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Unit 2: The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

Then she asked, hesitating, filled with anxious doubt: Notes

“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 treasure.
The night of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a great success. She was prettier than any
other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and wild with joy. All the men looked at her,
asked her name, sought to be introduced. All the attaches of the Cabinet wished to waltz with
her. She was remarked by the minister himself.
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
costly furs.
Loisel held her back, saying: “Wait a bit. You will catch cold outside. I will call a cab.”

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the stairs. When they reached the street
they could not find a carriage and began to look for one, shouting after the cabmen passing
at a distance.
They went toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last they found on the quay
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!”
They looked among the folds of her skirt, of her cloak, in her pockets, everywhere, but did not
find it.
“You’re sure you had it on when you left the ball?” he asked.
“Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the minister’s house.”

“But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it fall. It must be in the cab.”
“Yes, probably. Did you take his number?”

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