Ah! I'm suffocating from this longing I have for you.

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 6, 1950 [#174]

Forugh Farrokhzad, from a letter to Ebrahim Golestan featured in “Sin: Selected Poems of Forugh Farrokhzad,” tr. by Sholeh Wolpé.

I thirst for you. Don't walk away from me. Tell me everything, even if you have to hurt me a little. No one in the world will love anything you do as much as I do. Tell me about the you l love, the one who's a little shivery. Let yourself go. Don't force yourself on me, just because you don't want to worry or help me. I finally understand why I was born. I love you.

— Maria Casarès to Albert Camus, from “Correspondance.”

Depuis hier soir, je songe à vous, éperdument. Un désir insensé de vous revoir, de vous revoir tout de suite, là, devant moi, est entré soudain dans mon coeur. Et je voudrais passer la mer, franchir les montagnes, traverser les villes, rien que pour poser ma main sur votre épaule, pour respirer le parfum de vos cheveux.  Ne le sentez-vous pas, autour de vous, rôder, ce désir, ce désir venu de moi qui vous cherche, ce désir qui vous implore dans le silence de la nuit ? 

Lettre de Maupassant à Hermine Lecomte de Noüy (19 décembre 1887) in Maupassant, Frédéric Martinez

A random collection of messages your D&D character might receive to spur them on the path to adventure:

You were right! By gods, you were right. We found it, right where you said it would be. It’s real, and it’s ours. We break through tomorrow. The next time you hear from me, it’ll be a brand new world.

We regret to inform you that your [parent/sibling/partner/spouse/underling] was found dead this morning. All indications are that their passing was peaceful. Per local regulation, they have been buried in the local graveyard, and their belongings will be kept at the town hall for one month before being redistributed. Should you wish to collect them or make alternate arrangements for their remains, please contact the town council within the above stated time frame.

They know about the money. I’m on the next boat out. It was a good run, but all good things come to an end, eh? Now’s a good time for a new name and a new city, mate. Best of luck.

Hey, cousin. Don’t know if you’ve heard yet, they should be sending you the official letter any day now, but the old man did it. You’re out. Disinherited, disowned, out of the will. The whole shebang. And not before time. Good luck on pauper street.

Your cover’s blown. All our covers are blown. They’re closing in on all of us. Get out. Just get out. Don’t bother looking. Just run.

I don’t know who might be reading this. I don’t know if it’ll even get out. But whoever it is, you’ve got to help me. Please, you’ve got to help me. We’re all trapped in here. The old castle, in the Redwood. Please, you have to come. They’re not going to let us go.

I regret to inform you that your proposal has been rejected. Your repeated proposals have been rejected. It is the opinion of this body that your campaign has passed the threshold to harassment, and we will no longer be accepting any proposals from you or your intermediaries. Funding for this kind of project is simply not within our purview or, to be blunt, our morals.

It’s been years, eh? And much as I hate to break this lovely silence between us, things have changed. You owe me, old friend, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to call that favour in.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to write to you again. They’re closing the borders now, even to couriers. It’s spreading too fast. I don’t … Look. Stay safe, all right? Stay out there. One of us has to stay pretty, right?

Hey, so. You know how you told me that becoming a troubadour was a fool’s errand, and stupidly unsafe, and only going to get me into trouble? Well, um. Want to come to North Moor and say ‘I told you so’? Please?

Hah! You crackpot old fool! You told me I was wrong! Well, I wasn’t, and now you’re all going to see! It’s possible! I told you it was possible! And I’ve only blown up one mountain so far! So there!

Darling. I know I told you I’d wait for you. I’m sure you think I’m the most faithless lover the world has ever seen. But it’s been six years and, well. Someone came. Someone beautiful. Someone loving and wonderful and kind. I’ve enclosed the ring. I’m … I’m sure you’ll find someone else to give it to.

But the heart sometimes blindly seeks suffering.

Albert Camus

Ce que vous savez peut être mal c’est à quel point vous êtes un besoin pour ceux qui vous aiment, et qui sans vous , ne vaudraient plus grand chose. Je parle d’abord pour moi qui ne me suis jamais résigné à voir la vie perdre de son sens, et de son sang. A vrai dire, c’est le seul visage que j’aie jamais connu à la souffrance. On parle de la douleur de vivre. Mais ce n’est pas vrai, c’est la douleur de ne pas vivre, qu’il faut dire. Et comment vivre dans ce monde d’ombres ? Sans vous, sans deux, trois êtres que je respecte et chéris, une épaisseur manquerait définitivement aux choses. Peut-être ne vous ai-je pas assez dit cela, mais ce n’est pas au moment où je vous sens un peu désemparé que je veux manquer à vous le dire. Il y a si peu d’occasions d’amitié vraie aujourd’hui que les hommes en sont devenus trop pudiques, parfois.

Albert Camus à René Char

Camus: "I have never felt more full of strength and life. The enormous joy that fills me would raise the world..."

Casarès: " All my life will fall short to love you...'

~~~♡♥︎~~~

"If Albert was a Don Juan, Maria was a Don Juana." ~ Oliver Todd

"Love that is not madness is not love." ~ Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Duo CamCasa: Costume Rehearsal at the Angers Festival; Play "Devotion to the Cross" by Pedro Calderón de la Barca; dramaturgy and direction: AlbertCamus; photographer: Emile Muller, 1953

Valentina Piva, Rodari: Filastrocche in cielo e in terra, «Doppiozero», Speciale «Rodari 100», September 28, 2020

«Tu es entrée, par hasard, dans une vie dont je n'étais pas fier, et de ce jour-là quelque chose a commencé de changer. J'ai mieux respiré, j'ai détesté moins de choses, j’ai admiré librement ce qui méritait de l'être. Avant toi, hors de toi, je n'adhérais à rien. Cette force, dont tu te moquais quelquetois, n'a jamais été qu'une force solitaire, une force de refus. Avec toi, j'ai accepté plus de choses. J'ai appris à vivre. C'est pour cela sans doute qu'il s'est toujours mêlé à mon amour une gratitude immense.»

Albert Camus, Maria Casarès - Correspondance (1944-1959)

Carte postale de Renée Vivien à Kérimé Turkhan Pacha, septembre 1904

« Le recto de la carte représente une vue de Venise, portant ces mots : "My thoughts go out towards you R.V.". Au verso, adresse autographe "Mrs. Katy Hope, Poste restante française, Constantinople, Turquie". . . . [Vivien] adressait ses courriers à "sa Sultane" sous les pseudonymes "Katy Hope, Poste restante, Constantinople", ou encore "Miss Eldridge" ou "Miss [Woodthrope]". Ces prête-noms permettaient très probablement de ne pas attirer l'attention sur leur amour. »

Une note sur le nom Woodthrope : Un éminent auteur classique, William Woodthrope Tarn, est né en 1869. Peut-être était-il lié de parenté à Vivien d'une manière ou d'une autre ?

Traces Ecrites, Paris, France

I want you everywhere, all of you, and I will always want you. Yes, always, and don’t talk to me about “if…” or “maybe…” or “as long as…”. I want you, I know, it is a need and I will put all my heart, all my soul, all my will and all my cruelty even, if it is necessary to have you.

Maria Casarès to Albert Camus, Correspondance, Christmas, 1948 [#43]

Virginia Woolf in a letter to Vanessa Bell, 18 June 1919, from “The Letters of Virginia Woolf Volume II: 1912-1922.”

— Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, July 17, 1949 / Romeo & Juliet by Karl Friedrich von Müller.

[Text ID: I'm waiting for you, I'm waiting for the evening calm, I'm waiting for our time, the oblique light, this pause between day and night. Peace will come, surely. But I can imagine no other peace than that of our two bodies bound together, of our gaze given over to each other - I have no other homeland but you.]

Je ne pense comme personne je ne sens comme personne, je ne raisonne comme personne et je reste persuadé de l’éternelle vérité de cette phrase de mon maître, le seul être que j’ai aimé d’une affection absolue et qui sera sans fin, bien que lui soit mort, je parle de Gustave Flaubert : « Sale invention que la vie décidément. Nous sommes tous dans un désert. […]

Lettre de Maupassant, in Maupassant, Frédéric Martinez

[Para você minha Maria, sempre, Albert.]