The Necklace

🔊 Read AloudOne evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand. "Here's something for you," he said. Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words: "The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th."

Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring: "What do you want me to do with this?" "Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there." She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?"

🔊 Read AloudHe had not thought about it; he stammered: "Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me..." He stopped, stupefied, when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. "What's the matter? What's the matter?" he faltered. But with a violent effort she replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks: "Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party." Heart-broken, he persisted, and at last she said she could manage with a new dress costing four hundred francs — exactly the sum he had been saving for a gun. Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money."

The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad and anxious. "I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear," she said. "I shall look like absolutely no one." "Wear flowers," he said. "No... there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women." Then her husband cried: "Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels." She uttered a cry of delight.

🔊 Read AloudNext day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble. Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said: "Choose, my dear." First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind. She kept on asking: "Haven't you anything else?" "Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself. Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish: "Could you lend me this, just this alone?" "Yes, of course." She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure.

🔊 Read AloudThe day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration. She left about four o'clock in the morning, anxious to hurry away so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.

When they reached home she took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck! "I... I... I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace...." Her husband started with astonishment. "What!... Impossible!" They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it.

🔊 Read AloudHer husband searched everywhere and found nothing. So Loisel told her to write to Madame Forestier that she had broken the clasp and was getting it mended, to gain them time. By the end of a week they had lost all hope, and Loisel, who had aged five years, declared: "We must see about replacing the diamonds." In a shop at the Palais-Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were allowed to have it for thirty-six thousand.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He borrowed the rest, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs. When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice: "You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it." She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case.

🔊 Read AloudMadame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject privation. They dismissed the servant and changed their flat for a garret under the roof. She came to know the heavy work of the house, washing the plates and the dirty linen, carrying up the water, haggling with the grocer and the butcher for every wretched halfpenny. Her husband worked in the evenings and often copied at night. And this life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years everything was paid off. Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households, with badly done hair and red hands.

One Sunday, walking in the Champs-Elysees, she caught sight of Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive. Now that she had paid, she would tell her all. "Good morning, Jeanne." The other did not recognise her. "But... Madame... I don't know.... You must be making a mistake." "No.... I am Mathilde Loisel." Her friend uttered a cry. "Oh!... my poor Mathilde, how you have changed!..." She told her the whole story — the lost necklace, the replacement, the ten years of debt. "You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?" "Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike." And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness. Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was an imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!..."