The Necklace

She was one of those pretty, charming young women who are born, as if by an error of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved or married by any rich and distinguished man; and so she let herself be married to a minor clerk at the Ministry of Education.

She dressed plainly because she could not afford fine clothes, but she was as unhappy as if she had truly fallen from a higher station; for women have neither caste nor rank — their beauty, their grace and their charm serve them in place of birth and family. She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and every luxury. She suffered from the poverty of her rooms, from the worn chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All these things, which another woman of her station would not even have noticed, tortured her and made her angry.

One evening her husband came home with an air of triumph, holding a large envelope.

"Look," he said, "here is something for you."

It was an invitation to a reception at the Ministry — a grand evening that every clerk longed to attend. But instead of being delighted, she threw the invitation onto the table and murmured impatiently:

"What do you want me to do with that? I have nothing to wear, and so I cannot go to this party. Give the card to some colleague whose wife has a better wardrobe than I have."

He had not thought of that. He stammered, and at last, to buy a suitable dress, he gave up the four hundred francs he had been saving to buy himself a gun. Yet as the day of the ball drew near, Madame Loisel seemed anxious and troubled, though the dress was ready.

"It annoys me," she said, "that I have not a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like a pauper. I would almost rather not go at all."

Then her husband had an idea: she should go to her old school friend, Madame Forestier, who was rich, and ask to borrow some jewels. The next day Madame Loisel went, and Madame Forestier brought out her jewel-box and told her to choose. Among the treasures she found a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with desire. She asked, in a hesitating, anxious voice:

"Could you lend me this — only this?"

"Why, yes, certainly."

The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a triumph. She was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to be introduced. She danced with delight, intoxicated by pleasure, thinking of nothing but the admiration she was arousing, the completeness of a victory so dear to a woman's heart.

She left at about four in the morning. Her husband threw over her shoulders the modest wraps of common life, whose poverty clashed with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt it, and longed to escape, so as not to be noticed by the other women who were wrapping themselves in costly furs. They hurried out into the cold of the early morning and at last found a shabby old cab.

It took them to their door, and sadly they climbed the stairs. For her, it was finished. And for him, he was thinking of the office at ten o'clock. She removed the wraps before the glass, so as to see herself once more in all her glory. But suddenly she gave a cry. She no longer had the necklace around her neck.

"What is the matter?" her husband asked.

She turned towards him, panic-stricken.

"I have — I have — I no longer have Madame Forestier's necklace."

He searched the folds of her dress, the folds of her cloak, her pockets, everywhere. He went out again to retrace their steps on foot, while she sat waiting on a chair, without strength to go to bed, in a chill room, without thought. Towards seven o'clock he came back. He had found nothing. He went to the police, to the cab companies, offered a reward; he did everything. She waited all day in the same state of stupefied terror before this frightful disaster.

At the end of a week they had lost all hope. And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must consider how to replace the jewel."

They went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for a necklace like the other, consulting their memory, both sick with grief and anguish. At last, in a shop in the Palais-Royal, they found a string of diamonds that seemed exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest. He borrowed, asking a thousand francs from one, five hundred from another, signing notes, entering into ruinous agreements, dealing with usurers, with the whole race of money-lenders. He compromised the rest of his life, risked his signature without even knowing whether he could honour it; and, frightened by the anguish yet to come, by the black misery about to settle upon him, he went to buy the new necklace, laying down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took the necklace back, Madame Forestier said, in a frosty tone:

"You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared she would. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Might she not have taken Madame Loisel for a thief?

Madame Loisel now came to know the horrible life of the poor. She took her part of it, moreover, all at once, heroically. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their rooms; they took a garret under the roof.

She came to know the heavy work of the household, the odious labours of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, wearing down her pink nails on the greasy pots and the bottoms of the pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the dish-cloths, which she hung to dry on a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping at each landing to breathe. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the grocer's, the butcher's, the fruiterer's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou.

Each month they had to pay off some notes, renew others, gain time. Her husband worked in the evenings, keeping a tradesman's books, and at night he often did copying at five sous a page. And this life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years they had paid off everything, everything, with the rates of usury and the accumulations of compound interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished households — strong and hard and rough. With her hair badly dressed, her skirts awry, her hands red, she spoke in a loud tone, and washed the floors with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and thought of that evening long ago, of that ball, where she had been so beautiful and so admired.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? How strange and changeful is life! How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

Then one Sunday, having gone for a walk to refresh herself after the labours of the week, she suddenly saw a woman leading a child by the hand. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming. Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be addressed so familiarly by this common woman, did not recognise her at all, and stammered:

"But — madame! — I do not know — you must be mistaken."

"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you have changed!"

"Yes, I have had hard days since I last saw you, and many sorrows — and all on your account."

"On my account! How is that?"

"You remember that diamond necklace you lent me to wear at the Ministry ball? Well, I lost it. And now for ten years we have been paying for it. You can understand that it was not easy for us, who had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad."

Madame Forestier had stopped.

"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes. You never noticed it, then? They were very similar."

And she smiled with a joy that was at once proud and innocent. Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!"