“Die without confession!” she said to her; “go to Hell, monster of ingratitude; belong to no one but the devil. For the blood you have given him, you owe me all of yours! Die, die, suffer a thousand deaths, I’ve been too kind, I just took a little while to kill you, I could have made you suffer all the torments you pressed on me. I will live! I will live unhappy, I am reduced to loving no one but God!” She contemplated her. “She is dead!” she said to herself after a pause, coming violently back to herself. “Dead! Ah! I will die of suffering!”

  The Marquise wanted to throw herself on the divan, overwhelmed by a despair that took her voice away, and this movement allowed her to see Henri de Marsay.

  “Who are you?” she asked him, running to him with her dagger raised.

  Henri stopped her arm, and they could thus contemplate each other face to face. Horrible surprise made frozen blood flow in the veins of both of them, and they trembled on their legs like frightened horses. In fact, two twins couldn’t have resembled each other more. They both said the same thing: “Is Lord Dudley your father, then?”

  Each of them nodded in the affirmative.

  “She was faithful to blood, at least,” Henri said, pointing at Paquita.

  “She was as free of guilt as possible,” Margarita-Euphémia Porrabéril continued, throwing herself on Paquita’s body and letting out a cry of despair. “Poor girl! Oh! If only I could bring you back to life! I was wrong, forgive me, Paquita! You are dead, and yet I live! I am the unhappiest woman there is.”

  At that instant the horrible face of Paquita’s mother appeared.

  “You’re going to tell me you didn’t sell her to me so that I could kill her,” the Marquise cried out. “I know why you’re coming out of your den. I’ll pay you for her twice. Be quiet.”

  And she went to get a bag of gold out of the ebony wardrobe, scornfully throwing it at the feet of this old woman. The sound of gold had the power to outline a smile on the motionless physiognomy of the Georgian woman.

  “I’ve come just in time for you, my sister,” Henri said. “The law will ask you.…”

  “Nothing,” the Marquise replied. “One single person knew about this girl. Christemio is dead.”

  “And this mother,” Henri asked, pointing to the old lady, “won’t she want a ransom for her?”

  “She comes from a country where women aren’t human beings, but things with which you do what you want, things that are bought and sold, things that are killed—things used only for your whims, the way you use furniture here. In any case, she has a passion that makes all other passions give in, and that would have annihilated her maternal love, if she had loved her daughter; a passion …”

  “Which one?” Henri said impatiently, interrupting his sister.

  “Gambling; may God keep you from it!” the Marquise replied.

  “But who are you going to get to help you,” Henri said, pointing to the Girl with the Golden Eyes, “to remove the traces of this fantasy, so that the law won’t prosecute you?”

  “I have her mother,” the Marquise replied, pointing to the old Georgian woman, to whom she made a sign to stay.

  “We will see each other again,” Henri said, thinking about his friends’ anxiety, and realizing the necessity of leaving.

  “No, my brother,” she said, “we will never see each other again. I am going back to Spain to enter the convent of Los Dolores.”

  “You’re still too young, too beautiful,” Henri said, taking her in his arms and giving her a kiss.

  “Farewell,” she said, “nothing can console me for losing what seemed to us both the Infinite Being.”

  Eight days later, Paul de Manerville met de Marsay at the Tuileries, on the terrace of the Feuillants.

  “Well then, what’s become of our beautiful Girl with the Golden Eyes, you big rascal?”

  “She died.”

  “From what?”

  “Her chest.”

  Paris, March 1834—April 1835

  melville house classics

  OTHER TITLES IN

  THE ART OF THE NOVELLA SERIES

  BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER / HERMAN MELVILLE

  THE LESSON OF THE MASTER / HENRY JAMES

  MY LIFE / ANTON CHEKHOV

  THE DEVIL / LEO TOLSTOY

  THE TOUCHSTONE / EDITH WHARTON

  THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES / ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

  THE DEAD / JAMES JOYCE

  FIRST LOVE / IVAN TURGENEV

  A SIMPLE HEART / GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

  THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING / RUDYARD KIPLING

  MICHAEL KOHLHAAS / HEINRICH VON KLEIST

  THE BEACH OF FALESÁ / ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  THE HORLA / GUY DE MAUPASSANT

  THE ETERNAL HUSBAND / FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

  THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG / MARK TWAIN

  THE LIFTED VEIL / GEORGE ELIOT

  THE GIRL WITH THE GOLDEN EYES / HONORÉ DE BALZAC

  A SLEEP AND A FORGETTING / WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

  BENITO CERENO / HERMAN MELVILLE

  MATHILDA / MARY SHELLEY

  STEMPENYU: A JEWISH ROMANCE / SHOLEM ALEICHEM

  FREYA OF THE SEVEN ISLES / JOSEPH CONRAD

  HOW THE TWO IVANS QUARRELLED / NIKOLAI GOGOL

  MAY DAY / F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

  RASSELAS, PRINCE ABYSSINIA / SAMUEL JOHNSON

  THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS / MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

  THE LEMOINE AFFAIR / MARCEL PROUST

  THE COXON FUND / HENRY JAMES

  THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH / LEO TOLSTOY

  TALES OF BELKIN / ALEXANDER PUSHKIN

  THE AWAKENING / KATE CHOPIN

  ADOLPHE / BENJAMIN CONSTANT

  THE COUNTRY OF THE POINTED FIRS / SARAH ORNE JEWETT

  PARNASSUS ON WHEELS / CHRISTOPHER MORLEY

  THE NICE OLD MAN AND THE PRETTY GIRL / ITALO SVEVO

  LADY SUSAN / JANE AUSTEN

  JACOB’S ROOM / VIRGINIA WOOLF

  TITLES IN THE COMPANION SERIES

  THE CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE NOVELLA

  THE PATHSEEKER / IMRE KERTÉSZ

  THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR / GILBERT ADAIR

  THE NORTH OF GOD / STEVE STERN

  CUSTOMER SERVICE / BENOÎT DUTEURTRE

  BONSAI / ALEJANDRO ZAMBRA

  ILLUSION OF RETURN / SAMIR EL-YOUSSEF

  CLOSE TO JEDENEW / KEVIN VENNEMAN

  A HAPPY MAN / HANSJÖRG SCHERTENLEIB

  SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL / TAO LIN

  LUCINELLA / LORE SEGAL

  SANDOKAN / NANNI BALESTRINI

  THE UNION JACK / IMRE KERTÉSZ

 


 

  Honoré de Balzac, The Girl With the Golden Eyes

 


 

 
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