to speak here. And I would like to do so with unadorned, naked words, words as childlike and disarmed as my sorrow.
