The Necklace

Matilda’s discontent

Matilda is a beautiful, charming young woman who feels she was “born” for luxury — for elegant drawing-rooms, fine furniture, perfumed silks and admiring crowds. Instead, fate has placed her in a modest household, married to a small clerk in the Ministry of Education. She has no dowry, no expectations, and no way of being known and loved by a rich, distinguished man. Maupassant tells us she suffers ceaselessly. The bare walls, the worn chairs and the ugly curtains of her home torture her, where another woman of her class would not even have noticed them. She weeps with regret, despair and distress, dreaming all day of the grand life she believes she deserves. Even when her devoted husband uncovers the lid of the soup tureen and cries out with delight, “Ah, the good pot-au-feu! I don’t know anything better than that,” Matilda is busy imagining dainty dinners, shining silverware and the pink flesh of trout served on wonderful plates.

The invitation

One evening her husband comes home glowing with pride. He hands her an envelope containing an invitation to a grand reception at the Ministerial Mansion — a coveted card that he had great trouble obtaining, as such invitations are reserved for a select few. He expects her to be thrilled. Instead, Matilda throws the invitation on the table with irritation and bursts into tears. She has nothing suitable to wear, she says, and cannot go looking shabby among elegant ladies. Touched and troubled, her husband gives up the four hundred francs he had carefully saved to buy himself a hunting gun, so that Matilda can buy a beautiful new dress.

The borrowed necklace

Even with a fine dress, Matilda remains unhappy because she has no jewel, no ornament, nothing to wear with it. She fears she will look poor among the rich women. Her husband suggests she wear fresh flowers, but she refuses — there is nothing more humiliating, she feels, than looking poor among the wealthy. Then he has an idea: she should go to her rich friend, Madame Forestier, and borrow some jewels. Matilda visits her friend, who generously opens her jewel-box. Among all the treasures, Matilda’s heart begins to beat with desire when she finds a superb diamond necklace in a black satin box. She borrows it, kisses her friend and rushes home in rapture.

The night of triumph — and the loss

At the ball, Matilda is a magnificent success. She is prettier than all the other women — elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men notice her, ask her name and seek to be introduced. She dances with passion, intoxicated by pleasure, wrapped in a cloud of happiness and admiration. She leaves around four in the morning. Her husband throws a modest, ordinary wrap over her shoulders, and ashamed of its plainness next to the rich furs of the other women, she hurries away. They find a shabby old cab and reach home. But when Matilda removes her wrap before the mirror to look at herself once more in all her glory, she utters a cry — the diamond necklace is gone from around her neck.

The desperate search

The couple are thrown into panic. M. Loisel goes back over the whole route on foot. He visits the police, the cab offices and the newspapers, offering a reward. Nothing is found. To buy time, Matilda writes to Madame Forestier saying she has broken the clasp and is having it mended. After a week of hopeless waiting, they accept that the necklace is lost forever and must be replaced. In a Palais-Royal shop they find a necklace exactly like the lost one, priced at forty thousand francs, which the jeweller agrees to give for thirty-six thousand.

Ten years of ruin

To raise this enormous sum, Loisel uses the eighteen thousand francs his father left him and borrows the rest — signing ruinous notes, dealing with usurers and the whole race of money-lenders, risking his signature without even knowing if he can honour it. He buys the new necklace and Matilda returns it to her friend, who does not even open the case. Then begins the horrible life of poverty. They dismiss their servant and change their lodgings, renting an attic. Matilda comes to know the heavy housework of the kitchen. She washes the dishes, the linen and the floors, carries water up the stairs, bargains with the grocer and the butcher, and is insulted by all. Her husband works in the evenings copying papers for five sous a page. This life lasts ten years. At the end, every debt is paid — but Matilda has become a hard, coarse woman of a poor household, with rough red hands and untidy hair.

The cruel twist

One Sunday, while walking in the Champs-Élysées, Matilda sees Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming. She decides to tell her everything now that the debt is paid. Madame Forestier does not even recognise her aged friend. When Matilda explains, with a proud and innocent joy, how she replaced the lost necklace and slaved for ten years to pay for it, Madame Forestier is deeply moved. She takes Matilda’s hands and reveals the shattering truth: “Oh, my poor Matilda! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!”