The Diamond Necklace

Guy de Maupassant

The girl was one of those pretty and charming young creatures who sometimes

are born, as if by a slip of fate, into a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no

expectations, no way of being known, understood, loved, married by any rich

and distinguished man; so she let herself be married to a little clerk of the

Ministry of Public Instruction.

She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was unhappy as if 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, instinct for

little Breton peasant who did her humble housework aroused in her despairing regrets and

bewildering dreams. She thought of silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry,

illumined by tall bronze candelabra, and of two great footmen in knee breeches who sleep

in the big armchairs, made drowsy by the oppressive heat of the stove. She thought of long

reception halls hung with ancient silk, of the dainty cabinets containing priceless curiosities

and of the little coquettish perfumed reception rooms made for chatting at five o'clock with

intimate friends, with men famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose

attention they all desire.

When she sat down to dinner, before the round table covered with a tablecloth in use three

days, opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup tureen and declared with a delighted

that. She would have liked so much to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought

after.

She had a friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not

like to go to see any more because she felt so sad when she came home.

But one evening her husband reached home with a triumphant air and holding a large

envelope in his hand.

"There," said he, "there is something for you."

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She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card which bore these words:

The Minister of Public Instruction 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 threw the invitation on the table

crossly, muttering:

"What do you wish me to do with that?"

"Why, the gown you go to the theatre in. It looks very well to me."

He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was weeping. Two great tears ran slowly from

the corners of her eyes toward the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" he answered.

By a violent effort she conquered her grief and replied in a calm voice, while she wiped her

wet cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I have no gown, and, therefore, I can't go to this ball. Give your card to

some colleague whose wife is better equipped than I am."

He was in despair. He resumed:

"Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you could

He grew a little pale, because he was laying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat

himself to a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre, with several friends who

went to shoot larks there of a Sunday.

But he said:

"Very well. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty gown."

The day of the ball drew near and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her frock

was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:

"What is the matter? Come, you have seemed very queer these last three days."

And she answered:

"It annoys me not to have a single piece of jewelry, not a single ornament, nothing to put

on. I shall look poverty-stricken. I would almost rather not go at all."

"You might wear natural flowers," said her husband. "They're very stylish at this time of

"True! I never thought of it."

The next day she went to her friend and told her of her distress.

Madame Forestier went to a wardrobe with a mirror, took out a large jewel box, brought it

back, opened it and said to Madame Loisel:

"Choose, my dear."

She saw first some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian gold cross set with

precious stones, of admirable workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the mirror,

hesitated and could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She kept

asking:

"Haven't you any more?"

throbbed with an immoderate desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She fastened it

round her throat, outside her high-necked waist, and was lost in ecstasy at her reflection in

Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt:

"Will you lend me this, only this?"

"Why, yes, certainly."

She threw her arms round her friend's neck, kissed her passionately, then fled with her

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

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!"

"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.

"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

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

the rest.

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

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

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

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--

But one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees 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 about it. Why not?

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"What do you mean? You brought it back."

"I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us ten years to pay for it. You

can understand that it was not easy for us, for us who had nothing. 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."