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Title:The Necklace

Short story

Author(s):Guy de Maupassant

French Writer ( 1850 - 1893 )

Other Names Used:Maupassant, Henri Rene Albert Guy de;

Source:Little Masterpieces of Fiction. Ed. Hamilton Wright Mabie and Lionel Strachey. Vol. 5. New York:

Doubleday, Page & Company, 1904. p20.

Document Type:Short story

Full Text:

Original Language:French

Te x t :

SHE was one of those pretty, charming girls who are sometimes, as if through the irony of fate, born into a family of clerks. She was

without dowry or expectations, and had no means of becoming known, appreciated, loved, wedded, by any rich or influential man; so

she allowed herself to be married to a small clerk belonging to the Ministry of Public Instruction. She dressed plainly because she

could not afford to dress well, and was unhappy because she felt she had dropped from her proper station, which for women is a

matter of attractiveness, beauty, and grace, rather than of family descent. Good manners, an intuitive knowledge of what is elegant,

nimbleness of wit, are the only requirements necessary to place a woman of the people on an equality with one of the aristocracy.

She fretted constantly, feeling all things delicate and luxurious to be her birthright. She suffered on account of the meagreness of her

surroundings, the bareness of the walls, the tarnished furniture, the ugly curtains; deficiencies which would have left any other woman

of her class untouched, irritated and tormented her. The sight of the little Breton peasant who did her humble housework engendered

hopeless regrets followed by fantastic dreams. She thought of a noiseless, hallowed ante-room, with Oriental carpets, lighted with tall

branching candlesticks of bronze and of two big, kneebreeched footmen, drowsy from the stoveheated air, dozing in great arm-chairs.

She thought of a long drawing-room hung with ancient brocade, of a beautiful cabinet holding priceless curios, of an alluring, scented

boudoir intended for five-o'clock chats with intimates, with men famous and courted, and whose acquaintance is longed for by all

women.

When she sat down to dinner, at the round table spread with a cloth three days old, opposite her husband who uncovered the tureen,

and exclaimed with ecstasy, "Ah, I like a good stew! I know nothing to beat this!" she thought of dainty dinners, of shining plate, of

tapestry which peopled the walls with human shapes, and with strange birds flying among fairy trees. And then she thought of

delicious viands served in costly dishes, and of murmured gallantries which you listen to with a comfortable smile while you are

eating the rose-tinted flesh of a trout or the wing of a quail.

She had no handsome gowns, no jewels—nothing, though these were her whole life; it was these that meant existence to her. She

would so have liked to please, to be thought fascinating, to be envied, to be sought out. She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the

convent, who was rich, but whom she did not like to go to see any more because she would come home jealous, covetous.

But one evening her husband returned home jubilant, holding a large envelope in his hand.

"Here is something for you," he said.

She tore open the cover sharply, and drew out a printed card bearing these words: "The Minister of Public Instruction and Mme.

Georges Ramponneau request the honour of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January

18th."

Instead of being delighted as her husband expected, she threw the invitation on the table with disgust, muttering, "What do you think I

can do with that?"

"But, my dear, I thought you would be pleased. You never go anywhere, and this is such a rare opportunity. I had hard work to get it.

Every one is wild to go: it is very select, and invitations to clerks are scarce. The whole official world will be there."

She looked at him with a scornful eye, as she said petulantly, "And what have I to put on my back?" He had not thought of that. He

stammered, "Why, the dress you wear to the theatre; it looks all right to me." He stopped in despair, seeing his wife was crying. Two big tears rolled down from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he faltered.

With great effort, she controlled herself, and replied coldly, while she dried her wet cheeks:

"Nothing, except that I have no dress, and, for that reason, cannot go to the ball. Give your invitation to some fellow-clerk whose wife

is better provided than I am."

He was dumfounded, but replied:

"Come, Mathilde, let us see now—how much would a suitable dress cost; one you could wear at other times—something quite

simple?"

She pondered several moments, calculating, and guessing too, how much she could safely ask for without an instant refusal or

bringing down upon her head a volley of objections from her frugal husband.

At length she said hesitatingly, "I can't say exactly, but I think I could do with four hundred francs."

He changed colour because he was laying aside just that sum to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting next summer on the

plain of Nanterre, with several friends, who went down there on Sundays to shoot larks. Nevertheless, he said: "Very well, I will give

you four hundred francs. Get a pretty dress."

The day of the ball drew near, and Mme. Loisel seemed despondent, nervous, upset, though her dress was all ready. One evening her

husband observed: "I say, what is the matter, Mathilde? You have been very queer lately." And she replied, "It exasperates me not to

have a single ornament of any kind to put on. I shall look like a fright—I would almost rather stay at home." He answered: "Why not

wear flowers? They are very fashionable at this time of the year. You can get a handful of fine roses for ten francs."

But she was not persuaded. "No, it's so mortifying to look poverty-stricken among women who are rich."

Then her husband exclaimed: "How slow you are! Go and see your friend, Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels. You

know her well enough to do that."

She gave an exclamation of delight: "True! I never thought of that!"

Next day she went to her friend and poured out her woes. Mme. Forestier went to a closet with a glass door, took out a large

jewel-box, brought it back, opened it, and said to Mme. Loisel, "Here, take your choice, my dear."

She looked at some bracelets, then at a pearl necklace, and then at a Venetian cross curiously wrought of gold and precious stones. She

tried on the ornaments before the mirror, hesitated, was loath to take them off and return them. She kept inquiring, "Have you any

more?"

"Certainly, look for yourself. I don't know what you want."

Suddenly Mathilde discovered, in a black satin box, a magnificent necklace of diamonds, and her heart began to beat with excitement.

With trembling hands she took the necklace and fastened it round her neck outside her dress, becoming lost in admiration of herself as

she looked in the glass. Tremulous with fear lest she be refused, she asked, "Will you lend me this—only this?"

"Yes, of course I will."

Mathilde fell upon her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, and rushed off with her treasure.

The day of the ball arrived.

Mme. Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than them all, lovely, gracious, smiling, and wild with delight. All the men looked

at her, inquired her name, tried to be introduced; all the officials of the Ministry wanted a waltz—even the minister himself noticed

her. She danced with abandon, with ecstasy, intoxicated with joy, forgetting everything in the triumph of her beauty, in the radiance of

her success, in a kind of mirage of bliss made up of all this worship, this adulation, of all these stirring impulses, and of that realisation

of perfect surrender, so sweet to the sould of woman.

She left about four in the morning.

Since midnight her husband had been sleeping in a little deserted anteroom with three other men whose wives were enjoying themselves. He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, ordinary, everyday garments, contrasting sorrily with her elegant

ball dress. She felt this, and wanted to get away so as not to be seen by the other women, who were putting on costly furs.

Loisel detained her: "Wait a little; you will catch cold outside; I will go and call a cab."

But she would not listen to him, and hurried down-stairs. When they reached the street they could not find a carriage, and they began

to look for one, shouting to the cabmen who were passing by. They went down toward the river in desperation, shivering with cold. At

last they found on the quays one of those antiquated, all-night broughams, which, in Paris, wait till after dark before venturing to

display their dilapidation. It took them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and once more, wearily, they climbed the stairs.

Now all was over for her; as for him, he remembered that he must be at his office at ten o'clock. She threw off her cloak before the

glass, that she might behold herself once more in all her magnificence. Suddenly she uttered a cry of dismay—the necklace was gone!

Her husband, already half-undressed, called out, "Anything wrong?"

She turned wildly toward him: "I have—I have—I've lost Mme. Forestier's necklace!"

He stood aghast: "Where? When? You haven't!"

They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her pocket, everywhere. They could not find it.

"Are you sure," he said, "that you had it on when you left the ball?"

"Yes; I felt it in the corridor of the palace."

"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab."

"No doubt. Did you take his number?"

"No. And didn't you notice it either?"

"No."

They looked at each other, terror-stricken. At last Loisel put on his clothes.

"I shall go back on foot," he said, "over the whole route we came by, to see if I can't find it."

He went out, and she sat waiting in her ball dress, too dazed to go to bed, cold, crushed, lifeless, unable to think. Her husband came

back at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He went to Police Headquarters, to the newspaper office—where he advertised a reward.

He went to the cab companies—to every place, in fact, that seemed at all hopeful.

She waited all day in the same awful state of mind at this terrible misfortune.

Loisel returned at night with a wan, white face. He had found nothing.

"Write immediately to your friend," said he, "that you have broken the clasp of her necklace, and that you have taken it to be mended.

That will give us time to turn about."

She wrote as he told her.

By the end of the week they had given up all hope. Loisel, who looked five years older, said, "We must plan how we can replace the

necklace."

The next day they took the black satin box to the jeweller whose name was found inside. He referred to his books.

"You did not buy that necklace of me, Madame. I can only have supplied the case."

They went from jeweller to jeweller, hunting for a necklace like the lost one, trying to remember its appearance, heartsick with shame

and misery. Finally, in a shop at the Palais Royal, they found a string of diamonds which looked to them just like the other. The price

was forty thousand francs, but they could have it for thirty-six thousand. They begged the jeweller to keep it three days for them, and

made an agreement with him that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand francs if they found the lost necklace before the last of

February.

Loisel had inherited eighteen thousand francs from his father. He could borrow the remainder. And he did borrow right and left, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, assumed heavy obligations,

trafficked with money-lenders at usurious rates, and, putting the rest of his life in pawn, pledged his signature over and over again. Not

knowing how he was to make it all good, and terrified by the penalty yet to come, by the dark destruction which hung over him, by the

certainty of incalculable deprivations of body and tortures of sould, he went to get the new bauble, throwing down upon the jeweller's

counter the thirty-six thousand francs.

When Mme. Loisel returned the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her coldly: "Why did you not bring it back sooner? I might have

wanted it."

She did not open the case—to the great relief of her friend.

Supposing she had! Would she have discovered the substitution, and what would she have said? Would she not have accused Mme.

Loisel of theft?

Mme. Loisel now knew what it was to be in want, but she showed sudden and remarkable courage. That awful debt must be paid, and

she would pay it.

They sent away their servant, and moved up into a garret under the roof. She began to find out what heavy housework and the

fatiguing drudgery of the kitchen meant. She washed the dishes, scraping the greasy pots and pans with her rosy rails. She washed the

dirty linen, the shirts and dish-towels, which dried upon the line. She lugged slops and refuse down to the street every morning,

bringing back fresh water, stopping on every landing, panting for breath. With her basket on her arm, and dressed like a woman of the

people, she haggled with the fruiterer, the grocer, and the butcher, often insulted, but getting every sou's worth that belonged to her.

Each month notes had to be met, others renewed, extensions of time procured. Her husband worked in the evenings, straightening out

tradesmen's accounts; he sat up late at night, copying manuscripts at five sous a page.

And this they did for ten years.

At the end of that time they had paid up everything, everything—with all the principal and the accumulated compound interest.

Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become a domestic drudge, sinewy, rough-skinned, coarse. With towsled hair, tucked-up skirts,

and red hands, she would talk loudly while mopping the floor with great splashes of water. But sometimes, when alone, she sat near

the window, and she thought of that gay evening long ago, of the ball where she had been so beautiful, so much admired. Supposing

she had not lost the necklace—what then? Who knows? Who knows? Life is so strange and shifting. How easy it is to be ruined or

saved!

But one Sunday, going for a walk in the Champs elysées to refresh herself after her hard week's work, she accidentally came upon a

familiar-looking woman with a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young, still lovely, still charming.

Mme. Loisel became agitated. Should she speak to her? Of course. Now that she had paid, she would tell her all about it. Why not?

She went up to her.

"How do you do, Jeanne?"

The other, astonished at the easy manner toward her assumed by a plain housewife whom she did not recognise, said:

"But, Madame, you have made a mistake; I do not know you."

"Why, I am Mathilde Loisel!"

Her friend gave a start.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde," she cried, "how you have changed!"

"Yes; I have seen hard days since last I saw you; hard enough—and all because of you."

"Of me? And why?"

"You remember the diamond necklace you loaned me to wear at the Ministry ball?"

"Yes, I do. What of it?"

"Well, I lost it!" "But you brought it back—explain yourself."

"I bought one just like it, and it took us ten years to pay for it. It was not easy for us who had nothing, but it is all over now, and I am

glad."

Mme. Forestier stared.

"And you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes; and you never knew the difference, they were so alike." And she smiled with joyful pride at the success of it all.

Mme. Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! My necklace was paste. It was worth only about five hundred francs!"

RELATED INFORMATION

Biography:

Guy de Maupassant

Explanation of:

"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant

Source Citation (MLA 7 th Edition)

Maupassant, Guy de. "The Necklace." Little Masterpieces of Fiction. Ed. Hamilton Wright Mabie and Lionel Strachey. Vol. 5. New

York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1904. 20. LitFinder. Web. 6 Dec. 2013.

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