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.
French Page · Branch 61 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 271–281
French
p. 124- En quoi t’ai-je déplu? lui dit-elle. Parle, expliquons-nous.
Henri garda l’attitude flegmatique de l’homme fort qui se sent vaincu; contenance froide, silencieuse, tout anglaise, qui annonçait la conscience de sa dignité par une résignation momentanée. D’ailleurs il avait déjà pensé, malgré l’emportement de sa colère, qu’il était peu prudent de se commettre avec la justice en tuant cette fille à l’improviste et sans en avoir préparé le meurtre de manière à s’assurer l’impunité.
- Mon bien-aimé, reprit Paquita, parle-moi; ne me laisse pas sans un adieu d’amour! Je ne voudrais pas garder dans mon cœur l’effroi que tu viens d’y mettre. Parleras-tu? dit-elle en frappant du pied avec colère.
De Marsay lui jeta pour réponse un regard qui signifiait si bien: tu mourras! que Paquita se précipita sur lui.
- Hé! bien, veux-tu me tuer? Si ma mort peut te faire plaisir, tue-moi!
Elle fit un signe à Christemio, qui leva son pied de dessus le jeune homme et s’en alla sans laisser voir sur sa figure qu’il portât un jugement bon ou mauvais sur Paquita.
- Voilà un homme! se dit de Marsay en montrant le mulâtre par un geste sombre. Il n’y a de dévouement que le dévouement qui obéit à l’amitié sans la juger. Tu as en cet homme un véritable ami.
- Je te le donnerai si tu veux, répondit-elle; il te servira avec le même dévouement qu’il a pour moi si je le lui recommande.
Elle attendit un mot de réponse, et reprit avec un accent plein de tendresse: - Adolphe, dis-moi donc une bonne parole. Voici bientôt le jour.
Henri ne répondit pas. Ce jeune homme avait une triste qualité, car on regarde comme une grande chose tout ce qui ressemble à de la force, et souvent les hommes divinisent des extravagances. Henri ne savait pas pardonner. Le savoir-revenir, qui certes est une des grâces de l’âme, était un non-sens pour lui. La férocité des hommes du Nord, dont le sang anglais est assez fortement teint, lui avait été transmise par son père. Il était inébranlable dans ses bons comme dans ses mauvais sentiments. L’exclamation de Paquita fut d’autant plus horrible pour lui qu’il avait été détrôné du plus doux triomphe qui eût jamais agrandi sa vanité d’homme. L’espérance, l’amour et tous les sentiments s’étaient exaltés chez lui, tout avait flambé dans son cœur et dans son intelligence; puis ces flambeaux, allumés pour éclairer sa vie, avaient été soufflés par un vent froid. Paquita, stupéfaite, n’eut dans sa douleur que la force de donner le signal du départ.
- Ceci est inutile, dit-elle en jetant le bandeau. S’il ne m’aime plus, s’il me hait, tout est fini.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 125“In what have I displeased you?” she said to him. “Speak, let us explain ourselves.”
Henri retained the phlegmatic attitude of the strong man who feels himself defeated; a cold, silent, wholly English countenance that announced the consciousness of his dignity through a momentary resignation. Besides, despite the violence of his anger, he had already thought that it was imprudent to compromise himself with justice by killing this girl unexpectedly and without having prepared the murder in such a way as to assure himself of impunity.
“My beloved,” Paquita resumed, “speak to me; do not leave me without a farewell of love! I would not want to keep in my heart the terror you have just put there. Will you speak?” she said, stamping her foot angrily.
For answer, de Marsay cast her a look that signified so well: you will die! that Paquita rushed upon him.
“Well then, do you want to kill me? If my death can give you pleasure, kill me!”
She made a sign to Christemio, who lifted his foot from upon the young man and went away without letting it be seen on his face whether he passed a good or bad judgment on Paquita.
“There is a man!” de Marsay said to himself, indicating the mulatto with a dark gesture. “There is no devotion except the devotion that obeys friendship without judging it. You have a true friend in this man.”
“I will give him to you if you want,” she replied; “he will serve you with the same devotion he has for me if I charge him to do so.”
She waited for a word in reply and resumed with an accent full of tenderness: “Adolphe, say a kind word to me. Here is day coming soon.”
Henri did not answer. This young man had an unfortunate quality, for people regard as a great thing everything that resembles strength, and men often deify extravagances. Henri did not know how to forgive. The ability to relent, which certainly is one of the graces of the soul, was nonsense to him. The ferocity of the men of the North, with which English blood is rather strongly tinged, had been transmitted to him by his father. He was unshakable in his good feelings as in his bad. Paquita’s exclamation was all the more horrible to him because he had been dethroned from the sweetest triumph that had ever enlarged his vanity as a man. Hope, love, and all the feelings had become exalted in him; everything had blazed in his heart and in his intelligence; then these torches, lit to illuminate his life, had been blown out by a cold wind. Paquita, stupefied, had in her grief only the strength to give the signal for departure.
“This is useless,” she said, throwing aside the blindfold. “If he no longer loves me, if he hates me, everything is over.”
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 271–281
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.