ABSTRACT
In his work on the gift, Given Time (1992), Derrida quotes a short story by Baudelaire in which two friends encounter a beggar on the street. Both give the beggar money. One friend offers a large sum, thus demonstrating his generosity, but also eliciting in the other feelings of remorse for appearing selfish. Later, the ‘generous’ friend admits to having passed the beggar a counterfeit coin. Here is Baudelaire’s narrator:
My friend’s offering was considerably larger than mine, and I said to him: ‘You are right; next to the pleasure of feeling surprise, there is none greater than to cause a surprise’. ‘It was a counterfeit coin’, he calmly replied as though to justify himself for his prodigality.
