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In 1879, Mallarmé is confronted with the absurdity of the death of his son Anatole. In “A Tomb for Anatole,” the poet (who was reduced to silence by the horror of this event and called himself “perfectly dead”) attempts to write poetry about death and disappearance. But how does one write about the agony and the pain over the bereavement of a child, this over-determination of incompleteness? Writing about incompleteness and the impossible mourning seems to be about tracing the boundaries of the hole, the void, and the absence. All writing on mourning, through its very expression, may be seen as the symptom of self-extinction; it is written fragments and fragmented writing which expresses the inexpressible. It appears that in order to write about death, Mallarmé had to be what had disappeared.