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 48 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 167–178
French
p. 98Ce fut au milieu d’une vaporeuse atmosphère chargée de parfums exquis que Paquita, vêtue d’un peignoir blanc, les pieds nus, des fleurs d’oranger dans ses cheveux noirs, apparut à Henri agenouillée devant lui, l’adorant comme le dieu de ce temple où il avait daigné venir. Quoique de Marsay eût l’habitude de voir les recherches du luxe parisien, il fut surpris à l’aspect de cette coquille, semblable à celle où naquit Vénus. Soit effet du contraste entre les ténèbres d’où il sortait et la lumière qui baignait son âme, soit par une comparaison rapidement faite entre cette scène et celle de la première entrevue, il éprouva une de ces sensations délicates que donne la vraie poésie. En apercevant, au milieu de ce réduit éclos par la baguette d’une fée, le chef-d’œuvre de la création, cette fille dont le teint chaudement coloré, dont la peau douce, mais légèrement dorée par les reflets du rouge et par l’effusion de je ne sais quelle vapeur d’amour étincelait comme si elle eût réfléchi les rayons des lumières et des couleurs, sa colère, ses désirs de vengeance, sa vanité blessée, tout tomba. Comme un aigle qui fond sur sa proie, il la prit à plein corps, l’assit sur ses genoux, et sentit avec une indicible ivresse la voluptueuse pression de cette fille dont les beautés si grassement développées l’enveloppèrent doucement.
- Viens, Paquita! dit-il à voix basse.
- Parle! parle sans crainte, lui dit-elle. Cette retraite a été construite pour l’amour. Aucun son ne s’en échappe, tant on y veut ambitieusement garder les accents et les musiques de la voix aimée. Quelque forts que soient des cris, ils ne sauraient être entendus au delà de cette enceinte. On y peut assassiner quelqu’un, ses plaintes y seraient vaines comme s’il était au milieu du Grand Désert.
- Qui donc a si bien compris la jalousie et ses besoins?
- Ne me questionne jamais là-dessus, répondit-elle en défaisant avec une incroyable gentillesse de geste la cravate du jeune homme, sans doute pour en bien voir le col.
- Oui, voilà ce cou que j’aime tant! dit-elle. Veux-tu me plaire?
Cette interrogation, que l’accent rendait presque lascive, tira de Marsay de la rêverie où l’avait plongé la despotique réponse par laquelle Paquita lui avait interdit toute recherche sur l’être inconnu qui planait comme une ombre au-dessus d’eux.
- Et si je voulais savoir qui règne ici?
Paquita le regarda en tremblant.
- Ce n’est donc pas moi, dit-il en se levant et se débarrassant de cette fille qui tomba la tête en arrière. Je veux être seul, là où je suis.
- Frappant! frappant! dit la pauvre esclave en proie à la terreur.
- Pour qui me prends-tu donc? Répondras-tu?
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 99It was in the midst of a vaporous atmosphere laden with exquisite perfumes that Paquita, dressed in a white peignoir, barefoot, orange blossoms in her black hair, appeared to Henri kneeling before him, adoring him as the god of this temple to which he had deigned to come. Although de Marsay was accustomed to seeing the refinements of Parisian luxury, he was surprised at the sight of this shell, like the one in which Venus was born. Whether through the effect of the contrast between the darkness from which he emerged and the light that bathed his soul, or through a comparison rapidly made between this scene and that of the first meeting, he experienced one of those delicate sensations given by true poetry. On seeing, in the midst of this retreat hatched by a fairy’s wand, the masterpiece of creation, this girl whose warmly colored complexion, whose soft skin, but slightly gilded by the reflections of red and by the effusion of some indefinable vapor of love, sparkled as though it reflected the rays of the lights and colors, his anger, his desires for vengeance, his wounded vanity, everything fell away. Like an eagle that swoops upon its prey, he took her bodily, seated her on his knees, and felt with an inexpressible intoxication the voluptuous pressure of this girl whose so amply developed beauties softly enveloped him.
“Come, Paquita!” he said in a low voice.
“Speak! speak without fear,” she told him. “This retreat was built for love. No sound escapes from it, so ambitiously does one wish to preserve there the accents and the music of the beloved voice. However loud cries may be, they could not be heard beyond this enclosure. Someone could be murdered here; his complaints would be as vain as if he were in the middle of the Great Desert.”
“Who, then, has understood jealousy and its needs so well?”
“Never question me about that,” she replied, undoing the young man’s cravat with an incredibly charming gesture, no doubt in order to see his neck well.
“Yes, there is the neck I love so much!” she said. “Do you want to please me?”
This question, which her accent made almost lascivious, drew de Marsay from the reverie into which the despotic answer by which Paquita had forbidden him all inquiry into the unknown being who hovered like a shadow above them had plunged him.
“And if I wanted to know who reigns here?”
Paquita looked at him, trembling.
“Then it is not I,” he said, rising and freeing himself from this girl, who fell with her head backward. “I mean to be alone where I am.”
“Hitting! hitting!” said the poor slave, in the grip of terror.
“What, then, do you take me for? Will you answer?”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 167–178
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.