In this influential novella, regarded as one of Balzac's greatest works, a dissolute aristocrat competes with a shadowy rival for the love of an enigmatic golden-eyed woman-a crazed and annihilating conflict that plays out in the most darkly decadent corners of Parisian high society.

Beautiful and amoral, Henri de Marsay believes in neither man nor woman, neither God nor the devil. He believes in Paris, a city of decadence and sin, a city where every passion is resolved into gold or pleasure.

From the first moment Henri de Marsay catches sight of the girl with the golden eyes he is completely and utterly infatuated. Desperate for another glimpse of her dark and enigmatic beauty, every day he returns to where he last saw her. Over time, he learns of her name, Paquita Valdes, and of her address, a forbidding and heavily guarded mansion on the Rue Saint-Lazare.

Vowing to make her his, Henri de Marsay plots his elaborate seduction of the mysterious girl with the golden eyes, but with his triumph comes the bitter revelation that he has a powerful rival for her love-the Marquise de San-Real, his own half-sister.

A cry of vengeance and the call for blood bring Balzac's taut exploration of the dark side of Parisian society to its unexpected if inevitable conclusion.