Girl with the Golden Eyes

by Honoré de Balzac

Romance Published 1800 -1900

11 chapters4h 30mEnglish1895

About this book

Listeners who like to plunge straight into a story would do well to skip the lengthy preamble. Here, Balzac the virtuoso satirist depicts the levels of Parisian society as a version of the Inferno of Dante - but perhaps keeps the reader waiting too long for the first act of his operatic extravaganza.Our beautiful, androgynous hero, Henri de Marsay, is one of the bastard offspring of a depraved Regency milord and himself practises the cynical arts of the libertine. His quarry is the exotic Paquita Valdes, she of the golden eyes.But there is a mysterious third person in this liaison...The shocking truth of their interrelationships marks this out at once as one of those French novels that Lady Bracknell would instantly ban from the house. (Summary by Martin Geeson)

Chapters (11)

1Preamble: Paris

3632

2'Upon one of those fine spring mornings...'

1786

3'The young man who called himself...'

1070

4'De Marsay was not impulsive...'

1326

5'When, after making an excellent meal...'

1179

6'At the hour mentioned Henri was...'

1823

7'For the next and succeeding day Henri disappeared...'

1299

8'If it be impossible to paint the unheard-of delights...'

1045

9'At breakfast, by the time he had started...'

1156

10'Paquita seemed to have been created for love...'

978

11'De Marsay was driven to the house...'

946

Girl with the Golden Eyes

About this book

Chapters (11)

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