The Girl with the Golden Eyes

Name: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Author: Honoré de Balzac

La Fille aux yeux d’or · French with an independent close English translation

The Girl with the Golden EyesNovella · ¶¶ 91–96

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Facing Pages · Branch 35 of 66

Novella · ¶¶ 91–96

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French

p. 72

- Messe blanche, dit Henri; mais il m’est venu la plus excellente idée du monde. Cette fille reçoit des lettres de Londres, il faut acheter ou griser le facteur, décacheter une lettre, naturellement la lire, y glisser un petit billet doux, et la recacheter. Le vieux tyran, crudel tiranno, doit sans doute connaître la personne qui écrit les lettres venant de Londres et ne s’en défie plus.

Le lendemain, de Marsay vint encore se promener au soleil sur la terrasse des Feuillants, et y vit Paquita Valdès: déjà pour lui la passion l’avait embellie. Il s’affola sérieusement de ces yeux dont les rayons semblaient avoir la nature de ceux que lance le soleil et dont l’ardeur résumait celle de ce corps parfait où tout était volupté. De Marsay brûlait de frôler la robe de cette séduisante fille quand ils se rencontraient dans leur promenade; mais ses tentatives étaient toujours vaines. En un moment où il avait dépassé la duègne et Paquita, pour pouvoir se trouver du côté de la Fille aux yeux d’or quand il se retournerait, Paquita, non moins impatiente, s’avança vivement, et de Marsay se sentit presser la main par elle d’une façon tout à la fois si rapide et si passionnément significative, qu’il crut avoir reçu le choc d’une étincelle électrique. En un instant toutes ses émotions de jeunesse lui sourdirent au cœur. Quand les deux amants se regardèrent, Paquita parut honteuse; elle baissa les yeux pour ne pas revoir les yeux d’Henri, mais son regard se coula par en dessous pour regarder les pieds et la taille de celui que les femmes nommaient avant la révolution leur vainqueur.

- J’aurai décidément cette fille pour maîtresse, se dit Henri.

En la suivant au bout de la terrasse, du côté de la place Louis XV, il aperçut le vieux marquis de San-Réal qui se promenait appuyé sur le bras de son valet de chambre, en marchant avec toute la précaution d’un goutteux et d’un cacochyme. Dona Concha, qui se défiait d’Henri, fit passer Paquita entre elle et le vieillard.

- Oh! toi, se dit de Marsay en jetant un regard de mépris sur la duègne, si l’on ne peut pas te faire capituler, avec un peu d’opium l’on t’endormira. Nous connaissons la Mythologie et la fable d’Argus.

Avant de monter en voiture, la Fille aux yeux d’or échangea avec son amant quelques regards dont l’expression n’était pas douteuse et dont Henri fut ravi; mais la duègne en surprit un, et dit vivement quelques mots à Paquita, qui se jeta dans le coupé d’un air désespéré. Pendant quelques jours Paquita ne vint plus aux Tuileries. Laurent, qui, par ordre de son maître, alla faire le guet autour de l’hôtel, apprit par les voisins que ni les deux femmes ni le vieux marquis n’étaient sortis depuis le jour où la duègne avait surpris un regard entre la jeune fille commise à sa garde et Henri. Le lien si faible qui unissait les deux amants était donc déjà rompu.

The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella

p. 73

“White Mass,” said Henri; “but the most excellent idea in the world has come to me. This girl receives letters from London; we must buy or get the postman drunk, unseal a letter, naturally read it, slip a little love note into it, and reseal it. The old tyrant, crudel tiranno, must no doubt know the person who writes the letters coming from London and no longer distrust that person.”

The next day, de Marsay again came to walk in the sun on the terrace of the Feuillants, and there saw Paquita Valdès: already, for him, passion had embellished her. He became seriously mad over those eyes whose rays seemed to have the nature of those cast by the sun and whose ardor summed up that of this perfect body in which everything was voluptuousness. De Marsay burned to brush the dress of this seductive girl when they met in their walk; but his attempts were always vain. At a moment when he had gone past the duenna and Paquita in order to be able to find himself on the side of the Girl with the Golden Eyes when he turned, Paquita, no less impatient, advanced quickly, and de Marsay felt his hand pressed by her in a manner at once so rapid and so passionately significant that he believed he had received the shock of an electric spark. In an instant all the emotions of his youth welled up in his heart. When the two lovers looked at each other, Paquita appeared ashamed; she lowered her eyes so as not to see Henri's eyes again, but her gaze slid beneath them to look at the feet and figure of the man whom women before the Revolution called their conqueror.

“I shall decidedly have this girl as my mistress,” Henri said to himself.

Following her to the end of the terrace, on the side of the place Louis XV, he perceived the old Marquis de San-Réal, who was walking supported on the arm of his valet de chambre, moving with all the precaution of a gouty and decrepit man. Doña Concha, who distrusted Henri, made Paquita pass between herself and the old man.

“Oh! you,” de Marsay said to himself, casting a contemptuous look upon the duenna, “if one cannot make you capitulate, one will put you to sleep with a little opium. We know Mythology and the fable of Argus.”

Before entering the carriage, the Girl with the Golden Eyes exchanged with her lover a few looks whose meaning was not doubtful and with which Henri was delighted; but the duenna caught one of them and sharply said a few words to Paquita, who threw herself into the coupé with an air of despair. For several days Paquita no longer came to the Tuileries. Laurent, who at his master's order went to keep watch around the mansion, learned from the neighbors that neither the two women nor the old marquis had gone out since the day when the duenna had caught a look between the young girl committed to her keeping and Henri. The bond so weak that united the two lovers was therefore already broken.

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.

Discussion Questions

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.