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 38 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 110–123
French
p. 78- Eh! bien, voilà qui commence à se dessiner, se dit en lui-même Henri. Paul, laisse-nous seuls un moment.
- Je lui ai traduit cette lettre, reprit l’interprète lorsqu’ils furent seuls. Quand elle fut traduite, il a été je ne sais où. Puis il est revenu me chercher pour m’amener ici en me promettant deux louis.
- Qu’as-tu à me dire, Chinois? demanda Henri.
- Je ne lui ai pas dit Chinois, dit l’interprète en attendant la réponse du mulâtre.
- Il dit, monsieur, reprit l’interprète après avoir écouté l’inconnu, qu’il faut que vous vous trouviez demain soir, à dix heures et demie, sur le boulevard Montmartre, auprès du café. Vous y verrez une voiture, dans laquelle vous monterez en disant à celui qui sera prêt à ouvrir la portière le mot cortejo, un mot espagnol qui veut dire amant, ajouta Poincet en jetant un regard de félicitation à Henri.
- Bien!
Le mulâtre voulut donner deux louis; mais de Marsay ne le souffrit pas et récompensa l’interprète; pendant qu’il le payait, le mulâtre proféra quelques paroles.
- Que dit-il?
- Il me prévient, répondit l’homme malheureux, que, si je fais une seule indiscrétion, il m’étranglera. Il est gentil, et il a très-fort l’air d’en être capable.
- J’en suis sûr, répondit Henri. Il le ferait comme il le dit.
- Il ajoute, reprit l’interprète, que la personne dont il est l’envoyé vous supplie, pour vous et pour elle, de mettre la plus grande prudence dans vos actions, parce que les poignards levés sur vos têtes tomberaient dans vos cœurs, sans qu’aucune puissance humaine pût vous en garantir.
- Il a dit cela! Tant mieux, ce sera plus amusant. - Mais tu peux entrer, Paul! cria-t-il à son ami.
Le mulâtre, qui n’avait pas cessé de regarder l’amant de Paquita Valdès avec une attention magnétique, s’en alla suivi de l’interprète.
- Enfin, voici donc une aventure bien romanesque, se dit Henri quand Paul revint. À force de participer à quelques-unes, j’ai fini par rencontrer dans ce Paris une intrigue accompagnée de circonstances graves, de périls majeurs. Ah! diantre, combien le danger rend la femme hardie! Gêner une femme, la vouloir contraindre, n’est-ce pas lui donner le droit et le courage de franchir en un moment des barrières qu’elle mettrait des années à sauter? Gentille créature, va, saute. Mourir? pauvre enfant! Des poignards? imagination de femmes! Elles sentent toutes le besoin de faire valoir leur petite plaisanterie. D’ailleurs on y pensera, Paquita! on y pensera, ma fille! Le diable m’emporte, maintenant que je sais que cette belle fille, ce chef-d’œuvre de la nature est à moi, l’aventure a perdu de son piquant.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 79“Well, this is beginning to take shape,” Henri said within himself. “Paul, leave us alone for a moment.”
“I translated this letter for him,” the interpreter resumed when they were alone. “When it was translated, he went I do not know where. Then he came back to fetch me in order to bring me here, promising me two louis.”
“What have you to tell me, Chinaman?” Henri asked.
“I did not say Chinaman to him,” said the interpreter while waiting for the mulatto's answer.
“He says, monsieur,” the interpreter resumed after listening to the unknown man, “that you must be tomorrow evening, at half past ten, on the boulevard Montmartre, near the café. You will see a carriage there, into which you will enter after saying to the man who will be ready to open the door the word cortejo, a Spanish word that means lover,” Poincet added, casting a congratulatory look at Henri.
“Good!”
The mulatto wished to give two louis; but de Marsay did not permit it and rewarded the interpreter; while he was paying him, the mulatto uttered a few words.
“What does he say?”
“He warns me,” the unhappy man replied, “that if I commit a single indiscretion, he will strangle me. He is agreeable, and he very much looks capable of it.”
“I am sure of it,” Henri replied. “He would do it as he says.”
“He adds,” the interpreter resumed, “that the person whose envoy he is begs you, for your sake and for hers, to put the greatest prudence into your actions, because the daggers raised above your heads would fall into your hearts without any human power being able to protect you from them.”
“He said that! So much the better; it will be more amusing.” “But you may come in, Paul!” he cried to his friend.
The mulatto, who had not ceased looking at Paquita Valdès's lover with magnetic attention, went away followed by the interpreter.
“At last, here then is a very romantic adventure,” Henri said to himself when Paul returned. “By dint of taking part in a few, I have ended by finding in this Paris an intrigue accompanied by grave circumstances, by major perils. Ah! devil, how bold danger makes woman! To hamper a woman, to wish to constrain her, is that not to give her the right and courage to cross in a moment barriers she would take years to leap? Go, sweet creature, leap. Die? poor child! Daggers? women's imagination! They all feel the need to set off their little joke. Besides, we shall think about that, Paquita! we shall think about it, my girl! The devil take me, now that I know this beautiful girl, this masterpiece of nature, is mine, the adventure has lost its piquancy.”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 110–123
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.