Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Girl with the Golden Eyes
La Fille aux yeux d’or · French with an independent close English translation
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
French Page · Branch 12 of 66
Novella · ¶ 9
French
p. 26Au-dessus de cette sphère, vit le monde artiste. Mais là encore les visages marqués du sceau de l’originalité, sont noblement brisés, mais brisés, fatigués, sinueux. Excédés par un besoin de produire, dépassés par leurs coûteuses fantaisies, lassés par un génie dévoreur, affamés de plaisir, les artistes de Paris veulent tous regagner par d’excessifs travaux les lacunes laissées par la paresse, et cherchent vainement à concilier le monde et la gloire, l’argent et l’art. En commençant, l’artiste est sans cesse haletant sous le créancier; ses besoins enfantent les dettes, et ses dettes lui demandent ses nuits. Après le travail, le plaisir. Le comédien joue jusqu’à minuit, étudie le matin, répète à midi; le sculpteur plie sous sa statue; le journaliste est une pensée en marche comme le soldat en guerre; le peintre en vogue est accablé d’ouvrage, le peintre sans occupation se ronge les entrailles s’il se sent homme de génie. La concurrence, les rivalités, les calomnies assassinent ces talents. Les uns, désespérés, roulent dans les abîmes du vice, les autres meurent jeunes et ignorés pour s’être escompté trop tôt leur avenir. Peu de ces figures, primitivement sublimes, restent belles. D’ailleurs la beauté flamboyante de leurs têtes demeure incomprise. Un visage d’artiste est toujours exorbitant, il se trouve toujours en dessus ou en dessous des lignes convenues pour ce que les imbéciles nomment le beau idéal. Quelle puissance les détruit? La passion. Toute passion à Paris se résout par deux termes: or et plaisir.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 27Above this sphere lives the world of artists. But there again the faces marked with the seal of originality are nobly broken, but broken, tired, sinuous. Driven beyond endurance by a need to produce, surpassed by their costly fantasies, wearied by a devouring genius, famished for pleasure, the artists of Paris all want to regain through excessive labors the gaps left by idleness, and vainly seek to reconcile the world and glory, money and art. At the beginning, the artist is incessantly panting beneath the creditor; his needs beget debts, and his debts demand his nights from him. After work, pleasure. The actor performs until midnight, studies in the morning, rehearses at noon; the sculptor bends beneath his statue; the journalist is a thought on the march like the soldier at war; the painter in vogue is overwhelmed with work, the unoccupied painter gnaws his entrails if he feels himself a man of genius. Competition, rivalries, slanders assassinate these talents. Some, desperate, roll into the abysses of vice, the others die young and unknown for having discounted their future too soon. Few of these faces, originally sublime, remain beautiful. Moreover the flaming beauty of their heads remains misunderstood. An artist's face is always exorbitant, it is always above or below the accepted lines for what imbeciles call ideal beauty. What power destroys them? Passion. Every passion in Paris resolves itself into two terms: gold and pleasure.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶ 9
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Honoré de Balzac’s The Girl with the Golden Eyes turns Paris into a charged study of wealth, appetite, spectacle, secrecy, possession, and power. This exact page-aligned Literary Fiction edition presents the novella’s continuous movement in French with an independent close English translation prepared by Diotimos Editions.
Historical Text and Translation
The French reading text follows the 1843 Furne edition as presented in the Furne corrigé transcription at eBalzac and is checked, where needed, against the Gallica image of the volume. The original hierarchy, dedication to Eugène Delacroix, continuous sectioning, and closing 1834–1835 dateline are retained.
About Diotimos Editions
Diotimos Editions prepared this independent close translation directly from the French. Meaning, agency, logic, degree, reference, image, repetition, and ambiguity take precedence over elegance; Balzac’s clause order and long accumulations remain wherever grammatical English can bear them.
Rights
Balzac’s French source work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.