21 Oct By the way, do you know Greece? No? (ALBERT CAMUS)
There one has to be pure in heart
The Zuider Zee is a dead sea, or almost. With its flat shores, lost in the fog, there’s no saying where it begins or ends. So we are steaming along without any landmark .. We are making progress and yet nothing is changing.
In the Greek archipelago I had the contrary feeling. Constantly new islands would appear on the horizon. Their treeless backbone marked the limit of the sky and their rocky shore contrasted sharply with the sea. No confusion possible; in the sharp light everything was a landmark. And from one island to another, ceaselessly on our little boat, which was nevertheless dawdling, I felt as if we were scudding along, night and day, on the crest of the short, cool waves in a race full of spray and laughter.
Since then, Greece itself drifts somewhere within me, on the edge of my memory, tirelessly … Hold on, I, too, am drifting; I am becoming lyrical! Stop me, cher, I beg you.
By the way, do you know Greece? No? So much the better. What should we do there, I ask you? There one has to be pure in heart. Do you know that there male friends walk along the street in pairs holding hands? Yes, the women stay home and you often see a middle-aged, respectable man, sporting mustaches, gravely striding along the sidewalks, his fingers locked in those of his friend. In the Orient likewise, at times? All right. But tell me, would you take my hand in the streets of Paris? Oh, I’m joking. We have a sense of decorum; scum makes us stilted. Before appearing in the Greek islands, we should have to wash at length. There the air is chaste and sensual enjoyment as transparent as the sea. And we …
Albert Camus
THE FALL
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IMAGE : Picking of crabs, Karystos island, 1950-55 Photograph by Voula Papaioannou Benaki Museum – Photographic Archives
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