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"Brutal physical desire is easy. But desire, along with tenderness, takes time. You have to cross the whole land of love before you find the flame of desire. Is that why it's always so hard to desire what you love?"

Albert Camus: Notebook 1942

📷 Albert Camus with his wife Francine Faure ☆~ Collection of Catherine and Jean Camus ~☆ quote credit: albertcamusofficial instagram

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All my hope, all my courage comes finally from what I expect as a total reunion, love, emotion, joy, and absolute freedom between us, bodies and soul, transparency and naturalness. And I do not wait for it as a utopia. I wait for it because I am sure of it. And it is not so far, no, it is not so far. Because listen carefully: yesterday in the mountain I saw the first flowers of the almond tree. The tree was still black. But at the ends of the branches a dozen or so frail and soft flowers were already rustling in the wind. You understand, my love, Maria dear! It was the extreme point of the extreme beginning of spring. And a great impulse came to my eyes and heart, which I can call no more than an impulse of adoration. I made a vow. I looked for a long time at the crying petals. And I went home, my heart full of love. Goodbye, my beautiful and wonderful love. I kiss my Valentine and give her the few flowers that we should give on Valentine's Day to the one that we love. You are the one I love, before every spring, and I kiss you deeply, with all my love.

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 12, 1950 [#187]

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Albert Camus, “The Myth of Sisyphus”

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I received your letters of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in one go. I don't know what the interruption yesterday was due to, but it certainly shook me up a lot, at least for part of the day. It is madness, no doubt, but it is also true that we are living in insane conditions. Separated at the moment of our profound and definitive reunion, at times it seems unimaginable. You are not very reasonable either, judging by your letters on Tuesday and Wednesday. Writing you a friendly letter? I don't quite understand. You mean a letter in which I detach myself from us and try to talk coldly about what interests us? Maybe I can do that later. But right now I can't.

I am trying to understand your condition. You are taking off from the current life, you are in a state of suspense and in a nature like yours, so richly irrigated by life generally, this makes a deep disarray. This confusion would be compensated if you found absolute confidence and security at the base of your love. But there is this part of the unknown in my life that you talk about and that will always make you suffer. So you float and wither. The remedy? Believe. But you won't believe, or rather your certainty will always be crossed by doubts as long as this unknown part exists, or at least as long as a total light is not shed on it.

That is why I deeply believe that it is necessary to make this light, that is to say to speak and to wait for the results. That is why I will do it - because I love you and I am sorry for your unnecessary but profound suffering. This is one of the things I know and can say even now when I am exasperated and tense. There may be other reasons for your condition. But I don't see them right now or I wouldn't know how to say them. All I know is that I need to get it over with, to find you and lose myself in your love. I will try to write to you as to a friend whom I cherish and respect, when I have conquered the real calm that has been eluding me since my arrival here.

It is true that the hardened and dried up desire does not help, I know. Why don't you choose a sport? Go swimming in a pool, however unpleasant it may be. And then what to do? Let's suffer, let's shout, let's wait, let's become dull, but be mine, let's love each other without respite, without reservations, with the whole soul until the moment when our bodies become entangled. My love, my dear, my hard love, my painful, my delicious love, I dream tirelessly of our meeting. What tenderness, what sweetness, what marvelous desires, what satisfactions especially. Ah! Everything we have not yet experienced...

Tomorrow I will write you a letter in which I will tell you the news, the facts, the time we have, etc. But for today I would like to put here all the strength of my love to wake you up durably, to make you hold on a little longer, to find you ready for my return, in love, open, melting... Oh! I beg you, say that you can, write me the joy, the brightness, the glory... I am dying here and I have a need, a terrible need for happiness. I kiss you, I put on your face an olive tree of kisses and on you all the caresses of desire. I love you. Be strong and wait. It is an order, you see. But it is an order charged with love, my small victory...

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 11, 1950 [#186]

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Albert Camus

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Albert Camus, from a diary entry featured in Notebooks, 1935-1942

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Today I would like to put here all the strength of my love to wake you up durably, to make you hold on a little longer, to find you ready for my return, in love, open, melting... Oh! I beg you, say that you can, write me the joy, the brightness, the glory... I am dying here and I have a need, a terrible need for happiness. I kiss you, I put on your face an olive tree of kisses and on you all the caresses of desire. I love you. Be strong and wait. It is an order, you see. But it is an order charged with love, my small victory...

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 11, 1950 [#186]

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'Together once more! But never like tonight, and in spite of all the obstacles, I overflowed with gratitude, pride and tenderness. And when it's over in the hour of fatigue, your face that I cherish... To live at last! And life has no other face than yours. I'm holding your hand, very tightly, all this time.'

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, December 17th 1949 (#107)

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quote credit: @acknowledgetheabsurd •~ photo credit: Emile Muller 1953

P.S. I'm aware of the fact how much poorer my life would have been if I hadn't come across translations of @acknowledgetheabsurd Camus-Casarès Correspondance. My bow down for your knowledge, persistence and love for Camus. And the biggest Thank You that our planet Earth (full of jealousy, ignorance and ungrateful people) can handle. In our world gratitude equals to absurdity. Isn't that absurd in its purest form? ;)

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Let's suffer, let's shout, let's wait, let's become dull, but be mine, let's love each other without respite, without reservations, with the whole soul until the moment when our bodies become entangled. My love, my dear, my hard love, my painful, my delicious love, I dream tirelessly of our meeting. What tenderness, what sweetness, what marvelous desires, what satisfactions especially. Ah! Everything we have not yet experienced...

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 11, 1950 [#186]

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. . . she gave a single, long, full-throated howl, as if she wanted to rid herself at once of all the cries that pain had stored up in her.

Albert Camus ǁ The First Man (1960)

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:)

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I love you more than ever.  Ah, you don't know how much! What I wouldn't give to have you with me tonight! My love, my darling, I am burning, my temples hurt, my palms are on fire and my throat is dry. I will not go out anymore: I miss you too much everywhere and when I come back your absence becomes intolerable for me. Oh this spring! My darling. I kiss you hard, I kiss you as long as I wish to kiss you tonight.

Maria Casarès to Albert Camus, Correspondance, February 11, 1950 [#185]

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Albert Camus with his daughter Catherine

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Albert Camus, from The Myth of Sisyphus

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Photo Credit: SuinoDiMare