“The woman, I insist, who does not exist, is precisely the letter – the letter insofar as it is the signifier that there is no Other, S (A barred)”, Lacan, J., On a discourse that would not be a semblant, Paris Seuil, 2006, p. 108. Untranslated.
The woman, is the letter, the one in Poe’s magnificent tale, the purloined letter, or more exactly the diverted letter, or a letter in pain, This means that its inevitable recipient is the one who will not understand anything, the police, the minister, the king, all of whom are figures of the function of the subject. It also says how scandal – in the etymological sense of the stone on which one stumbles – is woman. This is not easy for anyone to live with …
Translation Joanne Conway