My dear love, I have just opened my windows to a new gray morning and the need to write to you that has been tormenting me since yesterday has become immediate. Except for a lightening on Monday, it has not stopped raining or threatening to rain since my arrival. I'm writing to you in bed, badly awake, badly alive - but starting the day without you is so difficult.
Pierre has stayed with me until today. He's leaving tonight. He's a good companion, a bit moody, but warm. Yesterday I took him on a tour of the coast as far as Menton, where we had lunch. But the coast in the rain is reminiscent of a spring Sunday in the Tropics: wet palm trees, puddles where you always end up putting your foot, the dirty sea and people fleeing in the rain. I wanted to see, ten kilometers above Menton, a place I'd spotted on the map, Sainte-Agnès, perched at over seven hundred meters. I thought it might be a refuge for me, a sort of balcony overlooking the sea. The village was indeed beautiful, but it had its back to the sea, from which it was separated by a rocky spur. And there was a freezing cold humidity.
In the end, of all the places I've seen, Cabris is the most beautiful, and the one that combines the most favorable circumstances. And Cabris is the place to be. No serious work yet. But during this first week, I'd like to finish proofreading my chronicles and Noces* and update my mail. Then I'd like to start my real work on Monday. I'm angry with myself for not feeling brave enough to face the solitude ahead. But the sun, if it returns, may help me. Oh, I forgot, the hotel phone number is 3 in Cabris. I'm only there at mealtimes, as my room is in the annexe, which is quite far away. What's more, the telephone is in the dining room passageway. So it can only be used for urgent matters, alas!
So there you are. I haven't stopped thinking about you since I arrived and this room is full of shadows with your face. I dream of you. I sometimes imagine that the room stops and you settle down, in Cannes or elsewhere, that you're happy there and that I come to bite into that happiness, every day. Is that really impossible? I'm reaching the ceiling on my trapeze, I'm at the somersault, but I need your hand to reach out, your sweet, dear hand, my great love! my tender friend! I love you infinitely, here's your place next to me… what courage we'll need! Yes, be brave, but don't forget me too much.
Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, April 22, 1950 [#284]
*Noces was reissued by Gallimard in February 1950, with a reprint in June; the first volume of Actuelles appeared on June 30, 1950.
