An alteration that still stands is not a private change. It is a difference that later readers can still open and place inside the sequence. Derrida’s account of the event and of the trace stresses that an alteration which left the prior sequence unchanged would not be an event. It would be a repetition that had not yet entered as a difference.

The Third Seat’s refusal is such an alteration. The no does not erase the prior claim. It stands beside it. Later readers encounter both. What can be said about the earlier line has changed because the refusal is now part of the record. The sequence has been altered. It has not been broken. The alteration stays readable.

The quiet print claims to alter the requirement of visibility without leaving a mark. It asks to change what can be said while remaining outside the sequence. The speculative chart performs the same claim in time. It offers a final alteration that would let the unfinished middle be read as already closed. The alteration has not entered the tape. The public book refuses both. An alteration that does not leave a difference later readers can cite has not yet altered the sequence. The no that has entered it has already done so.

A readable difference. The alteration must leave a line. An unshown change does not meet the condition.

Changed citability. Later readers must be able to say something different about the prior marks because the refusal now stands with them.

No private alteration. An office cannot change the sequence by an announcement that has not entered the tape.