Strasbourg soothes us. Strolling through the wide boulevards, we grow calm and quiet. So many beautiful buildings, one after another! It's too much, we're dwarfed, humbled … and for a time, we're quiet, really quiet, lost in wonder at old Europe.

Isn't this where Levinas and Blanchot met for the first time? Imagine them, two students, the one tall and thin – very pale, the other cheerful and plump; one dishevelled in a double breasted suit and the other dressed like a dandy with a silver-knobbed cane …

I show W. the picture of them both from Malka's biography. Doublepatte et Patachon, that's what someone wrote on the back of the photo, no one knows who, I tell him. Doublepatte et Patachon, that was their French name. Long and Short, that's what they called themselves in English (they were originally from Denmark). Can you imagine Levinas and Blanchot as a comedy duo?

We sit down in a bistro and drink Alsatian wine from tumblers. W. speaks soft French, his voice lowered, and we dream, for a moment, that we are real European intellectuals.