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
Swipe or use the arrow keys.
Facing Pages · Branch 52 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 199–206
French
p. 106- Elle est de la Havane, du pays le plus espagnol qu’il y ait dans le Nouveau Monde; elle a donc mieux aimé jouer la terreur que de me jeter au nez de la souffrance, de la difficulté, de la coquetterie ou le devoir, comme font les Parisiennes. Par ses yeux d’or, j’ai bien envie de dormir.
Il vit un cabriolet de place, qui stationnait au coin de Frascati, en attendant quelques joueurs, il le réveilla, se fit conduire chez lui, se coucha, et s’endormit du sommeil des mauvais sujets, lequel, par une bizarrerie dont aucun chansonnier n’a encore tiré parti, se trouve être aussi profond que celui de l’innocence. Peut-être est-ce un effet de cet axiome proverbial, les extrêmes se touchent.
Vers midi, de Marsay se détira les bras en se réveillant, et sentit les atteintes d’une de ces faims canines que tous les vieux soldats peuvent se souvenir d’avoir éprouvée au lendemain de la victoire. Aussi vit-il devant lui Paul de Manerville avec plaisir, car rien n’est alors plus agréable que de manger en compagnie.
- Eh! bien, lui dit son ami, nous imaginions tous que tu t’étais enfermé depuis dix jours avec la Fille aux yeux d’or.
- La Fille aux yeux d’or! je n’y pense plus. Ma foi! j’ai bien d’autres chats à fouetter.
- Ah! tu fais le discret.
- Pourquoi pas? dit en riant de Marsay. Mon cher, la discrétion est le plus habile des calculs. Écoute… Mais non, je ne te dirai pas un mot. Tu ne m’apprends jamais rien, je ne suis pas disposé à donner en pure perte les trésors de ma politique. La vie est un fleuve qui sert à faire du commerce. Par tout ce qu’il y a de plus sacré sur la terre, par les cigares, je ne suis pas un professeur d’économie sociale mise à la portée des niais. Déjeunons. Il est moins coûteux de te donner une omelette au thon que de te prodiguer ma cervelle.
- Tu comptes avec tes amis?
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 107“She is from Havana, from the most Spanish country there is in the New World; she therefore preferred to act terror rather than throw suffering, difficulty, coquetry, or duty in my face, as Parisian women do. By her golden eyes, I very much want to sleep.”
He saw a hired cabriolet that was standing at the corner of Frascati while waiting for a few gamblers; he woke its driver, had himself driven home, went to bed, and fell asleep with the sleep of bad characters, which, through an oddity no song writer has yet used, happens to be as deep as that of innocence. Perhaps this is an effect of the proverbial axiom, extremes meet.
Toward noon, de Marsay stretched his arms as he woke and felt the attacks of one of those canine hungers that all old soldiers can remember having experienced on the day after victory. Thus he saw Paul de Manerville before him with pleasure, for nothing is then more agreeable than to eat in company.
“Well!” his friend said to him, “we all imagined that you had shut yourself up for ten days with the Girl with the Golden Eyes.”
“The Girl with the Golden Eyes! I no longer think of her. Upon my word! I have many other fish to fry.”
“Ah! You are being discreet.”
“Why not?” said de Marsay, laughing. “My dear fellow, discretion is the most skillful of calculations. Listen... But no, I will not tell you a word. You never teach me anything; I am not disposed to give away the treasures of my policy at a pure loss. Life is a river used for commerce. By all that is most sacred on earth, by cigars, I am not a professor of social economy brought within the reach of fools. Let us breakfast. It is less costly to give you a tuna omelet than to lavish my brain upon you.”
“You keep accounts with your friends?”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 199–206
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.