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 · ¶¶ 207–210

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French Page · Branch 53 of 66

Novella · ¶¶ 207–210

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French

p. 108

- Mon cher, dit Henri qui se refusait rarement une ironie, comme il pourrait t’arriver cependant tout comme à un autre d’avoir besoin de discrétion, et que je t’aime beaucoup… Oui, je t’aime! Ma parole d’honneur, s’il ne te fallait qu’un billet de mille francs pour t’empêcher de te brûler la cervelle, tu le trouverais ici, car nous n’avons encore rien hypothéqué là-bas, hein, Paul? Si tu te battais demain, je mesurerais la distance et chargerais les pistolets, afin que tu sois tué dans les règles. Enfin, si une personne autre que moi s’avisait de dire du mal de toi en ton absence, il faudrait se mesurer avec un rude gentilhomme qui se trouve dans ma peau, voilà ce que j’appelle une amitié à toute épreuve. Hé! bien, quand tu auras besoin de discrétion, mon petit, apprends qu’il existe deux espèces de discrétions: discrétion active et discrétion négative. La discrétion négative est celle des sots qui emploient le silence, la négation, l’air renfrogné, la discrétion des portes fermées, véritable impuissance! La discrétion active procède par affirmation. Si ce soir, au Cercle, je disais: - Foi d’honnête homme, la Fille aux yeux d’or ne valait pas ce qu’elle m’a coûté! tout le monde, quand je serais parti, s’écrierait: - Avez-vous entendu ce fat de de Marsay qui voudrait nous faire accroire qu’il a déjà eu la Fille aux yeux d’or? il voudrait ainsi se débarrasser de ses rivaux, il n’est pas maladroit. Mais cette ruse est vulgaire et dangereuse. Quelque grosse que soit la sottise qui nous échappe, il se rencontre toujours des niais qui peuvent y croire. La meilleure des discrétions est celle dont usent les femmes adroites quand elles veulent donner le change à leurs maris. Elle consiste à compromettre une femme à laquelle nous ne tenons pas, ou que nous n’aimons pas, ou que nous n’avons pas, pour conserver l’honneur de celle que nous aimons assez pour la respecter. C’est ce que j’appelle la femme-écran. - Ha! voici Laurent. Que nous apportes-tu?

- Des huîtres d’Ostende, monsieur le comte…

- Tu sauras quelque jour, Paul, combien il est amusant de se jouer du monde en lui dérobant le secret de nos affections. J’éprouve un immense plaisir d’échapper à la stupide juridiction de la masse qui ne sait jamais ni ce qu’elle veut ni ce qu’on lui fait vouloir, qui prend le moyen pour le résultat, qui tour à tour adore et maudit, élève et détruit! Quel bonheur de lui imposer des émotions et de n’en pas recevoir, de la dompter, de ne jamais lui obéir! Si l’on peut être fier de quelque chose, n’est-ce pas d’un pouvoir acquis par soi-même, dont nous sommes à la fois la cause, l’effet, le principe et le résultat? Hé! bien, aucun homme ne sait qui j’aime, ni ce que je veux. Peut-être saura-t-on qui j’ai aimé, ce que j’aurai aimé, ce que j’aurai voulu, comme on sait les drames accomplis; mais laisser voir dans mon jeu?… faiblesse, duperie. Je ne connais rien de plus méprisable que la force jouée par l’adresse. Je m’initie tout en riant au métier d’ambassadeur, si toutefois la diplomatie est aussi difficile que l’est la vie! J’en doute. As-tu de l’ambition? veux-tu devenir quelque chose?

- Mais, Henri, tu te moques de moi, comme si je n’étais pas assez médiocre pour arriver à tout.

The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella

p. 109

“My dear fellow,” said Henri, who rarely denied himself an irony, “since it might nevertheless happen to you, just as to another man, to need discretion, and since I love you very much... Yes, I love you! Upon my word of honor, if you needed only a thousand-franc note to prevent yourself from blowing out your brains, you would find it here, for we have not yet mortgaged anything up there, have we, Paul? If you were to fight tomorrow, I would measure the distance and load the pistols, so that you would be killed according to the rules. In short, if anyone other than I took it into his head to speak ill of you in your absence, he would have to measure himself against a rough gentleman who is inside my skin; that is what I call a friendship proof against everything. Well then, when you need discretion, my little fellow, learn that there are two kinds of discretion: active discretion and negative discretion. Negative discretion is that of fools who employ silence, denial, a sullen look, the discretion of closed doors, true impotence! Active discretion proceeds by affirmation. If this evening, at the Club, I said: ‘Upon the word of an honest man, the Girl with the Golden Eyes was not worth what she cost me!’ everyone, once I had left, would exclaim: ‘Did you hear that fop de Marsay, who would like to make us believe that he has already had the Girl with the Golden Eyes? He would like in this way to rid himself of his rivals; he is not unskillful.’ But this ruse is common and dangerous. However gross the foolishness that escapes us, there are always fools who may believe it. The best discretion is that used by skillful women when they want to mislead their husbands. It consists in compromising a woman for whom we care nothing, or whom we do not love, or whom we do not have, in order to preserve the honor of the woman we love enough to respect. That is what I call the screen-woman.” “Ah! here is Laurent. What are you bringing us?”

“Ostend oysters, Monsieur le Comte...”

“One day you will know, Paul, how amusing it is to make sport of the world by stealing from it the secret of our affections. I experience an immense pleasure in escaping the stupid jurisdiction of the mass, which never knows either what it wants or what it is made to want, which takes the means for the result, which by turns adores and curses, raises up and destroys! What happiness to impose emotions upon it and receive none from it, to subdue it, never to obey it! If one can be proud of something, is it not of a power acquired by oneself, of which we are at once the cause, the effect, the principle, and the result? Well then, no man knows whom I love or what I want. Perhaps people will know whom I have loved, what I will have loved, what I will have wanted, as completed dramas are known; but let people see into my game?... weakness, dupery. I know nothing more contemptible than strength outwitted by cleverness. Laughing all the while, I am initiating myself into the profession of ambassador, if diplomacy is as difficult as life! I doubt it. Do you have ambition? Do you want to become something?”

“But Henri, you are making fun of me, as if I were not mediocre enough to attain anything.”

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.