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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English Page · Branch 66 of 66
Novella · ¶¶ 319–326
French
p. 134- Non, mon frère, dit-elle, nous ne nous reverrons jamais. Je retourne en Espagne pour m’aller mettre au couvent de los Dolores.
- Tu es encore trop jeune, trop belle, dit Henri en la prenant dans ses bras et lui donnant un baiser.
- Adieu, dit-elle, rien ne console d’avoir perdu ce qui nous a paru être l’infini.
Huit jours après, Paul de Manerville rencontra de Marsay aux Tuileries, sur la terrasse des Feuillants.
- Eh! bien, qu’est donc devenue notre belle fille aux yeux d’or, grand scélérat?
- Elle est morte.
- De quoi?
- De la poitrine.
Paris, mars 1834 - avril 1835.
The Girl with the Golden Eyes: Novella
p. 135“No, my brother,” she said, “we shall never see each other again. I am returning to Spain to go place myself in the convent of los Dolores.”
“You are still too young, too beautiful,” said Henri, taking her in his arms and giving her a kiss.
“Farewell,” she said, “nothing consoles one for having lost what seemed to us to be the infinite.”
Eight days later, Paul de Manerville met de Marsay at the Tuileries, on the terrace of the Feuillants.
“Well then, what has become of our beautiful girl with the golden eyes, great scoundrel?”
“She is dead.”
“Of what?”
“Of a chest complaint.”
Paris, March 1834 - April 1835.
Socrates
Reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes · Novella · ¶¶ 319–326
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.