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
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English Page · Branch 3 of 66
Novella · ¶ 3
French
p. 8À force de s’intéresser à tout, le Parisien finit par ne s’intéresser à rien. Aucun sentiment ne dominant sur sa face usée par le frottement, elle devient grise comme le plâtre des maisons qui a reçu toute espèce de poussière et de fumée. En effet, indifférent la veille à ce dont il s’enivrera le lendemain, le Parisien vit en enfant quel que soit son âge. Il murmure de tout, se console de tout, se moque de tout, oublie tout, veut tout, goûte à tout, prend tout avec passion, quitte tout avec insouciance; ses rois, ses conquêtes, sa gloire, son idole, qu’elle soit de bronze ou de verre; comme il jette ses bas, ses chapeaux et sa fortune. À Paris, aucun sentiment ne résiste au jet des choses, et leur courant oblige à une lutte qui détend les passions: l’amour y est un désir, et la haine une velléité; il n’y a là de vrai parent que le billet de mille francs, d’autre ami que le Mont-de-Piété. Ce laissez-aller général porte ses fruits; et, dans le salon, comme dans la rue, personne n’y est de trop, personne n’y est absolument utile, ni absolument nuisible: les sots et les fripons, comme les gens d’esprit ou de probité. Tout y est toléré, le gouvernement et la guillotine, la religion et le choléra. Vous convenez toujours à ce monde, vous n’y manquez jamais. Qui donc domine en ce pays sans mœurs, sans croyance, sans aucun sentiment; mais d’où partent et où aboutissent tous les sentiments, toutes les croyances et toutes les mœurs? L’or et le plaisir. Prenez ces deux mots comme une lumière et parcourez cette grande cage de plâtre, cette ruche à ruisseaux noirs, et suivez-y les serpenteaux de cette pensée qui l’agite, la soulève, la travaille? Voyez. Examinez d’abord le monde qui n’a rien?
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 9By dint of taking an interest in everything, the Parisian ends by taking an interest in nothing. No feeling predominating upon his face, worn by friction, it becomes gray like the plaster of houses that has received every kind of dust and smoke. In fact, indifferent the day before to that with which he will intoxicate himself the next day, the Parisian lives as a child whatever his age. He complains of everything, consoles himself for everything, mocks everything, forgets everything, wants everything, tastes everything, takes everything up with passion, leaves everything with unconcern; his kings, his conquests, his glory, his idol, whether it is of bronze or glass; as he throws away his stockings, his hats, and his fortune. In Paris, no feeling withstands the jet of things, and their current compels a struggle that relaxes the passions: love there is a desire, and hatred a velleity; there is no true relative there but the thousand-franc note, no other friend but the Mont-de-Piété. This general laxity bears its fruits; and, in the drawing room as in the street, no one there is one too many, no one there is absolutely useful, nor absolutely harmful: fools and rogues, as well as people of wit or probity. Everything is tolerated there, the government and the guillotine, religion and cholera. You always suit this world, you are never missed in it. What, then, rules in this country without morals, without belief, without any feeling; but from which all feelings, all beliefs, and all morals depart and at which they arrive? Gold and pleasure. Take these two words as a light and traverse this great cage of plaster, this hive with black streams, and follow within it the little serpents of this thought that agitates it, lifts it, works it? Look. First examine the world that has nothing?
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶ 3
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.