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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Facing Pages · Branch 33 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 84–88
French
p. 68Laurent avait apporté devant son maître tant d’ustensiles, tant de meubles différents, et de si jolies choses, que Paul ne put s’empêcher de dire: - Mais, tu vas en avoir pour deux heures?
- Non! dit Henri, deux heures et demie.
- Eh! bien, puisque nous sommes entre nous et que nous pouvons tout nous dire, explique-moi pourquoi un homme supérieur autant que tu l’es, car tu es supérieur, affecte d’outrer une fatuité qui ne doit pas être naturelle en lui. Pourquoi passer deux heures et demie à s’étriller, quand il suffit d’entrer un quart d’heure dans un bain, de se peigner en deux temps, et de se vêtir? Là, dis-moi ton système.
- Il faut que je t’aime bien, mon gros balourd, pour te confier de si hautes pensées, dit le jeune homme qui se faisait en ce moment brosser les pieds avec une brosse douce frottée de savon anglais.
- Mais je t’ai voué le plus sincère attachement, répondit Paul de Manerville, et je t’aime en te trouvant supérieur à moi…
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 69Laurent had brought before his master so many implements, so many different pieces of furniture, and such pretty things, that Paul could not keep from saying: “But this is going to take you two hours?”
“No!” said Henri. “Two and a half hours.”
“Well, since we are between ourselves and can tell each other everything, explain to me why a man as superior as you are, for you are superior, affects to carry to excess a foppery that cannot be natural in him. Why spend two and a half hours currying oneself, when it is enough to enter a bath for a quarter of an hour, comb one's hair in two movements, and dress? Come, tell me your system.”
“I must love you very much, you great blockhead, to entrust such lofty thoughts to you,” said the young man, whose feet were at that moment being brushed with a soft brush rubbed with English soap.
“But I have vowed the sincerest attachment to you,” Paul de Manerville replied, “and I love you while finding you superior to me...”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 84–88
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.