143
" Accepter que tel ou tel être, que nous aimions, soit mort. Accepter que tel et tel, vivants, aient eu leurs faiblesses, leurs bassesses, leurs erreurs, que nous essayons vainement de recourvrir de pieux mensonges, un peu par respect et par pitié pour eux, beaucoup par pitié pour nous-mêmes, et pour la vaine gloire d’avoir aimé seulement la perfection, l’intelligence ou la beauté. Accepter qu’ils soient morts avant leur temps, parce qu’il n’y a pas de temps. Accepter de les oublier, puisque l’oubli fait partie de l’ordre des choses. Accepter de s’en souvenir, puisqu’en secret la mémoire se câche au fond de l’oubli. Accepter même, mais en se promettant de faire mieux la prochaine fois, et à la prochaine rencontre, de les avoir maladroitement ou médiocrement aimés. "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , Pellegrina e straniera
148
" You could fall suddenly into the void the dead go to: I would be comforted if you would bequeath me your hands. Only your hands would continue to exist, detached from you, unexplainable like those of marble gods turned into the dust and the limestone of their own tomb. They would survive your actions, the wretched bodies they caressed. They would no longer serve as intermediaries between you and things: they themselves would be changed into things. Innocent again now, since you would no longer be there to turn them into your accomplices, sad like greyhounds without masters, disconcerted like archangels to whom no god gives orders, your useless hands would rest on the lap of darkness. Your open hands incapable of giving or taking the slightest joy would have let me slump like a broken doll. I kiss the wrists of these indifferent hands you will no longer pull away from mine: I stroke the blue artery, the blood column that once spurted continuously like a fountain from the ground of your heart. With little sobs of contentment, I rest my head like a child between these palms filled with the stars, the crosses, the precipices of my previous fate. "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , Fires
149
" L'acte de penser l'intéressait maintenant plus que les douteux produits de la pensée elle-même. (...) Toute sa vie, il s'était ébahi de cette faculté qu'ont les idées de s'agglomérer froidement comme des cristaux en d'étranges figures vaines, de croître comme des tumeurs dévorant la chair qui les a conçues, ou encore d'assumer monstrueusement certains linéaments de la personne humaine, comme ces masses inertes dont accouchent certaines femmes, et qui ne sont en somme que de la matière qui rêve. (...) D'autres notions, plus propres et plus nettes, forgées comme par un maître ouvrier, étaient de ces objets qui font illusion à distance; on ne se lassait pas d'admirer leurs angles et leurs parallèles; elles n'étaient néanmoins que les barreaux dans lesquels l'entendement s'enferme lui-même, et la rouille du faux mangeait déjà ces abstraites ferrailles. (...) Les notions mouraient comme les hommes: il avait vu au cours d'un demi-siècle plusieurs générations d'idées tomber en poussière.
(L'abîme) "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , L'Œuvre au noir
150
" Szczerszy niż większość ludzi, wyznaję bez ogródek, jakie były sekretne przyczyny tego błogostanu: ten spokój, tak sprzyjający pracom i ćwiczeniom umysłu, wydaje mi się jednym z najpiękniejszych skutków miłości. I dziwię się, że te radości tak niepewne, tak rzadko doskonałe w trakcie ludzkiego życia, pod jakąkolwiek formą szukalibyśmy ich albo je otrzymali; są traktowane tak podejrzliwie przez domniemanych mędrców, że boją się przywyknięcia do nich i ich nadmiaru zamiast się bać ich braku i utraty, że marnują na dręczenie własnych zmysłów czas, który by lepiej zużyli równoważąc i upiększając swoje dusze. "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , Memoirs of Hadrian
154
" My ideal was contained within the word beauty, so difficult to define despite all the evidence of our senses. I felt responsible for sustaining and increasing the beauty of the world. I wanted the cities to be splendid, spacious and airy, their streets sprayed with clean water, their inhabitants all human beings whose bodies were neither degraded by marks of misery and servitude nor bloated by vulgar riches; I desired that the schoolboys should recite correctly some useful lessons; that the women presiding in their households should move with maternal dignity, expressing both vigor and calm; that the gymnasiums should be used by youths not unversed in arts and in sports; that the orchards should bear the finest fruits and the fields the richest harvests. I desired that the might and majesty of the Roman Peace should extend to all, insensibly present like the music of the revolving skies; that the most humble traveller might wander from one country, or one continent, to another without vexatious formalities, and without danger, assured everywhere of a minimum of legal protection and culture; that our soldiers should continue their eternal pyrrhic dance on the frontiers; that everything should go smoothly, whether workshops or temples; that the sea should be furrowed by brave ships, and the roads resounding to frequent carriages; that, in a world well ordered, the philosophers should have their place, and the dancers also. This ideal, modest on the whole, would be often enough approached if men would devote to it one part of the energy which they expend on stupid or cruel activities; great good fortune has allowed me a partial realization of my aims during the last quarter of a century. Arrian of Nicomedia, one of the best minds of our time, likes to recall to me the beautiful lines of ancient Terpander, defining in three words the Spartan ideal (that perfect mode of life to which Lacedaemon aspired without ever attaining it): Strength, Justice, the Muses. Strength was the basis, discipline without which there is no beauty, and firmness without which there is no justice. Justice was the balance of the parts, that whole so harmoniously composed which no excess should be permitted to endanger. Strength and justice together were but one instrument, well tuned, in the hands of the Muses. All forms of dire poverty and brutality were things to forbid as insults to the fair body of mankind, every injustice a false note to avoid in the harmony of the spheres. "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , Memoirs of Hadrian
155
" I have traversed at least one part of this sphere where we are; I have studied the fecundation of plants and the point at which metals fuse; I have observed the stars and have examined the inside of bodies. From this brand that I lift here I can deduce a concept of weight, and from these flames the concept of warmth. What I do not know, I know full well that I do not know, and I envy those who will eventually know more; but I know also that, exactly like me, they will be obliged to measure, deduce, and then mistrust the deductions so produced; they will have to make allowance for the part which is true in any falsehood, and likewise reckon the eternal admixture of falsity in truth.
I have never clung blindly to some idea for fear of the perplexity into which I should fall if I let it go. I have never seasoned a truth with the sauce of a lie in order to digest it more easily. I have never misrepresented the views of my adversary to get the better of him more readily, not even the views of Bombastus during our debate on antimony (though he showed no gratitude for my restraint). Or perhaps, yes: I have caught myself in the act of such misrepresentation, and each time reprimanded myself as if I were scolding a dishonest valet; I could trust myself again only after promising myself to do better. I have dreamed my dreams, but I do not take them for anything more than dreams. I have refrained from making an idol of truth, preferring to leave to it its more modest name of exactitude. My triumphs and my dangers are not the ones that people suppose: there are other glories than fame and other fires than those of the stake. I have almost attained to the point of distrusting words. I shall die a little less witless than I was born. "
― Marguerite Yourcenar , L'Œuvre au noir
