“Par la date de ces textes, nous voudrions marquer qu’à l’instant, pour les relier, de les relire, nous ne pouvons nous tenir à égale distance de chacun d’eux. Ce qui reste ici le déplacement d’une question forme certes un système. Par quelque couture interprétative, nous aurions su après-coup le dessiner. Nous n’en avons rien laissé paraître que le pointillé, y ménageant ou y abandonnant ces blancs sans lesquels aucun texte jamais ne se propose comme tel. Si texte veut dire tissu, tous ces essais en ont obstinément defini la couture comme faufilure.(Décembre 1966.)” This note originally appeared appended to the bibliography of L’écriture et la différence, a collection of Derrida’s essays written between 1959 and 1967 and published as a volume in the latter year. A glance at the list of sources (p. 445 below) will show that although Derrida has arranged the essays in order of their original publication, the essay that occupies the approximate middle of the volume was actually written in 1959, and therefore precedes the others. Before translating the note—in fact one of the most difficult passages in the book to translate—let us look at what Derrida said about the chronology of his works up to 1967 in an interview with Henri Ronse published in Lettres françaises, 12 December 1967 and entitled “Implications.”(This interview, along with two others, has been collected in a small volume entitled Positions, Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1972.) Hopefully this discussion of chronology