ANCHOR TEXT | SHORT STORY

The

Necklace Guy de Maupassant

translated by Andrew MacAndrew

BACKGROUND
In the late nineteenth century, a type of literature known as Realism
emerged as a reaction to the idealism and optimism of Romantic literature.
Realism sought to describe life as it is, without ornament or glorification.
“The Necklace,” an example of Realist fiction, tells the story of an average
woman who pays a significant price to experience a glamorous evening.
As in all Realist fiction, there is no fairy-tale ending.

1 he was one of those pretty, charming young women who are

S born, as if by an error of Fate, into a petty official’s family.
She had no dowry,1 no hopes, not the slightest chance of being
NOTES
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appreciated, understood, loved, and married by a rich and

distinguished man; so she slipped into marriage with a minor civil
servant at the Ministry of Education.
2 Unable to afford jewelry, she dressed simply: but she was
as wretched as a déclassée, for women have neither caste nor
breeding—in them beauty, grace, and charm replace pride of birth.
Innate refinement, instinctive elegance, and suppleness of wit give refinement (rih FYN muhnt) n.
them their place on the only scale that counts, and these qualities politeness; good manners
make humble girls the peers of the grandest ladies.
3 She suffered constantly, feeling that all the attributes of a gracious suppleness (SUHP uhl nihs) n.
life, every luxury, should rightly have been hers. The poverty smoothness; fluidity; ability
of her rooms—the shabby walls, the worn furniture, the ugly to adapt easily to different
situations

1. dowry (DOW ree) n. wealth or property given by a woman’s family to her husband upon
their marriage.
The Necklace 373
 upholstery—caused her pain. All these things that another woman
NOTES of her class would not even have noticed, tormented her and made
her angry. The very sight of the little Breton girl who cleaned for
CLOSE READ her awoke rueful thoughts and the wildest dreams in her mind. She
ANNOTATE: In paragraph 3, dreamed of thick-carpeted reception rooms with Oriental hangings,
mark details related to size,
lighted by tall, bronze torches, and with two huge footmen in knee
luxury, and antiquity.
breeches, made drowsy by the heat from the stove, asleep in the
QUESTION: Why does wide armchairs. She dreamed of great drawing rooms upholstered
the author use these in old silks, with fragile little tables holding priceless knick-knacks,
particular details? and of enchanting little sitting rooms redolent of perfume, designed
CONCLUDE: What image for teatime chats with intimate friends—famous, sought-after men
do these details paint of whose attentions all women longed for.
the life Madame Loisel 4 When she sat down to dinner at her round table with its three-day
desires? old cloth, and watched her husband opposite her lift the lid of the
soup tureen and exclaim, delighted: “Ah, a good homemade beef
stew! There’s nothing better . . .” she would visualize elegant dinners
with gleaming silver amid tapestried walls peopled by knights and
ladies and exotic birds in a fairy forest; she would think of exquisite
dishes served on gorgeous china, and of gallantries whispered and
received with sphinx-like smiles while eating the pink flesh of trout
exquisite (EHKS kwih ziht) adj.
or wings of grouse.
very beautiful or lovely
5 She had no proper wardrobe, no jewels, nothing. And those were
the only things that she loved—she felt she was made for them.
gallantries (GAL uhn treez) n. She would have so loved to charm, to be envied, to be admired and
acts of polite attention to sought after.
the needs of women
6 She had a rich friend, a schoolmate from the convent she had
attended, but she didn’t like to visit her because it always made her
so miserable when she got home again. She would weep for whole
days at a time from sorrow, regret, despair, and distress.
7 Then one evening her husband arrived home looking triumphant
and waving a large envelope.
8 “There,” he said, “there’s something for you.”
9 She tore it open eagerly and took out a printed card which said:
10 “The Minister of Education and Madame Georges Ramponneau2
request the pleasure of the company of M. and Mme. Loisel3 at an © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

evening reception at the Ministry on Monday, January 18th.”

11 Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she tossed
the invitation on the table and muttered, annoyed:
12 “What do you expect me to do with that?”
13 “Why, I thought you’d be pleased, dear. You never go out and
this would be an occasion for you, a great one! I had a lot of trouble
getting it. Everyone wants an invitation: they’re in great demand and
there are only a few reserved for the employees. All the officials will
be there.”
14 She looked at him, irritated, and said impatiently:
2. Georges (zhawrzh) Ramponneau (ram puh NOH)
3. Loisel (lwah ZEHL)

374 UNIT 4 • ALL THAT GLITTERS

 15 “I haven’t a thing to wear. How could I go?”
16 It had never even occurred to him. He stammered: NOTES

17 “But what about the dress you wear to the theater? I think it’s
lovely ...... ”
18 He fell silent, amazed and bewildered to see that his wife was
crying. Two big tears escaped from the corners of her eyes and rolled
slowly toward the corners of her mouth. He mumbled:
19 “What is it? What is it?”
20 But, with great effort, she had overcome her misery; and now she
answered him calmly, wiping her tear-damp cheeks:
21 “It’s nothing. It’s just that I have no evening dress and so I can’t go
to the party. Give the invitation to one of your colleagues whose wife
will be better dressed than I would be.”
22 He was overcome. He said:
23 “Listen, Mathilde, how much would an evening dress cost—a
suitable one that you could wear again on other occasions, something
very simple?”
24 She thought for several seconds, making her calculations and
at the same time estimating how much she could ask for without
eliciting an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from this
economical government clerk.
25 At last, not too sure of herself, she said:
26 “It’s hard to say exactly but I think I could manage with four
hundred francs.”
27 He went a little pale, for that was exactly the amount he had put
aside to buy a rifle so that he could go hunting the following summer
near Nanterre, with a few friends who went shooting larks around
there on Sundays.
28 However, he said:
29 “Well, all right, then. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But try to
get something really nice.”
30 As the day of the ball drew closer, Madame Loisel seemed
depressed, disturbed, worried—despite the fact that her dress was
ready. One evening her husband said:
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31 “What’s the matter? You’ve really been very strange these last
few days.”
32 And she answered:
33 “I hate not having a single jewel, not one stone, to wear. I shall look
so dowdy.4 I’d almost rather not go to the party.”
34 He suggested:
35 “You can wear some fresh flowers. It’s considered very chic 5 at this
time of year. For ten francs you can get two or three beautiful roses.”
36 That didn’t satisfy her at all.
37 “No ...... there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poverty-
stricken among a lot of rich women.”
38 Then her husband exclaimed:
4. dowdy adj. shabby.
5. chic (sheek) adj. fashionable.

The Necklace 375

 39 “Wait—you silly thing! Why don’t you go and see Madame
NOTES Forestier6 and ask her to lend you some jewelry. You certainly know
her well enough for that, don’t you think?”
40 She let out a joyful cry.
41 “You’re right. It never occurred to me.”
42 The next day she went to see her friend and related her tale of woe.
43 Madame Forestier went to her mirrored wardrobe, took out a big
jewel case, brought it to Madame Loisel opened it, and said:
44 “Take your pick, my dear.”
45 Her eyes wandered from some bracelets to a pearl necklace, then
to a gold Venetian cross set with stones, of very fine workmanship.
She tried on the jewelry before the mirror, hesitating, unable to bring
herself to take them off, to give them back. And she kept asking:
46 “Do you have anything else, by chance?”
47 “Why yes. Here, look for yourself. I don’t know which ones you’ll
like.”
48 All at once, in a box lined with black satin, she came upon a superb
diamond necklace, and her heart started beating with overwhelming
desire. Her hands trembled as she picked it up. She fastened it
around her neck over her high-necked dress and stood there gazing
at herself ecstatically.
49 Hesitantly, filled with terrible anguish, she asked:
50 “Could you lend me this one—just this and nothing else?”
51 “Yes, of course.”
52 She threw her arms around her friend’s neck, kissed her ardently,
and fled with her treasure.
53 The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success.
resplendent (rih SPLEHN She was the prettiest woman there—resplendent, graceful, beaming,
duhnt) adj. dazzling; and deliriously happy. All the men looked at her, asked who she was,
gorgeous
tried to get themselves introduced to her. All the minister’s aides
wanted to waltz with her. The minister himself noticed her.
54 She danced enraptured—carried away, intoxicated with pleasure,
forgetting everything in this triumph of her beauty and the glory
of her success, floating in a cloud of happiness formed by all this
homage (OM ihj) n. homage, all this admiration, all the desires she had stirred up—by © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

something done to honor this victory so complete and so sweet to the heart of a woman.
someone
55 When she left the party, it was almost four in the morning. Her
husband had been sleeping since midnight in a small, deserted
sitting room, with three other gentlemen whose wives were having a
wonderful time.
56 He brought her wraps so that they could leave and put them
around her shoulders—the plain wraps from her everyday life whose
shabbiness jarred with the elegance of her evening dress. She felt this
and wanted to escape quickly so that the other women, who were
enveloping themselves in their rich furs, wouldn’t see her.

6. Forestier (fawr ehs TYAY)

376 UNIT 4 • ALL THAT GLITTERS

 57 Loisel held her back.
58 “Wait a minute. You’ll catch cold out there. I’m going to call a cab.” NOTES

59 But she wouldn’t listen to him and went hastily downstairs.

Outside in the street, there was no cab to be found; they set out to
look for one, calling to the drivers they saw passing in the distance.
60 They walked toward the Seine,7 shivering and miserable. Finally,
on the embankment, they found one of those ancient nocturnal
broughams8 which are only to be seen in Paris at night, as if they were
ashamed to show their shabbiness in daylight.
61 It took them to their door in the Rue des
Martyrs, and they went sadly upstairs to their Then she cried out.
apartment. For her, it was all over. And he was The necklace was gone;
thinking that he had to be at the Ministry by ten.
62 She took off her wraps before the mirror so that there was nothing
she could see herself in all her glory once more.
Then she cried out. The necklace was gone; there around her neck.
was nothing around her neck.
63 Her husband, already half undressed, asked:
64 “What’s the matter?”
65 She turned toward him in a frenzy: CLOSE READ
ANNOTATE: In paragraphs
66 “The . . . the . . . necklace—it’s gone.”
66–68, mark the
67 He got up, thunderstruck. punctuation that suggests
68 “What did you say? . . . What! . . . Impossible!” hesitation or speech that is
69 And they searched the folds of her dress, the folds of her wrap, the broken up in some way.
pockets, everywhere.
QUESTION: Why does
70 They didn’t find it.
the author use these
71 He asked: punctuation marks? What
72 “Are you sure you still had it when we left the ball?” emotions do they convey?
73 “Yes. I remember touching it in the hallway of the Ministry.”
CONCLUDE: How does the
74 “But if you had lost it in the street, we would have heard it fall. It
punctuation add to the
must be in the cab.”
effect of the dialogue?
75 “Yes, most likely. Do you remember the number?”
76 “No. What about you—did you notice it?”
77 “No. “
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78 They looked at each other in utter dejection. Finally Loisel got

dressed again.
79 “I’m going to retrace the whole distance we covered on foot,” he
said, “and see if I can’t find it.”
80 And he left the house. She remained in her evening dress, too weak
to go to bed, sitting crushed on a chair, lifeless and blank.
81 Her husband returned at about seven o’clock. He had found
nothing.
82 He went to the police station, to the newspapers to offer a reward,
to the offices of the cab companies—in a word, wherever there
seemed to be the slightest hope of tracing it.

7. Seine (sayn) river flowing through Paris.

8. broughams (broomz) n. horse-drawn carriages.

The Necklace 377

 83 She spent the whole day waiting, in a state of utter hopelessness
NOTES before such an appalling catastrophe.
84 Loisel returned in the evening, his face lined and pale; he had
learned nothing.
85 “You must write to your friend,” he said, “and tell her that you’ve
broken the clasp of the necklace and that you’re getting it mended.
That’ll give us time to decide what to do.”
86 She wrote the letter at his dictation.
87 By the end of the week, they had lost all hope.
88 Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:
89 “We’ll have to replace the necklace.”
90 The next day they took the case in which it had been kept and
went to the jeweler whose name appeared inside it. He looked
through his ledgers:
91 “I didn’t sell this necklace, madame. I only supplied the case.”
92 Then they went from one jeweler to the next, trying to find a
necklace like the other, racking their memories, both of them sick
with worry and distress.
93 In a fashionable shop near the Palais Royal, they found a diamond
necklace which they decided was exactly like the other. It was worth
40,000 francs. They could have it for 36,000 francs.
94 They asked the jeweler to hold it for them for three days, and they
stipulated that he should take it back for 34,000 francs if the other
necklace was found before the end of February.
95 Loisel possessed 18,000 francs left him by his father. He would
borrow the rest.
96 He borrowed, asking a thousand francs from one man, five
hundred from another, a hundred here, fifty there. He signed
promissory notes,9 borrowed at exorbitant rates, dealt with usurers
and the entire race of moneylenders. He compromised his whole
career, gave his signature even when he wasn’t sure he would be
able to honor it, and horrified by the anxieties with which his future
would be filled, by the black misery about to descend upon him, by
the prospect of physical privation and moral suffering, went to get
the new necklace, placing on the jeweler’s counter 36,000 francs. © Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

97 When Madame Loisel went to return the necklace, Madame

Forestier said in a faintly waspish tone:
98 “You could have brought it back a little sooner! I might have
needed it.”
99 She didn’t open the case as her friend had feared she might. If she
had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What
would she have said? Mightn’t she have taken Madame Loisel for
a thief?

9. promissory (PROM uh sawr ee) notes written promises to pay back borrowed money.

378 UNIT 4 • ALL THAT GLITTERS

 100 Madame Loisel came to know the awful life of the poverty-
stricken. However, she resigned herself to it with unexpected NOTES

fortitude. The crushing debt had to be paid. She would pay it. They CLOSE READ
dismissed the maid; they moved into an attic under the roof. ANNOTATE: Mark the
101 She came to know all the heavy household chores, the loathsome shortest sentence in
work of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, wearing down her pink paragraph 100.
nails on greasy casseroles and the bottoms of saucepans. She did QUESTION: How is this
the laundry, washing shirts and dishcloths which she hung on a sentence different from the
line to dry; she took the garbage down to the street every morning, others in the paragraph?
and carried water upstairs, stopping at every floor to get her breath.
CONCLUDE: What effect
Dressed like a working-class woman, she went to the fruit store,
does this short sentence
the grocer, and the butcher with her basket on her arm, bargaining, create that a longer
outraged, contesting each sou10 of her pitiful funds. sentence might not?
102 Every month some notes had to be honored and more time
requested on others.
103 Her husband worked in the evenings, putting a shopkeeper’s
ledgers in order, and often at night as well, doing copying at twenty-
five centimes a page.
104 And it went on like that for ten years.
105 After ten years, they had made good on everything, including the
usurious rates and the compound interest.
106 Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become the sort of strong
woman, hard and coarse, that one finds in poor families. Disheveled,
her skirts askew, with reddened hands, she spoke in a loud voice,
slopping water over the floors as she washed them. But sometimes,
when her husband was at the office, she would sit down by the
window and muse over that party long ago when she had been so
beautiful, the belle of the ball.
107 How would things have turned out if she hadn’t lost that necklace?
Who could tell? How strange and fickle life is! How little it takes to
make or break you!
108 Then one Sunday when she was strolling along the Champs-
Élysées11 to forget the week’s chores for a while, she suddenly caught
sight of a woman taking a child for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, CLOSE READ
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still young, still beautiful, still charming. ANNOTATE: Underline

109 Madame Loisel started to tremble. Should she speak to her? Yes, the repeated word in
certainly she should. And now that she had paid everything back, paragraph 108.
why shouldn’t she tell her the whole story? QUESTION: Why does the
110 She went up to her. author repeat this word?
111 “Hello, Jeanne.”
CONCLUDE: What is the
112 The other didn’t recognize her and was surprised that this plainly
effect of this repetition?
dressed woman should speak to her so familiarly. She murmured:
113 “But . . . madame! . . . I’m sure . . . You must be mistaken.”
10. sou (soo) n. former French coin, worth very little; the centime (SAHN teem), mentioned
later, was also of little value.
11. Champs-Élysées (SHAHN zay lee ZAY) fashionable street in Paris.

The Necklace 379

 114 “No, I’m not. I am Mathilde Loisel.”
NOTES 115 Her friend gave a little cry.
116 “Oh! Oh, my poor Mathilde, how you’ve changed!”
117 “Yes, I’ve been through some pretty hard times since I last saw you
and I’ve had plenty of trouble—and all because of you!”
118 “Because of me? What do you mean?”
119 “You remember the diamond necklace you lent me to wear to the
party at the Ministry?”
120 “Yes. What about it?”
121 “Well, I lost it.”
122 “What are you talking about? You returned it to me.”
123 “What I gave back to you was another one just like it. And it took
us ten years to pay for it. You can imagine it wasn’t easy for us, since
we were quite poor Anyway, I’m glad it’s over and done with.”
124 Madame Forestier stopped short.
125 “You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace that
other one?”
126 “Yes. You didn’t even notice then? They really were exactly alike.”
127 And she smiled, full of a proud, simple joy.
128 Madame Forestier, profoundly moved, took Mathilde’s hands in
her own.
129 “Oh, my poor, poor Mathilde! Mine was false. It was worth five
hundred francs at the most!” ❧

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380 UNIT 4 • ALL THAT GLITTERS