accident of fate, into a family of clerks. With no dowry, no
prospects1, no way of any kind of being met, understood, loved, and
married by a man both prosperous and famous, she was finally
married to a minor clerk in the Ministry of Education.
2) She dressed plainly because she could not afford fine clothes, but
was as unhappy as a woman who has come down in the world; for
women have no family rank or social class. With them, beauty, grace,
and charm take the place of birth and breeding. Their natural poise,
their instinctive good taste, and their mental cleverness are the sole
guiding principles that make daughters of the common people the
equals of ladies in high society.
3) She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the
little niceties and luxuries of living. She grieved over the shabbiness
of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn-out appearance
of the chairs, the ugliness of the draperies. All these things, which
another woman of her class would not even have noticed, gnawed at
her and made her furious. The sight of the Breton2 girl who did her
humble housework roused in her disconsolate3 regrets and wild
daydreams. She would dream of silent chambers, draped with
Oriental tapestries and lighted by tall bronze floor lamps, and of two
handsome butlers in knee breeches, who, drowsy from the heavy
warmth cast by the central stove, dozed in large overstuffed
armchairs.
4) She would dream of great reception halls hung with old silks, of
fine furniture filled with priceless curios4, and of small, stylish,
scented sitting rooms just right for the four o’clock chat with some
intimate friends, with distinguished and sought-after men whose
attention every woman envies and longs to attract.
5) When dining at the round table, covered for the third day with
the same cloth, opposite her husband, who would raise the cover of
the soup tureen, declaring delightedly, “Ah! A good stew! There’s
nothing I like better ….,” she would dream of fashionable dinner
parties, of gleaming silverware, of tapestries making the walls alive
with characters out of history and strange birds in a fairyland forest;
she would dream of delicious dishes served on wonderful china, of gallant compliments whispered and listened to with a sphinxlike5 smile
as one eats the rosy flesh of a trout or nibbles at the wings of a
grouse.
6) She had no evening clothes, no jewels, nothing. But those were the
things he wanted: she felt that was the kind of life for her. She so
much longed to please, be envied, be fascinating and sought after.
7) She had a well-to-do friend, a classmate of convent-school days
whom she would no longer go to see, simply because she would feel
so distressed on returning home. And she would weep for days on end
from vexation6, regret, despair, and anguish.
8) Then one evening, her husband came home proudly holding out a
large envelope.
9) “Look,” he said, “I’ve go something for you.”
10) She excitedly tore open the envelope and pulled out a printed card
bearing these words:
11) “The Minister of Education and Mme. Georges Ramponneau beg M.
and Mme. Loisel to do them the honor of attending an evening
reception at the Ministerial Mansion on Friday, January 18.”
12) Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she
scornfully tossed the invitation on the table, murmuring, “What good
is that to me?”
13) “But my dear, I thought you’d be thrilled to death. You never get a
chance to go out, and this is a real affair, a wonderful one! I had an
awful time getting a card. Everybody wants one; it’s much sought
after, and not many clerks have a chance at one. You’ll see all the
most important people there.”
14) She gave him an irritated glance and burst out impatiently, “What
do you think I have to go in?”
15) He hadn’t given that a thought. He stammered, “Why, the dress
you wear when we go to the theater. That looks quite nice, I think.”
16) He stopped talking, dazed and distracted to see his wife burst out
weeping. Two large tears slowly rolled from the corners of her eyes
to the corners of her mouth. He gasped, “Why, what’s the matter?
What’s the trouble?”
17) By sheer willpower she overcame her outburst and answered in a
calm voice while wiping the tears from her wet cheeks, “Oh, nothing.
Only I don’t have an evening dress and therefore I can’t go to that
affair. Give the card to some friend at the office whose wife can
dress better that I can.”
18) He was stunned. He resumed, “Let’s see, Mathilde. How much
would a suitable outfit cost-one you could wear for other affairs toosomething
very simple?”
19) She thought it over for several seconds, going over her allowance
and thinking also of the amount she could ask for without bringing an
immediate refusal and an exclamation of dismay from the thrifty
clerk.
20) Finally, she answered hesitatingly, “I’m not sure exactly, but I
think with four hundred francs7 I could manage it.”
21) He turned a bit pale, for he had set aside just that amount to buy
a rifle so that, the following summer, he could join some friends who
were getting up a group to shoot larks on the plain near Nanterre8.
22) However, he said, “All right. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But
try to get a nice dress.”
23) As the day of the party approached, Mme. Loisel seemed sad,
moody, and ill at ease. Her outfit was ready, however. Her husband
said to her one evening, “What’s the matter? You’ve been all out of
sorts for three days.”
24) And she answered, “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a
gem-nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper; I’d almost
rather not go to that party.”
25) He answered, “Why not wear some flowers? They’re very
fashionable this season. For ten francs you can get two or three
gorgeous roses.”
26) She wasn’t at all convinced. “No…There’s nothing more humiliating
than to look poor among a lot of rich women.”
27) But her husband exclaimed, “My, but you’re silly! Go see your
friend Mme. Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewelry. You and
she know each other well enough for you to do that.”
28) She gave a cry of joy, “Why, that’s so! I hadn’t thought of it.”
29) The next day she paid her friend a visit and told her of her
predicament.
30) Mme. Forestier went toward a large closet with mirrored doors,
took out a large jewel box, brought it over, opened it, and said to
Mme. Loisel, “Pick something out, my dear.”
31) At first her eyes noted some bracelets, then a pearl necklace,
then a Venetian cross, gold and gems, of marvelous workmanship. She
tried on these adornments in front of the mirror, but hesitated,unable to decide which to part with and put back. She kept on asking,
“Haven’t you something else?”
32) “Oh, yes, keep on looking. I don’t know just what you’d like.”
33) All at once she found, in a black satin box, a superb diamond
necklace; and her pulse beat faster with longing. Her hands trembled
as she took it up. Clasping it around her throat, outside her highnecked
dress, she stood in ecstasy looking at her reflection.
34) Then she asked, hesitatingly, pleading, “Could I borrow that, just
that and nothing else?”
35) “Why of course.”
36) She threw her arms around her friend, kissed her warmly, and
fled with her treasure.
37) The day of the party arrived. Mme. Loisel was a sensation. She was
the prettiest one there, fashionable, gracious, smiling, and wild with
joy. All the men turned to look at her, asked who she was, begged to
be introduced. All the Cabinet officials wanted to waltz with her. The
minister took notice of her.
38) She danced madly, wildly, drunk with pleasure, giving no thought to
anything in the triumph of her beauty, the pride of her success, in a
kind of happy cloud composed of all the adulation, of all the admiring
glances, of all the awakened longings, of a sense of complete victory
that is so sweet to a woman’s heart.
39) She left around four o’clock in the morning. Her husband, since
midnight, had been dozing in a small empty sitting room with three
other gentlemen whose wives were having too good a time to leave.
40) He threw her over his shoulders the wraps he had brought for
going home, modest garments of everyday life whose shabbiness
clashed with the stylishness of her evening clothes. She felt this and
longed to escaped, unseen by the other women who were draped in
expensive furs.
41) Loisel held her back.
42) “Hold on! You’ll catch cold outside. I’ll call a cab.”
43) But she wouldn’t listen to him and went rapidly down the stairs.
When they were on the street, they didn’t find a carriage; and they
set out to hunt for one, hailing drivers whom they saw going by at a
distance.
44) They walked toward the Seine11, disconsolate and shivering. Finally
on the docks they found one of those carriages that one sees in Paris
only after nightfall, as if they were ashamed to show their drabness
during daylight hours.
45) It dropped then at their door in the Rue des Martyrs12, and they
climbed wearily up to their apartment. For her, it was all over. For
him, there was the thought the he would have to be at the Ministry
at ten o’clock.
46) Before the mirror, she let the wraps fall from her shoulders to
see herself once again in all her glory. Suddenly gave a cry. The
necklace was gone.
47) Her husband, already half undressed, said, “What’s the trouble?”
48) She turned toward him despairingly, “I ..I..I don’t have Mme.
Forestier’s necklace.”
49) “What! You can’t mean it! It’s impossible!”
50) They hunted everywhere, through the folds of the dress, through
the folds of the coat, in the pockets. They found nothing.
51) He asked, “Are you sure you had it when leaving the dance?”
52) “Yes, I felt it when I was in the hall of the Ministry.”
53) “But if you had lost it on the street, we’d have heard it drop. It
must be in the cab.”
54) “Yes, quite likely. Did you get it’s number?”
55) “No. Didn’t you notice it either?”
56) “No.”
57) They looked at each other aghast13. Finally Loisel got dressed
again.
58) “I’ll retrace our steps on foot,” he said, “to see if I can find it.”
59) And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, without the
strength to go to bed, slumped in a chair in the unheated room, her
mind a blank.
60) Her husband came in about seven o’clock. He had had no luck.
61) He went to the police station, to the newspapers to post a reward,
to the cab companies, everywhere the slightest hope drove him.
62) That evening Loisel returned, pale, his face lined still he had
learned nothing.
63) “We’ll have to write your friend,” he said, “to tell her you have
broken the catch and are having it repaired. That will give us a little
time to turn around.”
64) She wrote his dictation.
65) At the end of a week, they had given up all hope.
66) And Loisel, looking five years older, declared, “We must take steps
to replace that piece of jewelry.”
67) The next day they took the case to the jeweler whose name they
found inside. He consulted his records. “I didn’t sell that necklace,
madame,” he said. “I only supplied the case.”
68) Then they went from one jeweler to another hunting for a similar
necklace, going over their recollections, both sick with despair and
anxiety.
69) They found, in a shop in Palais Royal14, a string of diamonds that
seemed exactly like the one they were seeking. It was priced at forty
thousand francs. They could get it for thirty-six.
70) They asked the jeweler to hold it for them for three days. And
they reached an agreement that he would take it back for thirty four
thousand if the one lost was found before the end of February.
71) Loisel had eighteen thousand francs he had inherited from his
father. He would borrow the rest.
72) He went about raising the money, asking a thousand francs from
one, four hundred from another, a hundred here, sixty there. He
signed notes, made ruinous15 deals, did business with loan sharks, ran
the whole gamut16 of moneylenders. He compromised the rest of his
life, risked his signature without knowing if he’d be able to honor it,
and, then, terrified by the outlook for the future, by the blackness
of despair about to close around him, by the prospect of all the
privations of the body and tortures of the spirit, he went to claim the
new necklace with the thirty-six thousand francs that he placed on
the counter of the shopkeeper.
73) When Mme. Loisel took the necklace back, Mme. Forestier said to
her frostily, “You should have brought it back sooner; I might have
needed it.”
74) She didn’t open the case, an action her friend was afraid of. If
she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What
would she have said? Would she have thought her a thief?
75) Mme. Loisel experienced the horrible life the needy live. She
played her part, however, with sudden heroism. That frightful debt
had to be paid. She would pay it. She dismissed her maid; they rented
a garret17 under the eaves.
76) She learned to do the heavy housework, to perform the hateful
duties of cooking. She washed dishes, wearing down her shell pink
nails scouring the grease from pots and pans; she scrubbed dirty
linen, shirts, and cleaning rags, which she hung on a line to dry; she
took the garbage down to the street each morning and brought up
water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad18 like a
peasant woman, basket on arm, guarding sou19 by sou her scanty
allowance, she bargained with the fruit dealers, the grocer, the
butcher, and was insulted by them.
77) Each month notes had to be paid and others renewed to give more
time.
78) Her husband labored evenings to balance a tradesman’s accounts,
and at night, often, he copied documents at five sous a page.
79) And this went on for ten years.
80) Finally, all was paid back, everything including the exorbitant rates
of the loan sharks and accumulated compound interest.
81) Mme. Loisel appeared an old woman now. She became heavy, rough,
harsh, like one of the poor. Her hair untended, her skirts askew20, her
hands red, her voice shrill, she even slopped water on her floors and
scrubbed them herself. But, sometimes, while her husband was at
work, she would sit near the window and think of that long ago evening
when, at the dance, she had been so beautiful and admired.
82) What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who
knows? Who can say? How strange and unpredictable life is! How
little there is between happiness and misery!
83) Then one Sunday when she had gone for a walk on the Champs
Elysees21 to relax a bit from the week’s labors, she suddenly noticed a
woman strolling with a child. It was Mme. Forestier, sill young-looking,
still beautiful, still charming.
84) Mme. Loisel felt a rush of emotion. Should she speak to her? Of
course. And now that everything was paid off, she would tell her the
whole story. Why not?
85) She went toward her. “Hello, Jeanne.”
86) The other, not recognizing her, showed astonishment at being
spoken to so familiarly by this common person. She stammered.
“But…madame..I don’t recognize…You must be mistaken.”
87) “No, I’m Mathilde Loisel.”
88) Her friend gave a cry, “Oh, my poor Mathilde, how you’ve changed!”
89) “Yes, I’ve had a hard time since last seeing you. And plenty of
misfortune-and all on account of you!”
90) “Of me...How do you mean?”
91) “Do you remember that diamond necklace you loaned me to wear to
the dance at the Ministry?”
92) “Yes, but what about it?”
93) “Well, I lost it.”
94) “You lost it! But you returned it.”
95) “I brought you another just like it. And we’ve been paying for it for ten years now. You can imagine that wasn’t easy for us who had
nothing. Well, it’s over now, and I am glad of it.”
96) Mme. Forestier stopped short, “You mean to say you bought a
diamond necklace to replace mine?”
97) “Yes. You never noticed, then? They were quite alike.”
98) And she smiled with proud and simple joy.
99) Mme. Forestier, quite overcome, clasped her by the hands. “Oh, my
poor Mathilde. But mine was only paste22. Why, at most it was worth
five hundred francs!”
Answer the following questions:
- In the opening paragraph of the story, why does the writer consider Mme Loisel's life an "accident of faith"?
- Do you think the writer wants to sympathize with Mme Loisel's unhappiness at the beginning of the story? Why or why not?
- How are the things that Mme Loisel values different from what her husband values?
- Do you think the Loisels made a wise decision to buy another necklace that cost them a fortune? What else could they have done? (Be creative)
- Do you feel sorry for Mme Loisel? Why or why not?
- Considering Mme Loisel's feelings at the beginning of the story and the surprising twist of events at the end, what would you say is the theme of "The Necklace"? Justify your answer.
Grammar:
Change the following into indirect speech:
- He answered, “Why not wear some flowers? They’re very
fashionable this season. For ten francs you can get two or three
gorgeous roses.” - “We’ll have to write your friend,” he said.
- “Do you remember that diamond necklace you loaned me to wear to
the dance at the Ministry?” she asked. - She said, “You lost it! But you returned it.”
- He declared, “We must take steps to replace that piece of jewelry.”
Research:
This story is about content (satisfied) with your life and what you have. It also reveals the envious side of the main character (desiring what other people have). Search the internet for some quotes about being content and satisfied and explain your favorite one. Also try to find a true event from history that is similar to this story or the idea of envy and dissatisfaction.
Have Fun! Feel free to leave a comment on this blog (in proper English and please mention your name).
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