“And the mother,” said Henri, pointing
to the old woman. “Will you not always
be in her power?”
“She comes from a country where women are not
beings, but things —chattels, with which
one does as one wills, which one buys, sells, and
slays; in short, which one uses for one’s caprices
as you, here, use a piece of furniture. Besides,
she has one passion which dominates all the others,
and which would have stifled her maternal love, even
if she had loved her daughter, a passion——”
“What?” Henri asked quickly, interrupting
his sister.
“Play! God keep you from it,” answered
the Marquise.
“But whom have you,” said Henri, looking
at the girl of the golden eyes, “who will help
you to remove the traces of this fantasy which the
law would not overlook?”
“I have her mother,” replied the Marquise,
designating the Georgian, to whom she made a sign
to remain.
“We shall meet again,” said Henri, who
was thinking anxiously of his friends and felt that
it was time to leave.
“No, brother,” she said, “we shall
not meet again. I am going back to Spain to enter
the Convent of los Dolores.”
“You are too young yet, too lovely,” said
Henri, taking her in his arms and giving her a kiss.
“Good-bye,” she said; “there is
no consolation when you have lost that which has seemed
to you the infinite.”
A week later Paul de Manerville met De Marsay in the
Tuileries, on the Terrasse de Feuillants.
“Well, what has become of our beautiful girl
of the golden eyes, you rascal?”
“She is dead.”
“What of?”
“Consumption.”
PARIS, March 1834-April 1835.
Note: The Girl with the Golden Eyes
is the third part of a trilogy. Part one is
entitled Ferragus and part two is The Duchesse de
Langeais. In other addendum references all three
stories are usually combined under the title The
Thirteen.
The following personages appear in other stories of
the Human Comedy.
Bourignard, Gratien-Henri-Victor-Jean-Joseph
Ferragus
Dudley, Lord
The Lily of the Valley
A Man of Business
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
Manerville, Paul Francois-Joseph, Comte de
The Ball at Sceaux
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Marriage Settlement
Marsay, Henri de
Ferragus
The Duchesse of Langeais
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Father Goriot
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ursule Mirouet
A Marriage Settlement
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modeste Mignon
The Secrets of a Princess
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve
