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 60 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 256–270
French
p. 122- Ma foi, le plaisir est le plus beau dénoûment de la vie. Allons en Asie, mais pour partir, enfant! il faut beaucoup d’or, et pour avoir de l’or, il faut arranger ses affaires.
Elle ne comprenait rien à ces idées.
- De l’or, il y en a ici haut comme ça! dit-elle en levant la main.
- Il n’est pas à moi.
- Qu’est-ce que cela fait? reprit-elle, si nous en avons besoin, prenons-le.
- Il ne t’appartient pas.
- Appartenir! répéta-t-elle. Ne m’as-tu pas prise? Quand nous l’aurons pris, il nous appartiendra.
Il se mit à rire.
- Pauvre innocente! tu ne sais rien des choses de ce monde.
- Non, mais voilà ce que je sais, s’écria-t-elle en attirant Henri sur elle.
Au moment même où de Marsay oubliait tout, et concevait le désir de s’approprier à jamais cette créature, il reçut au milieu de sa joie un coup de poignard qui traversa de part en part son cœur mortifié pour la première fois. Paquita, qui l’avait enlevé vigoureusement en l’air comme pour le contempler, s’était écriée: - Oh! Mariquita!
- Mariquita! cria le jeune homme en rugissant, je sais maintenant tout ce dont je voulais encore douter.
Il sauta sur le meuble où était renfermé le long poignard. Heureusement pour elle et pour lui, l’armoire était fermée. Sa rage s’accrut de cet obstacle; mais il recouvra sa tranquillité, alla prendre sa cravate et s’avança vers elle d’un air si férocement significatif, que, sans connaître de quel crime elle était coupable, Paquita comprit néanmoins qu’il s’agissait pour elle de mourir. Alors elle s’élança d’un seul bond au bout de la chambre pour éviter le nœud fatal que de Marsay voulait lui passer autour du cou. Il y eut un combat. De part et d’autre la souplesse, l’agilité, la vigueur furent égales. Pour finir la lutte, Paquita jeta dans les jambes de son amant un coussin qui le fit tomber, et profita du répit que lui laissa cet avantage pour pousser la détente du ressort auquel répondait un avertissement. Le mulâtre arriva brusquement. En un clin d’œil Christemio sauta sur de Marsay, le terrassa, lui mit le pied sur la poitrine, le talon tourné vers la gorge. De Marsay comprit que s’il se débattait il était à l’instant écrasé sur un seul signe de Paquita.
- Pourquoi voulais-tu me tuer, mon amour? lui dit-elle.
De Marsay ne répondit pas.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 123“Upon my word, pleasure is the most beautiful conclusion of life. Let us go to Asia, but to leave, child! A great deal of gold is needed, and to have gold, one must put one’s affairs in order.”
She understood nothing of these ideas.
“Gold, there is some here this high!” she said, raising her hand.
“It is not mine.”
“What does that matter?” she resumed. “If we need it, let us take it.”
“It does not belong to you.”
“Belong!” she repeated. “Did you not take me? When we have taken it, it will belong to us.”
He began to laugh.
“Poor innocent! You know nothing of the things of this world.”
“No, but here is what I know,” she cried, drawing Henri down upon her.
At the very moment when de Marsay forgot everything and conceived the desire to appropriate this creature to himself forever, he received in the midst of his joy a dagger blow that pierced straight through his heart, mortified for the first time. Paquita, who had vigorously lifted him into the air as if to contemplate him, had cried: “Oh! Mariquita!”
“Mariquita!” cried the young man, roaring. “I now know everything I still wanted to doubt.”
He sprang toward the cabinet in which the long dagger was enclosed. Fortunately for her and for him, the cupboard was locked. His rage increased because of this obstacle; but he recovered his calm, went to take his cravat, and advanced toward her with an expression so ferociously significant that, without knowing of what crime she was guilty, Paquita nevertheless understood that for her it was a matter of dying. Then she sprang in a single bound to the end of the room to avoid the fatal knot that de Marsay wanted to pass around her neck. There was a struggle. On both sides suppleness, agility, and vigor were equal. To end the struggle, Paquita threw between her lover’s legs a cushion that made him fall, and profited from the respite this advantage left her to press the trigger of the spring to which a warning responded. The mulatto arrived abruptly. In the blink of an eye Christemio sprang upon de Marsay, threw him down, placed his foot on his chest, the heel turned toward the throat. De Marsay understood that if he struggled he would be crushed at once at a single sign from Paquita.
“Why did you want to kill me, my love?” she said to him.
De Marsay did not answer.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 256–270
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.