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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Facing Pages · Branch 57 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 226–240
French
p. 116- Je ne puis pas quitter Paris, ma petite, répondit Henri. Je ne m’appartiens pas, je suis lié par un serment au sort de plusieurs personnes qui sont à moi comme je suis à elles. Mais je puis te faire dans Paris un asile où nul pouvoir humain n’arrivera.
- Non, dit-elle, tu oublies le pouvoir féminin.
Jamais phrase prononcée par une voix humaine n’exprima plus complètement la terreur.
- Qui pourrait donc arriver à toi, si je me mets entre toi et le monde?
- Le poison! dit-elle. Déjà dona Concha te soupçonne. Et, reprit-elle en laissant couler des larmes qui brillèrent le long de ses joues, il est bien facile de voir que je ne suis plus la même. Eh! bien, si tu m’abandonnes à la fureur du monstre qui me dévorera, que ta sainte volonté soit faite! Mais viens, fais qu’il y ait toutes les voluptés de la vie dans notre amour. D’ailleurs, je supplierai, je pleurerai, je crierai, je me défendrai, je me sauverai peut-être.
- Qui donc imploreras-tu? dit-il.
- Silence! reprit Paquita. Si j’obtiens ma grâce, ce sera peut-être à cause de ma discrétion.
- Donne-moi ma robe, dit insidieusement Henri.
- Non, non, répondit-elle vivement, reste ce que tu es, un de ces anges qu’on m’avait appris à haïr, et dans lesquels je ne voyais que des monstres, tandis que vous êtes ce qu’il y a de plus beau sous le ciel, dit-elle en caressant les cheveux d’Henri. Tu ignores à quel point je suis idiote? je n’ai rien appris. Depuis l’âge de douze ans, je suis enfermée sans avoir vu personne. Je ne sais ni lire ni écrire, je ne parle que l’anglais et l’espagnol.
- Comment se fait-il donc que tu reçoives des lettres de Londres?
- Mes lettres! tiens, les voici! dit-elle en allant prendre quelques papiers dans un long vase du Japon.
Elle tendit à de Marsay des lettres où le jeune homme vit avec surprise des figures bizarres semblables à celles des rébus, tracées avec du sang, et qui exprimaient des phrases pleines de passion.
- Mais, s’écria-t-il en admirant ces hiéroglyphes créés par une habile jalousie, tu es sous la puissance d’un infernal génie?
- Infernal, répéta-t-elle.
- Mais comment donc as-tu pu sortir…
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 117“I cannot leave Paris, my little one,” Henri replied. “I do not belong to myself; I am bound by an oath to the fate of several people who are mine as I am theirs. But I can make you a refuge in Paris where no human power will reach.”
“No,” she said, “you forget feminine power.”
Never did a sentence spoken by a human voice express terror more completely.
“Who, then, could reach you if I place myself between you and the world?”
“Poison!” she said. “Already dona Concha suspects you. And,” she resumed, letting tears flow that shone along her cheeks, “it is very easy to see that I am no longer the same. Well then, if you abandon me to the fury of the monster who will devour me, let your holy will be done! But come, make all the voluptuous pleasures of life be in our love. Besides, I will implore, I will weep, I will cry out, I will defend myself, perhaps I will save myself.”
“Whom, then, will you implore?” he said.
“Silence!” Paquita resumed. “If I obtain my pardon, it will perhaps be because of my discretion.”
“Give me my robe,” Henri said insidiously.
“No, no,” she replied quickly, “remain what you are, one of those angels whom I had been taught to hate and in whom I saw only monsters, whereas you are what is most beautiful beneath heaven,” she said, caressing Henri’s hair. “You do not know to what point I am stupid? I have learned nothing. Since the age of twelve I have been shut away without having seen anyone. I can neither read nor write; I speak only English and Spanish.”
“How is it, then, that you receive letters from London?”
“My letters! Look, here they are!” she said, going to take some papers from a tall Japanese vase.
She handed de Marsay letters in which the young man saw with surprise bizarre figures like those of rebuses, traced with blood and expressing sentences full of passion.
“But,” he cried, admiring these hieroglyphs created by a skillful jealousy, “you are under the power of an infernal genius?”
“Infernal,” she repeated.
“But how, then, were you able to go out...”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 226–240
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.