The letter was simply addressed: l’Étranger, Rue Perdu, Nevers. It contained an account of the war and of life before war. It slipped out of pocket, down sewers and over the Loire. Signed by l’Immoraliste, obviously the nom de guerre of someone who was giddy for Bataille. It never arrived, it was always in arrival in the town of Nevers on the Loire. In the Valley (… of the Shadow…) of the Word and the Image of the Word. He held it in hand just out of hand. Thomas’s cat recited the Word and the Image of the Word, became the Word, unaccounted for in the war to end all wars. Became war, beckoned Bataille beside the letter unaddressed in a house on Rue Perdu. In the town of Nevers rolled over in war. The letter arrived, in always arriving, in the town of Nevers on the Loire. Unaddressed in the Word of war. Unaddressed by war on a Nevers bridge named for Bataille over the widening Loire.