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 63 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 292–298
French
p. 128- Ah! cria de Marsay. Elle sera sans doute arrivée de Londres aujourd’hui. Cette femme m’aura pris jusqu’à ma vengeance! Mais, si elle m’a devancé, mon bon Gratien, nous la livrerons à la justice.
- Écoute donc! l’affaire est faite, dit Ferragus à Henri.
Les deux amis prêtèrent l’oreille et entendirent des cris affaiblis qui eussent attendri des tigres.
- Ta marquise n’a pas pensé que les sons sortiraient par le tuyau de la cheminée, dit le chef des Dévorants avec le rire d’un critique enchanté de découvrir une faute dans une belle œuvre.
- Nous seuls, nous savons tout prévoir, dit Henri. Attends-moi, je veux aller voir comment cela se passe là-haut, afin d’apprendre la manière dont se traitent leurs querelles de ménage. Par le nom de Dieu, je crois qu’elle la fait cuire à petit feu.
De Marsay grimpa lestement l’escalier qu’il connaissait et reconnut le chemin du boudoir. Quand il en ouvrit la porte, il eut le frissonnement involontaire que cause à l’homme le plus déterminé la vue du sang répandu. Le spectacle qui s’offrit à ses regards eut d’ailleurs pour lui plus d’une cause d’étonnement. La marquise était femme: elle avait calculé sa vengeance avec cette perfection de perfidie qui distingue les animaux faibles. Elle avait dissimulé sa colère pour s’assurer du crime avant de le punir.
- Trop tard, mon bien-aimé! dit Paquita mourante dont les yeux pâles se tournèrent vers de Marsay.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 129“Ah!” cried de Marsay. “She will doubtless have arrived from London today. That woman will have taken even my vengeance from me! But if she has preceded me, my good Gratien, we will deliver her to justice.”
“Listen, then! The affair is done,” Ferragus said to Henri.
The two friends listened and heard weakened cries that would have softened tigers.
“Your marquise did not think that the sounds would come out through the chimney flue,” said the chief of the Devourers with the laugh of a critic delighted to discover a fault in a beautiful work.
“We alone know how to foresee everything,” said Henri. “Wait for me; I want to go see how things are taking place up there, in order to learn the manner in which their household quarrels are treated. By the name of God, I believe she is cooking her over a low fire.”
De Marsay nimbly climbed the staircase he knew and recognized the way to the boudoir. When he opened its door, he had the involuntary shudder that the sight of spilled blood causes in the most determined man. Moreover, the spectacle offered to his gaze had for him more than one cause of astonishment. The marquise was a woman: she had calculated her vengeance with that perfection of perfidy which distinguishes weak animals. She had concealed her anger in order to make certain of the crime before punishing it.
“Too late, my beloved!” said the dying Paquita, whose pale eyes turned toward de Marsay.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 292–298
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.