ette idée conne d’aller s’installer en Belgique” [because she got the idiotic idea to move to Belgium]. I take a seat in the central room, not sure that the people already seated along the opposite walls are there for the same seminar as I. At some point I am not two feet from Lacan and smile. He looks at me as though I were crazy. Soon enough I discover I am in the wrong circle. Our seminar takes place in the secrétariat area – an absurdly small space for what is sure to be a popular session. I get a good seat but by the time we get under way people are standing or sitting on every available surface. I am surprised that I now recognize about 10 people in the room – I don’t know them all, except by name: [Charles] Melman, [Serge] Leclaire, Dr. [Thérèse] Parisot and her daughter, [Juan-David] Nasio – known and those known by sight: [Moustafa] Safouan, [Jacques-Alain] Miller, Mme Rouslef, Françoise Dolto, Laurence Bataille. At first things get off to a slow start. For once I leave this notebook-journal in my bag, the atmosphere is definitely not propitious to note taking – it is an evening of taking in an atmosphere. After Part II of Irène Roslef’s very personal and impassioned history – Miller tries to get a discussion going, to ask some of the specially invited witnesses to give their accounts. Leclaire is being wary. Suddenly Safouan springs up like a jack in the box and begins a very long, equally personal account of the events surrounding the two applications by the SFP [Société française de psychanalyse] to the IPA [International Psychoanalytical Association]. He speaks with a strong Egyptian accent – but his French