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Elective English–II

Notes He was in despair. He resumed:

“Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable gown, which you could use
on other occasions—something very simple?”

She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she
could ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from
the economical clerk.
Finally she replied hesitating:
“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”

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 jewellery, 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 year.
For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”

“How stupid you are!” her husband cried. “Go look up your friend, Madame Forestier, and
ask her to lend you some jewels. You’re intimate enough with her to do that.”

She uttered a cry of joy:
“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?”
“Why, yes. Look further; I don’t know what you like.”
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a superb diamond necklace, and her heart
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 the
mirror.

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