...of a dialogue

"You asked me about Foucault, petit. And I never gave you an answer."
He paused. I held my breath, expecting another explosion.
"I should explain. I did know him, perhaps better than many people ever did. We met once. But only once. It was during a student uprising in the university at Vincennes, where he taught philosophy. He never knew who I was. You didn't bother with names and titles then. It was hard to tell who was a student and who was a lecturer, if they were on our side. I had already published La Fuite. And he was the first person to comment on my work whose opinion I valued. It's rare to find another man whose mind works through the same codes, whose work is as anonymous, yet as personal and lucid as your own. Especially a contemporary. It's more usual to find the echo of your own voice in the past. You are always listening, I think, when you write, for the voice which answers. However oblique the reply may be. Foucault never attempted to contact me. He did something more frightening, provocative, profound. He wrote back, in his published work. Many people have observed that our themes are disturbingly similar, our styles of writing utterly different. We read one another with the passion of lovers. Then we began to write to one another, text for text. I went to all his public lectures at the College de France. He saw me there. He gave no sign. He was teaching in California when I was in America for the publication of Midi. I went to his seminars. There were over 170 people there. Once I was slightly late. He was standing silent at the lectern, looking at his notes, when I joined the crowd standing at the back of the hall. He looked up and we stared at one another. Then he began to speak. He never acknowledged me. He always knew when I was there.

[Hallucinating Foucault, Duncker, P.]