Diotimos Library · Literary Fiction Collection · Bilingual Edition
The Gods Are Athirst
Les Dieux ont soif · Complete French–English bilingual edition
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French Page · Branch 17 of 120
Chapter II · Paragraphs 41–48
Edition pages
Printed pages in the supplied Diotimos 2026 bilingual edition.
- French
- Diotimos 2026 pp. 38, 40
- English
- Diotimos 2026 pp. 39, 41
French
Elle demanda à Gamelin si c’était lui le peintre et s’il pouvait lui faire un portrait de son fiancé, Ferrand (Jules), volontaire à l’armée des Ardennes.
Gamelin répondit qu’il ferait volontiers ce portrait au retour du brave guerrier.
La fille demanda avec une douceur pressante que ce fût tout de suite.
Le peintre, souriant malgré lui, objecta qu’il ne pouvait rien faire sans le modèle.
La pauvre créature ne répondit rien: elle n’avait pas prévu cette difficulté. La tête inclinée sur l’épaule gauche, les mains jointes sur le ventre, elle demeurait inerte et muette et semblait accablée de chagrin. Touché et amusé de tant de simplicité, le peintre, pour distraire la malheureuse amante, lui mit dans la main un des volontaires qu’il avait peints à l’aquarelle et lui demanda s’il était fait ainsi, son fiancé des Ardennes.
Elle appliqua sur le papier le regard de son œil morne, qui lentement s’anima, puis brilla, et resplendit; sa large face s’épanouit en un radieux sourire.
"C’est sa vraie ressemblance, dit-elle enfin; c’est Ferrand (Jules) au naturel, c’est Ferrand (Jules) tout craché."
Avant que le peintre eût songé à lui tirer la feuille des mains, elle la plia soigneusement de ses gros doigts rouges et en fit un tout petit carré qu’elle coula sur son cœur, entre le busc et la chemise, remit à l’artiste un assignat de cinq livres, souhaita le bonsoir à la compagnie et sortit clochante et légère.
English
She asked Gamelin whether he was the painter and whether he could make her a portrait of her fiancé, Ferrand (Jules), a volunteer with the Army of the Ardennes.
Gamelin replied that he would gladly paint the portrait when the brave warrior returned.
With gentle insistence the girl asked for it to be done at once.
Smiling despite himself, the painter objected that he could do nothing without the sitter.
The poor creature made no answer. She had not foreseen this difficulty. Her head leaning towards her left shoulder, her hands clasped over her stomach, she stood motionless and silent, apparently overwhelmed by grief. Touched and amused by such simplicity, the painter put one of his watercolours of volunteers into her hand to distract the unhappy lover, and asked whether this was what her fiancé in the Ardennes looked like.
She fixed her dull eye on the paper. Slowly it came alive, then shone, then blazed; her broad face opened in a radiant smile.
“That’s his very likeness,” she said at last. “That’s Ferrand (Jules) to the life, the spitting image of Ferrand (Jules).”
Before the painter thought of taking the sheet from her hands, she carefully folded it with her thick red fingers into a tiny square, slipped it over her heart between the busk and her shift, handed the artist a five-livre assignat, wished the company good evening, and went out, limping and light-footed.
Socrates
Reading The Gods Are Athirst · Chapter II · Chapter II · Paragraphs 41–48
Ask about a concept, passage, contradiction, or connection.
Socrates will begin with this book and its sources.About This Reading Edition
Anatole France’s The Gods Are Athirst follows the painter Évariste Gamelin as revolutionary conviction draws him into the work of the Revolutionary Tribunal. This complete French–English edition preserves the novel’s twenty-nine chapters, paired by source paragraph, with an introduction, historical orientation, glossary, and chapter notes.
Historical Text and Translation
The novel appeared in volume in 1912. The complete French reading text follows Project Gutenberg eBook 36477, whose underlying impression is undated and carries a later Brodard & Taupin colophon. Chapter I was also checked against a separate 1912 printing; that limited collation is distinguished from the source used for the whole novel.
About Diotimos Editions
The new English translation and editorial matter were generated and revised with AI for Diotimos Editions. The reader preserves the supplied paragraph pairing, songs, quoted letters, and 431 chapter notes, together with the source register and the edition’s statement of editorial responsibility.
Rights
Anatole France’s French source work is in the public domain. The new 2026 English translation and Diotimos editorial matter are credited as supplied in this bilingual edition.