The Necklace

Mathilde Loisel was pretty and charming, and she felt she had been born for a life of luxury. Instead, by some mistake of fate, she had been born into a family of clerks.

She married a quiet, kind man who worked as a junior clerk in the Ministry of Education. They lived in a small flat with worn walls, shabby chairs and ugly curtains. Every day Mathilde suffered from the plainness of it all. She dreamed of silent halls hung with silk, of grand dinners served on silver, of elegant visitors who would admire her.

She had no fine dresses, no jewels, nothing. And those were the only things she loved.

The invitation

One evening her husband came home looking very pleased and handed her an envelope.

The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at an evening reception at the Ministry.

Instead of being delighted, Mathilde threw the invitation on the table and burst into tears.

"What am I supposed to wear?" she said. "I have nothing. Give the invitation to a colleague whose wife has better clothes than I do."

Her husband was upset. He had been saving four hundred francs to buy a gun for hunting with his friends in the summer. Quietly, he gave the money to her for a dress.

The dress was bought. But as the day of the ball came closer, Mathilde grew sad again.

"I haven't a single jewel to wear," she said. "I'll look poverty-stricken."

"Go and see your friend Madame Forestier," said her husband. "Ask her to lend you some jewellery."

The ball

Madame Forestier, a wealthy old school friend, opened her jewel box without hesitation. Mathilde tried on bracelets, a pearl necklace, a gold cross set with stones. Then she found, in a black satin case, a superb necklace of diamonds. Her heart beat with longing.

"Could you lend me this one? Only this?"

"Why, of course."

On the night of the ball, Mathilde was a triumph. She was the prettiest woman there, elegant, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her and asked her name. Even the Minister noticed her. She danced until four in the morning, in a cloud of happiness, while her husband dozed in a little side room with three other husbands.

When they left, he wrapped her in the plain everyday shawl she had brought. Ashamed of it next to the other women's furs, she hurried down the steps. They walked a long way in the cold before finding a cab, and arrived home sadly.

In front of the mirror, she took off the shawl to see herself in all her glory one last time.

The necklace was gone.

The search

They searched the folds of her dress, the folds of the shawl, the pockets, everywhere. Her husband walked back over the whole route they had taken. He went to the police, to the cab companies, to the newspapers to offer a reward. Nothing.

"We must write to your friend," he said at last, "and say you have broken the clasp and are having it mended. That will give us time."

After a week, they had lost all hope.

They found, in a jeweller's shop in the Palais Royal, a diamond necklace that looked exactly like the lost one. It cost forty thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

Monsieur Loisel had eighteen thousand francs, left to him by his father. He borrowed the rest: a thousand francs from one person, five hundred from another, signing notes, making ruinous promises to moneylenders, risking his signature without knowing whether he could ever honour it.

He bought the necklace. Mathilde took it back to Madame Forestier, who said a little coldly, "You should have returned it sooner. I might have needed it." She did not open the case.

Ten years

Then Mathilde learned what poverty really was.

They dismissed their maid and moved to a tiny attic room. She did the heavy housework herself, scrubbed the greasy pots, washed the dirty linen, carried water up the stairs, stopping at every landing for breath. She bargained at the market, counting every coin. Her husband worked in the evenings, copying documents for a few pennies a page.

This life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years, they had paid back every franc, with interest.

Mathilde looked old now. Her hands were red and rough, her hair untidy, her voice loud. Sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat by the window and thought about that evening long ago, at the ball where she had been so beautiful.

The truth

One Sunday, walking in the Champs-Élysées, she saw a woman with a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful.

Mathilde felt a rush of emotion. Now that the debt was paid, she would tell her everything.

"Good morning, Jeanne."

Her friend did not recognise her. "But... madame... I don't think..."

"No. I'm Mathilde Loisel."

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you've changed!"

"Yes, I've had a hard time since I last saw you. And a great deal of trouble, and all because of you." And she told her about the lost necklace, the new one, the ten years of work.

"You bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine?"

"Yes. You didn't notice? They were very alike." And she smiled with a proud, simple joy.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took both her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine were fake. They were worth five hundred francs at the most!"

About this story

Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893) was a master of the French short story, and "La Parure" is perhaps his most famous. Its final line is one of the best-known twists in literature. This is a retelling; the original is in the public domain.