Excerpts from Mémoires d'Hadrien, Marguerite Yourcenar (part 2):

"Plotina no longer existed. During the previous season in the city, I saw for the last time that woman with a somewhat tired smile, whom the official nomenclature gave the title of my mother and that was much more: she was my only friend. This time, I found nothing but a small urn deposited under the Column of Trajan. I personally attended the ceremonies of her apotheosis. Contrary to imperial usage, I mourned for a period of nine days. But death changed little in this intimacy that years ago dispensed the presence: a spirit, a thought to which mine had joined." (p. 147)

"Antinous, lying on the bottom of the boat, rested his head on my knees and pretended to sleep to isolate himself from that conversation that did not include him. My hand slid into the back of his head, under the hair. In the most empty or tender moments, I had the sensation of being in touch with the great natural objects, the density of the forests, the muscled back of the panthers, the regular pulsation of the fountains. But no caress touches the soul." (p. 171)

"With the help of Chabrias, I was able to lift the body that was suddenly heavy like stone. Chabrias shouted for the boatmen, who improvised a canvas stretcher. Hermogenes, in a hurry, could only verify death. That body, so docile before, refused to allow itself to reheat itself, to revive. We transported him aboard. Everything fell apart; everything seemed to be extinguished. The Olympian Zeus, the Lord of All, the Savior of the World alluded; suddenly there was only a gray-haired man sobbing on the deck of a boat." (p. 173)

"All the metaphors came back to have a meaning: I had that heart in my hands. When I left him, the empty body was nothing more than a preparatory object in the hands of the embalmer, the first stage of an atrocious masterpiece, a precious substance treated with salt and the jelly of myrrh, which air and sun would never touch again." (p. 174)

My favorite excerpt:

"I myself experienced a sort of horrible joy in telling myself that this death was a gift. But I was the only one to evaluate how much bitterness is fermented in the depths of sweetness, how much despair hides in self-denial and how much hatred mixes with love. An insult to be exposed to this proof of devotion; a child, perplexed at the possibility of losing everything, had found the means to bind me forever. If he thought to protect me through such a sacrifice, he should think himself little loved so as not to understand that the worst of the evils would be to lose him." (p. 177)