She was one of those pretty and
charming girls born, as if by an error of fate, into a family of clerks. She
had no dowry, no expectations, no means of becoming known, understood, loved or
wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and so she let herself be married to
a minor official at the Ministry of Education.
She dressed plainly because she had never been
able to afford anything better, but she was as unhappy as if she had once been
wealthy. Women don't belong to a caste or class; their beauty, grace, and
natural charm take the place of birth and family. Natural delicacy, instinctive
elegance and a quick wit determine their place in society, and make the
daughters of commoners the equals of the very finest ladies.
She suffered endlessly, feeling she was
entitled to all the delicacies and luxuries of life. She suffered because of
the poorness of her house as she looked at the dirty walls, the worn-out chairs
and the ugly curtains. All these things that another woman of her class would
not even have noticed, tormented her and made her resentful. The sight of the
little Brenton girl who did her housework filled her with terrible regrets and
hopeless fantasies. She dreamed of silent antechambers hung with Oriental
tapestries, lit from above by torches in bronze holders, while two tall footmen
in knee-length breeches napped in huge armchairs, sleepy from the stove's
oppressive warmth. She dreamed of vast living rooms furnished in rare old
silks, elegant furniture loaded with priceless ornaments, and inviting smaller
rooms, perfumed, made for afternoon chats with close friends - famous, sought
after men, who all women envy and desire.
When she sat down to dinner at a
round table covered with a three-day-old cloth opposite her husband who,
lifting the lid off the soup, shouted excitedly, "Ah! Beef stew! What
could be better," she dreamed of fine dinners, of shining silverware, of
tapestries which peopled the walls with figures from another time and strange
birds in fairy forests; she dreamed of delicious dishes served on wonderful
plates, of whispered gallantries listened to with an inscrutable smile as one
ate the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing; and
these were the only things she loved. She felt she was made for them alone. She
wanted so much to charm, to be envied, to be desired and sought after.
She had a rich friend, a former schoolmate at
the convent, whom she no longer wanted to visit because she suffered so much
when she came home. For whole days afterwards she would weep with sorrow,
regret, despair and misery.
One evening her husband came home
with an air of triumph, holding a large envelope in his hand.
"Look," he said,
"here's something for you."
She tore open the paper and drew out a card,
on which was printed the words:
"The Minister of Education and
Mme. Georges Rampouneau request the pleasure of M. and Mme. Loisel's company at
the Ministry, on the evening of Monday January 18th."
Instead of being delighted, as her
husband had hoped, she threw the invitation on the table resentfully, and
muttered: "What do you want me to
do with that?"
"But, my dear, I thought you
would be pleased. You never go out, and it will be such a lovely occasion! I
had awful trouble getting it. Every one wants to go; it is very exclusive, and
they're not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole ministry will be
there."
She stared at him angrily, and said, impatiently:
"And what do you expect me to wear if I go?"
He hadn't thought of that. He stammered:
"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It seems very nice to me
..."
He stopped, stunned, distressed to see his wife crying. Two large tears
ran slowly from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. He
stuttered:
"What's the matter? What's the matter?"
With great effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, as
she wiped her wet cheeks:
"Nothing. Only I have no dress and so I can't go to this party.
Give your invitation to a friend whose wife has better clothes than I do."
He was distraught, but tried again:
"Let's see, Mathilde. How much would a suitable dress cost, one
which you could use again on other occasions, something very simple?"
She thought for a moment, computing the cost, and also wondering what
amount she could ask for without an immediate refusal and an alarmed
exclamation from the thrifty clerk.
At last she answered hesitantly:
"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it with four hundred
francs."
He turned a little pale, because he had been saving that exact amount to
buy a gun and treat himself to a hunting trip the following summer, in the
country near Nanterre, with a few friends who went lark-shooting there on
Sundays.
However, he said: "Very
well, I can give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really beautiful
dress."
The day of the party drew near, and
Madame Loisel seemed sad, restless, anxious. Her dress was ready, however. One
evening her husband said to her:
"What's the matter? You've been acting strange these last three days."
She replied: "I'm upset that I have no
jewels, not a single stone to wear. I will look cheap. I would almost rather
not go to the party."
"You could wear flowers, " he said, "They are very
fashionable at this time of year. For ten francs you could get two or three
magnificent roses."
She was not convinced.
"No; there is nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the
middle of a lot of rich women."
"How stupid you are!" her husband cried. "Go and see your
friend Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You know her well
enough for that."
She uttered a cry of joy.
"Of course. I had not thought of that."
The next day she went to her friend's house and told her of her
distress.
Madame Forestier went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a large box,
brought it back, opened it, and said to Madame Loisel: "Choose, my dear."
First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a gold
Venetian cross set with precious stones, of exquisite craftsmanship. She tried
on the jewelry in the mirror, hesitated, could not bear to part with them, to
give them back. She kept asking:
"You have nothing else?"
"Why, yes. But I don't know what you like."
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond
necklace, and her heart began to beat with uncontrolled desire. Her hands
trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her neck, over her high-necked
dress, and stood lost in ecstasy as she looked at herself.
Then she asked anxiously, hesitating: "Would you lend me this, just this?"
"Why, yes, of course."
She threw her arms around her friend's neck, embraced her rapturously,
then fled with her treasure.
The day of the party arrived.
Madame Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all the other women,
elegant, gracious, smiling, and full of joy. All the men stared at her, asked
her name, tried to be introduced. All the cabinet officials wanted to waltz with
her. The minister noticed her.
She danced wildly, with passion, drunk on pleasure, forgetting
everything in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a sort
of cloud of happiness, made up of all this respect, all this admiration, all
these awakened desires, of that sense of triumph that is so sweet to a woman's
heart.
She left at about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had been
dozing since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three other gentlemen
whose wives were having a good time.
He threw over her shoulders the clothes he had brought for her to go
outside in, the modest clothes of an ordinary life, whose poverty contrasted
sharply with the elegance of the ball dress. She felt this and wanted to run
away, so she wouldn't be noticed by the other women who were wrapping
themselves in expensive furs.
Loisel held her back.
"Wait a moment, you'll catch a cold outside. I'll go and find a
cab."
But she would not listen to him, and ran down the stairs. When they were
finally in the street, they could not find a cab, and began to look for one,
shouting at the cabmen they saw passing in the distance.
They walked down toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At
last they found on the quay one of those old night cabs that one sees in Paris
only after dark, as if they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the
day.
They were dropped off at their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly
walked up the steps to their apartment. It was all over, for her. And he was
remembering that he had to be back at his office at ten o'clock.
In front of the mirror, she took off the clothes around her shoulders,
taking a final look at herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a
cry. She no longer had the necklace round her neck!
"What is the matter?" asked her husband, already half
undressed.
She turned towards him, panic-stricken.
"I have ... I have ... I no longer have Madame Forestier's
necklace."
He stood up, distraught.
"What! ... how! ... That's impossible!"
They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in her
pockets, everywhere. But they could not find it.
"Are you sure you still had it on when you left the ball?" he
asked.
"Yes. I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."
"But if you had lost it in the street we would have heard it fall.
It must be in the cab."
"Yes. That's probably it.
Did you take his number?"
"No. And you, didn't you notice it?"
"No."
They stared at each other, stunned. At last Loisel put his clothes on
again.
"I'm going back," he said, "over the whole route we
walked, see if I can find it."
He left. She remained in her ball dress all evening, without the
strength to go to bed, sitting on a chair, with no fire, her mind blank.
Her husband returned at about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.
He went to the police, to the newspapers to offer a reward, to the cab
companies, everywhere the tiniest glimmer of hope led him.
She waited all day, in the same state of blank despair from before this
frightful disaster.
Loisel returned in the evening, a hollow, pale figure; he had found
nothing.
"You must write to your friend," he said, "tell her you
have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. It
will give us time to look some more."
She wrote as he dictated.
At the end of one week they had
lost all hope.
And Loisel, who had aged five years, declared: "We must consider how to replace the
jewel."
The next day they took the box which had held it, and went to the
jeweler whose name they found inside. He consulted his books.
"It was not I, madame, who sold the necklace; I must simply have
supplied the case."
And so they went from jeweler to jeweler, looking for an necklace like
the other one, consulting their memories, both sick with grief and anguish.
In a shop at the Palais Royal, they found a string of diamonds which
seemed to be exactly what they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand
francs. They could have it for thirty-six thousand.
So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days. And they made
an arrangement that he would take it back for thirty-four thousand francs if
the other necklace was found before the end of February.
Loisel had eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He
would borrow the rest.
And he did borrow, asking for a thousand francs from one man, five
hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, made
ruinous agreements, dealt with usurers, with every type of money-lender. He
compromised the rest of his life, risked signing notes without knowing if he
could ever honor them, and, terrified by the anguish still to come, by the
black misery about to fall on him, by the prospect of every physical privation
and every moral torture he was about to suffer, he went to get the new
necklace, and laid down on the jeweler's counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Madame Loisel took the necklace back, Madame Forestier said coldly:
"You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it."
To the relief of her friend, she did not open the case. If she had
detected the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have
said? Would she have taken her friend for a thief?
From then on, Madame Loisel knew
the horrible life of the very poor. But she played her part heroically. The
dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their maid; they
changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.
She came to know the drudgery of housework, the odious labors of the
kitchen. She washed the dishes, staining her rosy nails on greasy pots and the
bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and the dishcloths,
which she hung to dry on a line; she carried the garbage down to the street
every morning, and carried up the water, stopping at each landing to catch her
breath. And, dressed like a commoner, she went to the fruiterer's, the
grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, fighting
over every miserable sou.
Each month they had to pay some notes, renew others, get more time.
Her husband worked every evening, doing accounts for a tradesman, and
often, late into the night, he sat copying a manuscript at five sous a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years they had paid off everything, everything, at
usurer's rates and with the accumulations of compound interest.
Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become strong, hard and rough like
all women of impoverished households. With hair half combed, with skirts awry,
and reddened hands, she talked loudly as she washed the floor 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 at the ball so long ago, when
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 life is, how fickle! How little is needed for one to be
ruined or saved!
One Sunday, as she was walking in
the Champs Élysées to refresh herself after the week's work, suddenly she saw a
woman walking with a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still
beautiful, still charming.
Madame Loisel felt emotional. Should she speak to her? Yes, of course.
And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?
She went up to her.
"Good morning, Jeanne."
The other, astonished to be addressed so familiarly by this common
woman, did not recognize her. She stammered:
"But - madame - I don't know. You must have made a mistake."
"No, I am Mathilde Loisel."
Her friend uttered a cry.
"Oh! ... my poor Mathilde, how you've changed! ..."
"Yes, I have had some hard times since I last saw you, and many
miseries ... and all because of you!
"Me? How can that be?"
"You remember that diamond necklace that you lent me to wear to the
Ministry party?"
"Yes. Well?"
"Well, I lost it."
"What do you mean? You brought it back."
"I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us
ten years to pay for it. It wasn't easy for us, we had very little. But at last
it is over, and I am very glad."
Madame Forestier was stunned.
"You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"
"Yes; you didn't notice then? They were very similar."
And she smiled with proud and innocent pleasure.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five
hundred francs at most! ..."