ALBERT CAMUS AND ACTRESS MARIA CASARES..

                                                                           

THE SECRET AND PASSIONATE LOVE AFFAIR BETWEEN ALBERT CAMUS AND ACTRESS MARIA CASARES .. ..

Catherine Camus brings out a 1300 hundred page book that has about 860 love  letters exchanged by  her father Albert  Camus and actress  Maria Casares .

Maria was an exile . Her   family  had moved  out from Spain  during the Spanish  Civil War and had decided to settle in France.  She was 21 and he 30 when they  first  met in 1944. It was wartime ( IInd world war ) and  France was under Nazi occupation. 

She  , a talented and independent   actress ,  and he,  a writer and  editor of  the underground newspaper ,Combat .  One day, Camus brought Casares to a dinner  hosted by Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Simone de Beauvour had  remarked :

" She is beautiful and  confident" 

She would  tell  Camus, “ when you are around, I don’t know where I am “. Camus was straightforward in expressing himself. He had told her many times , “ only when you are around, i become conscious about where   i am . “

 In 1944 , Many friends saw Camus driving  a bicycle down Paris Boulevard with Maria on handlebars . In 1950, Camus wrote to her :

“ We are tied to one another by bonds of earth , intelligence , heart and flesh . Nothing , i Know can surprise or separate us. “ And Maria wrote back :

“ Do you realize what happiness we have, and what has been given to us . We met , we recognized each other , we abandoned ourselves one to the other . “

After Allied forces won and  Nazis left France , Camus’s  wife came from Oran (  Algeria ) to live with him . Maria had already given him an ultimatum . Camus may not have believed in the institution of marriage yet he  opted for  his married life and went to live with his wife Francine Faure  who was pianist and a  Mathematician. 

Through this new book ,  Catherine Camus  makes all that secret  aspect of Camus’s 15 years (1944 -1959 )   steaming relationship with actress Maria open.  They exchanged hundreds of letters   even when Camus had children( son Jean and daughter Catherine)  and lived as a family man. 

Maria acted in many of his plays .  It is believed that Maria, his lifelong love and attraction,  is   “ Mary “   of his Novel  “ The Outsider “. And Francine knew all and that was possibly  the reason of her slipping into bouts of depression . About this depression,  Heims, Neil   in his book "Biography of Albert Camus",  writes: 

"In 1953, Francine's pain at Camus's indifference and her unreciprocated love became overwhelming. It was expressed in a depression that grew in severity into a full blown illness which included a suicide attempt and severe withdrawal, staring straight ahead and repeating the name Maria Casarès. Francine was hospitalized and subjected to more than thirty electro-shock treatments."

Both Camus and Maria kept shining  like bright stars in their respective professions ; She in acting and he as writer . After  being cheered lustily for her performance in Buenos Aires in 1956 by a crowd of 3600  ,  Maria wrote to Camus :

“ I uttered a few words of thanks  but kept  thinking of you only “

After receiving the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957, Camus sent a Telegram to Maria and wrote :

“ I have never missed you as much as I did today “

Some days before his fatal accident, Camus wrote to Maria:

. "I send a cargo of tender wishes, and may life splash up inside you all year long, giving you that dear expression that I've loved for so many years, but I love your face when it' s worried or any other way. See you soon, my superb one, I'm so happy at the idea of seeing you again that I am laughing as I write it... I kiss you and hug you tightly until Tuesday when I can start all over again."

                            

        
                ( Camus with his wife Francine )

After Camus died in the fatal road accident , Maria  suffered severe depression. She married her friend and singer Andre Schlesser. She was 74 when she died in 1996.Maria and Camus lived mostly  separated from one another. Now that these letters are out, the collection may provide a  sense of  their togetherness to Camus fans  . This collection  will  also trace their beautiful love story that remains unknown to world at large.To Camus lovers , I pose a question:

"Does Camus hide himself in his novel "THE FALL" ?" 

I end this post with a Camus quote:

" Don’t walk in front of me… I may not follow

Don’t walk behind me… I may not lead

Walk beside me… just be my friend ."

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.