The famous chuanqi 傳奇drama by Kong Shangren 孔尚任 (1648-1718), the Taohua shan 桃花扇 (The Peach Blossom Fan), is entirely built around the circulation of a message. It is a very special message indeed, as it is not strictly speaking a written text, even though it concerns certain signs. It consists of a fan accidentally splashed with blood and soon to be invested with multiple layers of signification – a fan which is fated to be successively recognized as an object of identification, a symbol of recognition, and a medium supporting widely divergent but tightly intertwined subjective signifiers. As something of informational value circulating between a sender and a receiver, it is fated to communicate something; but its meaning, which unveils itself to a great extent like a rebus, retains a dimension of enigma which is consistent with the limit imposed on every subject when addressing the Other – that is, the fact that one is never entirely aware of what one says. The message – any message – fails to be entirely readable, for the one who writes it as well as for the one who deciphers it. The fact of being in love more than any other situation is apt to reveal this uncommunicable core of language, which is part of its very structure, as psychoanalysis demonstrates.