Madame Loisel was one of those pretty and charming girls who, as if by mistake of fate, had been born into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known, understood, loved, and married by a rich and distinguished man; so, she let herself be married to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education.
She dressed plainly because she had no means, but she was as unhappy as though she had really fallen from a higher station; since with women there is neither caste nor rank, for beauty, grace, and charm take the place of family and birth. Natural ingenuity, instinctive elegance, and quickness of wit determine their position in life. She suffered incessantly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and luxuries of life. She suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the worn chairs, the ugly curtains, the repulsive walls; and all those things of which another woman of her class would not even have been conscious tortured and angered her.
The sight of the little Breton servant who did her humble housework aroused in her desperate regrets and distracted dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestries, lighted by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee-breeches, who, drowsy in the heat of the big stove, slept in the large armchairs. She thought of large drawing-rooms fitted with old silks, of the dainty cabinets holding priceless knickknacks, and of the little perfumed reception-rooms made for chatting at five o’clock with intimate friends, men well known and sought after, whose homage roused every woman’s envious longing.
When she sat down to dinner at the round table covered with a tablecloth that had been used for three days, opposite her husband, who lifted the cover of the soup-tureen and exclaimed delightedly, “Ah! the good soup! I don’t know anything better than that,” she thought of delicate dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestries that peopled the walls with ancient personages and strange birds in a fairy forest; she thought of delicious dishes served on marvelous plates, of the gallantries whispered and listened to with a sphinxlike smile while one ate the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no fine dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved only such things. She felt that she was made for them. She would so much have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.
She had a rich friend, a schoolmate at the convent, whom she would not go to see anymore, because she suffered so much when she came back. She wept for whole days, from sorrow, from regret, from despair, from distress.
Then one evening her husband came home with joyful air and holding a large envelope in his hand.
“There,” he said, “there is something for you.”
She hastily tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:
“The Minister of Education and Madame Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and Madame Loisel’s company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.”
Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she flung the invitation disdainfully upon the table, murmuring:
“What do you suppose I have to wear to such a thing?”
“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It seems very pretty to me.”
He was silent, astonished and distressed to see that his wife wept. Two large tears ran slowly from the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth. He stammered:
“What is the matter? What is the matter?”
By a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:
“Nothing. Only I have no dress and therefore I can’t go to that party. Give your invitation to some colleague whose wife is better fitted out than I am.
He was in despair.
“Come,” he said, “let us see. How much would a suitable dress cost you, one that you could use on other occasions, something very simple?”
She thought for some seconds, making her calculations and also reflecting on what sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the economic clerk.
Finally, she replied hesitatingly:
“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”
He turned a little pale, for he had been saving just that sum to buy a gun and treat himself to a shooting excursion next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends, who were to go lark-shooting there on Sundays.
Nevertheless, he said:
“Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. But try to have a pretty dress.”
The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Nevertheless, the dress was ready. One evening her husband said to her:
“What is the matter? You have been acting strangely for three days.”
And she answered:
“It annoys me not to have a jewel, not a single stone, to put on. I shall look frightful. I would almost rather not go to that party.”
He replied:
“You can wear some flowers. They are very fashionable this year. For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No; there is nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”
Then her husband cried out:
“How stupid you are! 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.
“It is true! I had not thought of that.”
The next day she went to her friend and told her about her distress.
Madame Forestier went to her wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel-case, brought it, opened it, and said:
“Choose, my dear.”
She saw at first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross of gold and jewels of admirable workmanship. She tried the ornaments in front of the glass, hesitated, could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept asking:
“Haven’t you anymore?”
“Yes, yes. Look further; I don’t know what you like.”
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb necklace of diamonds, and her heart throbbed with immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at her reflection.
Then she asked, in a hesitating voice, full of anguish:
“Could you lend me this, only this?”
“Yes, certainly.”
She threw her arms round her friend, kissed her with passionate emotion, and then fled with her treasure.
The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was the prettiest of all, elegant, graceful, smiling, and full of joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, tried to be introduced. All the officials of the Ministry wished to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.
She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, thinking of nothing, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a sort of cloud of happiness composed of all these homages, of all this admiration, of these awakened desires, and of that complete victory which is so sweet to the heart of woman.
She went home at about four o’clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been half asleep in one of the little anterooms, deserted by the other men whose wives were having a good time.
She threw upon her shoulders the wraps that he had brought, modest wraps of common life, whose poverty contrasted with the elegance of the ball-dress. She felt this, and she wished to escape, so as not to be noticed by the other women, who were wrapping themselves in rich furs.
Loisel detained her.
“Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a cab.”
But she did not listen to him and hurried down the stairs. When they were in the street, they could not find a cab; and they began to look for one, shouting after the drivers whom they saw passing at a distance.
They walked down toward the Seine, shivering with cold. At last they found one of those old night cabs that one sees in Paris only after dark, as if they were ashamed to show themselves by day.
It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they went up to their room. It was all over for her. And he was thinking that he must be at the Ministry at ten o’clock.
She took off the wraps before the glass, so as to see herself once more 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 toward him, distracted:
“I—I have no longer Madame Forestier’s necklace!”
He started, in amazement:
“What! —impossible!”
They looked in the folds of her dress, in the folds of her cloak, in the pockets, everywhere.
They did not find it.
He asked:
“Are you sure that you had it on when you left the ball?”
“Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the Ministry.”
“But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall.”
“Yes. It must be in the cab.”
“Yes, probably. Did you take the number?”
“No. And you—did you notice it?”
“No.”
They stared at each other, utterly cast down. Finally, Loisel dressed again.
“I will go over the whole route on foot,” he said, “to see if I can find it.”
And he went out. She remained in her ballroom all night, in a state of utter despair, sitting on a chair, without fire, without a thought.
Toward seven o’clock he returned.
He had found nothing.
They went to the police, to the newspapers to offer a reward; they went to the cab companies everywhere, according to the limits of their hopes.
She waited all day in the same state of bewilderment before this frightful catastrophe.
Loisel returned in the evening, with his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing.
“You must write to your friend,” he said, “and say that you have broken the clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give us time to turn around.”
She wrote his dictation.
At the end of the week, they had lost all hope.
And Loisel, who was aged five years, declared:
“We must consider how to replace that ornament.”
The next day they took the box that had contained it and went to the jeweler whose name was found within. He consulted his books.
“It was not I, madame, who sold this necklace; I must have furnished the case only.”
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for one like it, consulting their memories, both sick with chagrin and grief.
At last, they found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds which seemed to them exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six thousand.
So, they asked the jeweler not to sell it for three days. And they made a bargain that he should take it back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the others were found before the end of February.
Loisel had eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
He did borrow it, asking a thousand francs from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers and all kinds of lenders. He compromised all the rest of his life, risked signing a note without knowing whether he could meet it, and, frightened by the anxiety yet to come, by the black misery that was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and moral tortures that he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, laying down upon the merchant’s counter thirty-six thousand francs.
When Madame Loisel took the necklace back to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her coldly:
“You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it.”
She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had perceived the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?
Madame Loisel now knew the horrible life of necessity. She took her part, however, all at once, with heroism. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay for it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented some rooms under a mansard roof.
She learned the heavy care of a household, the odious work of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, wearing down her rosy nails on greasy pots and pans. She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung on the line to dry; she carried the refuse down to the street each morning and brought up the water, stopping for breath on each landing. Clad like a woman of the people, she went to the fruitier, the grocer, the butcher, bargaining, meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, one sou at a time.
Every month notes had to be paid, others renewed, time gained.
Her husband worked in the evenings, making up a tradesman’s accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscripts for five sous a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years, they had restored all. With interest.
Madame Loisel was now old. She had become the woman of impoverished households—strong and hard and rough. With frowzy hair, skirts awry, red hands, she talked loudly while washing the floor with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and she thought of that evening long ago, of that ball where 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 and changeful life is! How small a thing will ruin or save one!
One Sunday, as she was walking on the Champs-Élysées to refresh herself after the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
Madame Loisel felt moved. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. 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 familiarly addressed by this plain good wife, did not recognize her at all and stammered:
“But—madame—I do not know—You must be mistaken.”
“No. I am Mathilde Loisel.”
Her friend uttered a cry:
“Oh! —my poor Mathilde! How you have changed!”
“Yes, I have had some hard times since I saw you; and many sorrows—and all on your account.”
“On my account? —How was that?”
“You remember the diamond necklace that you lent me to wear at the Ministry ball?”
“Yes. Well?”
“Well, I lost it.”
“What do you mean? You brought it back.”
“I brought you another just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. But at last, it is ended, and I am very glad.”
Madame Forestier had stopped.
“You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?”
“Yes. You never noticed it, then? They were very similar.”
And she smiled with a proud and simple joy.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took the two red hands of Madame Loisel.
“Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was false. It was worth at most five hundred francs!”