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 55 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 220–222
French
p. 112- Que veux-tu? la volupté mène à la férocité. Pourquoi? je n’en sais rien, et je ne suis pas assez curieux pour en chercher la cause. - Ces cigares sont excellents. Donne du thé à ton ami. - Sais-tu, Paul, que je mène une vie de brute? Il serait bien temps de se choisir une destinée, d’employer ses forces à quelque chose qui valût la peine de vivre. La vie est une singulière comédie. Je suis effrayé, je ris de l’inconséquence de notre ordre social. Le gouvernement fait trancher la tête à de pauvres diables qui ont tué un homme, et il patente des créatures qui expédient, médicalement parlant, une douzaine de jeunes gens par hiver. La morale est sans force contre une douzaine de vices qui détruisent la société, et que rien ne peut punir. - Encore une tasse? - Ma parole d’honneur! l’homme est un bouffon qui danse sur un précipice. On nous parle de l’immoralité des Liaisons Dangereuses, et de je ne sais quel autre livre qui a un nom de femme de chambre; mais il existe un livre horrible, sale, épouvantable, corrupteur, toujours ouvert, qu’on ne fermera jamais, le grand livre du monde, sans compter un autre livre mille fois plus dangereux, qui se compose de tout ce qui se dit à l’oreille, entre hommes, ou sous l’éventail entre femmes, le soir, au bal.
- Henri, certes il se passe en toi quelque chose d’extraordinaire, et cela se voit malgré ta discrétion active.
- Oui! tiens, il faut que je dévore le temps jusqu’à ce soir. Allons au jeu. Peut-être aurai-je le bonheur de perdre.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 113“What do you want? Voluptuousness leads to ferocity. Why? I know nothing of it, and I am not curious enough to seek the cause.” “These cigars are excellent. Give your friend some tea.” “Do you know, Paul, that I lead a brute’s life? It would be quite time to choose a destiny for oneself, to employ one’s powers at something worth living for. Life is a singular comedy. I am frightened; I laugh at the inconsistency of our social order. The government has the heads cut off poor devils who have killed one man, and it licenses creatures who dispatch, medically speaking, a dozen young men each winter. Morality is powerless against a dozen vices that destroy society and that nothing can punish.” “Another cup?” “Upon my word of honor! Man is a buffoon who dances on a precipice. We are told of the immorality of Dangerous Liaisons, and of some other book I do not know which that has a chambermaid’s name; but there exists a horrible, dirty, frightful, corrupting book, always open, that will never be closed, the great book of the world, without counting another book a thousand times more dangerous, which is composed of everything said in the ear between men, or beneath the fan between women, in the evening, at the ball.”
“Henri, certainly something extraordinary is taking place in you, and it can be seen despite your active discretion.”
“Yes! look, I must devour the time until this evening. Let us go gamble. Perhaps I shall have the happiness of losing.”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 220–222
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.