If the theme of the journey, and consequently that of borders and limits, provides an immediate key to unlocking the dynamism of Albert Cohen’s work and personality, it is because of his early experience of exile, which was quickly compounded by his confrontation with anti-Semitism. Above all, whatever the initial traumatic force of these events, they suggest the remanence of an earlier experience of uprooting and excitation that gave him the possibility of investing in writing in a way that was both totally exuberant and totally ethical. Many of the classic systems of differentiation and even opposition (life/death, expulsion/integration, man/woman, etc.) are thus subverted and electrified, particularly in his novels, with an aggressive impact that should not be underestimated. Among them, a complementary and deeper key to engaging the metaphorical density evoked by this travel material certainly lies in its narration of the two instinctual drive currents as described by Freud: the tender and the sensual.