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In the logic of passion, subjects love the optical illusion that allows them to give a name and a face to the unknown and unnamable part of the Being. This part, the cause of desire, is an opportunity for furtive and always missed encounters of the “being with the letter” ( l’être avec la lettre). While sooner or later the figure of the dead child emerges in all analyses of passionate lovers, the author argues that this is less of a historical event, and more of a structure that reveals the devastating effects of maternal depression on the child’s subjectification: the devastating effects of “the promise at dawn,” that is, maternal promises that are structurally inadequate when it comes to explaining the child’s being. This human ailment determines this function of the word: indefinitely “licking” the ontological wounds that the mother tongue has produced.