The Diamond Necklace Page #2

"The Diamond Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant is a poignant short story that explores themes of vanity, pride, and the pursuit of wealth. It follows Mathilde Loisel, a beautiful but discontented woman who yearns for a life of luxury and glamour. When she borrows a stunning diamond necklace to wear to a high-society ball, her dreams seem to come true. However, the evening takes a dark turn when she loses the necklace and must struggle for years to repay the debt incurred to replace it. The story culminates in a bitter twist, revealing the harsh realities of ambition and the price of superficial desires. Maupassant's tale serves as a powerful commentary on social class and the illusions of wealth.

								

then fled with her treasure.

The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She
was prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling
and wild with joy. All the men looked at her, asked her name, sought to
be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with her.
She was remarked by the minister himself.

She danced with rapture, with passion, intoxicated by pleasure,
forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her
success, in a sort of cloud of happiness comprised of all this homage,
admiration, these awakened desires and of that sense of triumph which is
so sweet to woman's heart.

She left the ball about four o'clock in the morning. Her husband had
been sleeping since midnight in a little deserted anteroom with three
other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball.

He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought, the modest wraps
of common life, the poverty of which contrasted with the elegance of the
ball dress. She felt this and wished to escape so as not to be remarked
by the other women, who were enveloping themselves in costly furs.

Loisel held her back, saying: “Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside.
I will call a cab.”

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When
they reached the street they could not find a carriage and began to look
for one, shouting after the cabmen passing at a distance.

They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they
found on the quay one of those ancient night cabs which, as though they
were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day, are never seen
round Paris until after dark.

It took them to their dwelling in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they
mounted the stairs to their flat. All was ended for her. As to him, he
reflected that he must be at the ministry at ten o'clock that morning.

She removed her 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 around her neck!

“What is the matter with you?” demanded her husband, already half
undressed.

She turned distractedly toward him.

“I have--I have--I've lost Madame Forestier's necklace,” she cried.

He stood up, bewildered.

“What!--how? Impossible!”

They looked among the folds of her skirt, of her cloak, in her pockets,
everywhere, but did not find it.

“You're sure you had it on when you left the ball?” he asked.

“Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the minister's house.”

“But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It
must be in the cab.”

“Yes, probably. Did you take his number?”

“No. And you--didn't you notice it?”

“No.”

They looked, thunderstruck, at each other. At last Loisel put on his
clothes.

“I shall go back on foot,” said he, “over the whole route, to see
whether I can find it.”

He went out. She sat waiting on a chair in her ball dress, without
strength to go to bed, overwhelmed, without any fire, without a thought.

Her husband returned about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.

He went to police headquarters, to the newspaper offices to offer a
reward; he went to the cab companies--everywhere, in fact, whither he
was urged by the least spark of hope.

She waited all day, in the same condition of mad fear before this
terrible calamity.

Loisel returned at night with a hollow, pale face. He had discovered
nothing.

“You must write to your friend,” said he, “that you have broken the
clasp of her necklace and that you are having it mended. That will give
us time to turn round.”

She wrote at his dictation.

At the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had 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 that necklace; I must simply have
furnished the case.”

Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a necklace like
the other, trying to recall it, both sick with chagrin and grief.

They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds that
seemed to them exactly like the one they had lost. It was worth forty
thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days yet. And they
made a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand
francs, in case they should find the lost necklace before the end of
February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left him.
He would borrow the rest.

He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of another,
five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up ruinous
obligations, dealt with usurers and all the race of lenders. He
compromised all the rest of his life, risked signing a note without even
knowing whether he could meet it; and, frightened by the trouble 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 upon the jeweler's
counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace Madame Forestier said to her
with a chilly manner:

“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
detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she
have said? Would she not have taken Madame Loisel for a thief?

Thereafter Madame Loisel knew the horrible existence of the needy. She
bore her part, however, with sudden heroism. That dreadful debt must be
paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their
lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.

She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the
kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her dainty fingers and rosy nails
on greasy pots and pans. She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and the
dishcloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to
the street every morning and carried up the water, stopping for breath
at every landing. And dressed like a woman of the people, she went to
the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining,
meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, sou by sou.

Every month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.

Her husband worked evenings, making up a tradesman's accounts, and late
at night he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.

This life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the
rates of usury and the accumulations of the compound interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished
households--strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew
and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great
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