The Necklace – BY Guy de Maupassant

The Necklace – BY Guy de Maupassant
She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into
a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known,
understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be
married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had
never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath
her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or
family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only
mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land. She suffered
endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury.
She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly
curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware,
tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her
little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent
antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall
footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the
stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting
priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of
intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other
woman’s envious longings.
When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite
her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: “Aha! Scotch
broth! What could be better?” she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling
the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food
served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one
trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.
She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that
she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly
attractive and sought after.
She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so
keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and
misery.
* One 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?”
He 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 and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two
large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.
“What’s the matter with you? What’s the matter with you?” he faltered.
But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and 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. Give your invitation to some friend
of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall.”
He was heart-broken.
“Look here, Mathilde,” he persisted. “What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you
could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?”
She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum
she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror
from the careful-minded clerk.
At last she replied with some hesitation:

“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs.”
He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to

get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-
shooting there on Sundays.

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, uneasy and anxious. Her dress
was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:
“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been very odd for the last three days.”
“I’m utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear,” she replied. “I shall
look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party.”
“Wear flowers,” he said. “They’re very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs you could get
two or three gorgeous roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No . . . there’s nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women.”
“How stupid you are!” exclaimed her husband. “Go and see Madame Forestier and ask her to
lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that.”
She uttered a cry of delight.
“That’s true. I never thought of it.”
Next 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.”