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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French Page · Branch 49 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 179–188
French
p. 100Paquita se leva doucement, les yeux en pleurs, alla prendre dans un des deux meubles d’ébène un poignard et l’offrit à Henri par un geste de soumission qui aurait attendri un tigre.
- Donne-moi une fête comme en donnent les hommes quand ils aiment, dit-elle, et pendant que je dormirai, tue-moi, car je ne saurais te répondre. Écoute: Je suis attachée comme un pauvre animal à son piquet, je suis étonnée d’avoir pu jeter un pont sur l’abîme qui nous sépare. Enivre-moi, puis tue-moi. Oh! non, non, dit-elle en joignant les mains, ne me tue pas! j’aime la vie! La vie est si belle pour moi! Si je suis esclave, je suis reine aussi. Je pourrais t’abuser par des paroles, te dire que je n’aime que toi, te le prouver, profiter de mon empire momentané pour te dire: - Prends-moi comme on goûte en passant le parfum d’une fleur dans le jardin d’un roi. Puis, après avoir déployé l’éloquence rusée de la femme et les ailes du plaisir, après avoir désaltéré ma soif, je pourrais te faire jeter dans un puits où personne ne te trouverait, et qui a été construit pour satisfaire la vengeance sans avoir à redouter celle de la justice, un puits plein de chaux qui s’allumerait pour te consumer sans qu’on retrouvât une parcelle de ton être. Tu resterais dans mon cœur, à moi pour toujours.
Henri regarda cette fille sans trembler, et ce regard sans peur la combla de joie.
- Non, je ne le ferai pas! tu n’es pas tombé ici dans un piége, mais dans un cœur de femme qui t’adore, et c’est moi qui serai jetée dans le puits.
- Tout cela me paraît prodigieusement drôle, lui dit de Marsay en l’examinant. Mais tu me parais une bonne fille, une nature bizarre; tu es, foi d’honnête homme, une charade vivante dont le mot me semble bien difficile à trouver.
Paquita ne comprit rien à ce que disait le jeune homme; elle le regarda doucement en ouvrant des yeux qui ne pouvaient jamais être bêtes, tant il s’y peignait de volupté.
- Tiens, mon amour, dit-elle en revenant à sa première idée, veux-tu me plaire?
- Je ferai tout ce que tu voudras, et même ce que tu ne voudras pas, répondit en riant de Marsay qui retrouva son aisance de fat en prenant la résolution de se laisser aller au cours de sa bonne fortune sans regarder ni en arrière ni en avant. Puis peut-être comptait-il sur sa puissance et sur son savoir-faire d’homme à bonnes fortunes pour dominer quelques heures plus tard cette fille, et en apprendre tous les secrets.
- Eh! bien, lui dit-elle, laisse-moi t’arranger à mon goût.
- Mets-moi donc à ton goût, dit Henri.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 101Paquita rose gently, her eyes in tears, went to take a dagger from one of the two ebony cabinets, and offered it to Henri with a gesture of submission that would have moved a tiger.
“Give me a feast such as men give when they love,” she said, “and while I am sleeping, kill me, for I cannot answer you. Listen: I am tied like a poor animal to its stake; I am astonished to have been able to throw a bridge across the abyss that separates us. Intoxicate me, then kill me. Oh! no, no,” she said, clasping her hands, “do not kill me! I love life! Life is so beautiful to me! If I am a slave, I am also a queen. I could deceive you with words, tell you that I love only you, prove it to you, profit from my momentary dominion to say to you: ‘Take me as one tastes in passing the perfume of a flower in a king’s garden.’ Then, after having unfurled woman’s cunning eloquence and the wings of pleasure, after having quenched my thirst, I could have you thrown into a well where no one would find you, and which was built to satisfy vengeance without having to fear that of justice, a well full of lime that would ignite in order to consume you without a particle of your being being found. You would remain in my heart, mine forever.”
Henri looked at this girl without trembling, and this fearless gaze filled her with joy.
“No, I will not do it! You have not fallen here into a trap, but into a woman’s heart that adores you, and it is I who will be thrown into the well.”
“All that seems prodigiously funny to me,” de Marsay told her while examining her. “But you seem to me a good girl, a strange nature; upon the word of an honest man, you are a living charade whose answer seems very difficult to me to find.”
Paquita understood nothing of what the young man was saying; she looked at him gently, opening eyes that could never be stupid, so much voluptuousness was depicted in them.
“Look, my love,” she said, returning to her first idea, “do you want to please me?”
“I will do everything you want, and even what you do not want,” de Marsay replied, laughing, recovering his fop’s ease as he resolved to let himself follow the course of his good fortune without looking either backward or forward. Then perhaps he counted on his power and on his savoir-faire as a man of conquests to master this girl a few hours later and learn all her secrets.
“Well then,” she told him, “let me arrange you to my taste.”
“Then put me to your taste,” said Henri.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 179–188
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.