The Necklace

The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Adapted for English Language Learners 

 
She was one of those pretty girls who are sometimes, by mistake, born into a family of clerks. [Clerks: people who, long ago, were considered "low level" office workers.] She had no means of being known, loved, or wedded to any rich man. She was, instead, forced to marry a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction. 
     She was as unhappy as if she had fallen from a high position in society, since she saw her beauty, grace, and charm as important as coming from a family of high birth. She suffered daily, thinking she was born for all the joys and luxuries of rich people, but having only the poverty of her simple home: dull walls, worn-out chairs, and ugly curtains. 
     The sight of the little peasant girl who did her house-work only made the young wife angry.  She thought of all the rich women with many servants, big arm-chairs, and fancy dinner parties. When she sat down to dinner at their small round table covered with a cloth three days old, she lost her appetite. Opposite her was her husband who uncovered the soup bowl and declared with excitement, “Ah, soup again! I don’t know anything better than that!”  It made her want to cry.
     She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing, but she loved nothing but dresses, jewels, and riches.  She wanted to be envied, to be admired, to be sought after.
     One evening her husband returned home with a triumphant look, holding a large, fancy envelope in his hand.
     “Here!” said he. “Here is something for you that will make you happy.”
     She tore open the paper quickly, and pulled out a printed card that read:
     The Minister of Public Instruction requests the honor of your company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.
     Instead of being happy, she threw the invitation on the table with anger and said, “What do you want me to do with that?”
     “But, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity. I had to go to a lot of trouble to get it. Everyone wants to go!  It is very selective. They are not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole world of important people will be there.”
     She looked at him with angry eyes and she said impatiently, “And what do you want me to put on my back?”
     He had not thought of that. He stammered, “Why, the dress you go to the theater in. It looks very well to me.”
     He stopped, seeing that his wife was crying. Two big tears fell slowly from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. He stuttered, “What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
     She replied, wiping her wet cheeks, “Nothing, nothing. Only I have no dress and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to a friend whose wife is richer than I.”
     He was in despair. He replied, “Come, let us see what we can do. How much would it cost, a beautiful dress, that you could use on other occasions?”
     She thought several seconds, wondering what sum she could ask without getting an immediate refusal from her frightened husband.  Finally, she replied, “I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”
     He became a little pale because he was trying to save just that amount to buy a hunting gun and treat himself to a little hunting next summer with friends who went to shoot larks on Sundays.
      But slowly he said, “Alright. I will give you 400 francs.”
     As the day of the ball drew near, the young wife was still sad. Her dress was made and paid for, and so her husband said to her, “What is the matter? Come, tell me.  You’ve been so sad these last 3 days.”
     She answered, “I don't have a single jewel, not a single stone, nothing to put on. I will be looked at and laughed at the moment we arrive. I would rather not go at all.”
     Her husband replied quickly, “You can wear natural flowers. It’s very stylish at this time of the year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”
     She was not convinced.
     “No, there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among women who are rich.”
     Then her husband cried out, “How stupid you are! Go talk to your friend, Mrs. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some jewels.”
     The wife gave a cry of joy, “I never thought of that!” The next day she went to her friend and told of her distress.  Mrs. Forestier went to her bedroom, got a large jewel-box, brought it back, opened it, and said to her friend, “Choose, my dear!”
    She looked in awe at some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, and then a Venetian cross, with precious stones. She tried on the ornaments before the mirror, but hesitated and could not make up her mind. She kept asking, “Haven’t you any more to show me?”
     Her friend replied, “Why, yes. There's more. I simply don’t know what you like.”
     All of a sudden she showed her friend a black satin box with a superb necklace of diamonds in it.  The young wife's heart began to beat with desire. Her hands trembled as she picked it up. She put it around her neck and remained lost in ecstasy at the sight of herself.  Then she asked, filled with doubt and fear, “Can you lend me this?”
     “Why, yes, certainly,” replied the friend.

‡ ‡ ‡  
     The day of the ball arrived. The clerk's wife made a great success. She was prettier than them all, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, and wanted to be introduced. All the important government officials wanted to waltz with her. She forgot all her sorrow in the
triumph of her beauty and the glory of her success.
     She finally stopped dancing at four o’clock in the morning. (Her husband had been sleeping since midnight, in a little deserted room with 3 other gentlemen whose wives were having a very good time, too.)
     When she woke her husband, she whispered, "Come, we must leave quickly so no one sees my poor coat!  I will be humiliated if someone sees me in this coat!"  So they rushed down the stairs and out into the street. When they finally arrived home, the world ended for the clerk's wife. Sorrow filled her heart.  She sighed and said, "One more time I will look at myself in the mirror and remember my night of glory!"  She removed her coat and went to the mirror . . . and suddenly screamed!
     Her husband, already half-undressed, cried out, “What is the matter with you?!”
     She turned towards him and said, "It's gone!  The necklace is gone!  I have . . . I have . . . I’ve lost Mrs. Forestier’s necklace!”
     “What! How? Impossible!”
     They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her coat, in her pockets, everywhere. They did not find it.
     They looked like people about to die. At last the tired clerk put on his clothes and said, “I will go back on foot, over the whole route, to see if I can find it.”
     She sat waiting in a chair in her ball dress, without the strength to move, without a thought, without hope. Her husband came back about seven o’clock. He had found nothing.  He went to Police Headquarters and to the newspaper offices to offer a reward. But days went by.  The necklace was clearly gone.
     The clerk, who had aged five years in one week, finally declared, “We have no choice, we must replace it.”  They went from jeweler to jeweler trying to find a necklace like the one they had lost, but without success.  Finally, they found in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they had borrowed. It was worth 40 thousand francs, the jeweler said, but they could have it for 36 thousand.
     The young clerk had 18 thousand francs that his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
     When the young wife took the new necklace to her friend, Mrs. Forestier said, “You should have returned it sooner!”  She did not invite the young wife to tea—but she did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had discovered the substitution, what would she have said? 
     The young wife and her husband now knew the horrible existence of the needy. They knew they would spend all their lives paying back the debt. They dismissed their servant, moved into a simpler home, and ate simple food. The young wife did all the heavy home work now, including fetching water from the street well, doing all the cooking and washing—and carrying the slops down to the street every morning. Her husband worked in the evenings, taking on extra work.
     This life lasted ten long years.
     At the end of ten years they had paid all their debts.  But the clerk and his young wife now looked old, knowing no joy. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window, and she thought of that happy evening long ago, where she had been so beautiful and so admired. What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows?
 
 ‡ ‡ ‡ 
One Sunday evening, having gone to take a walk along the Champs Elysées, the wife suddenly saw a woman who was walking a child. It was Mrs. Forestier, still young, beautiful, and charming.  Should she go up to her and speak to her? Yes, certainly! Why not?
     She went up. “Good-day, Mrs. Forestier.”
     The other, did not recognize her at all, and said, "Excuse me, but I do not know you.”
     “No. You do know me. I am Mathilde Loisel.”
     Her friend uttered a cry. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!”
    “Yes, I have had very hard days since I have seen you—and it is, in all honesty, because of you!”
     “Of me! How so?”
     “Do you remember that diamond necklace you gave me to wear at the ball?”
     “Yes. Well?”
     “Well, I lost it.”
     “What do you mean? You brought it back.”
     “I brought you back another just like it. And for ten years we have been paying for it. But, at last it is ended.  We have paid the last of the debt.”
     Mrs. Forestier said nothing for a long time.  But finally she replied, “You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”
     “Yes. You never noticed it then!’ They were very like.  I'm so glad you never knew!”
     Mrs. Forestier, strongly moved, took her friend's two hands. “Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was fake. It was worth at most 500 francs!”