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Maupassant
Adornment
It was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as by an error of destiny, into a family of
employees. She had no dot, no expectations, no way to be known, understood, loved, married aman rich and distinguished; and she left to marry a clerk of the Department of Public Instruction.
It was simple, to be trim, but unfortunate as a declassee; because women have point of caste or
race, their beauty, grace and charm them their servant of birth and family. Native fineness, their
instinct of elegance, flexibility of mind are their single hierarchy, and are the equal of the great ladies
of the daughters of the people.
She was constantly feeling born for all delicacies and all luxuries. She was suffering from poverty of
its housing, the misery of walls, the wear on the seats of the ugliness of fabrics. All these things,
which another woman of his caste not to would be even not seen, the torture and
I' ghostbusting. The view of la petite Bretonne which was his humble household aroused in her sorry
regrets and distraught dreams. She was considering the net anterooms, padded with Oriental
draperies, informed by high flare of bronze, and in the two large jacks in short breeches who sleep in
the large armchairs, asleep by the heavy heat of the radiator. She had in mind at large dressed
shows old Silk, invaluable trinkets with fine furniture, and small charming rooms scented, for five
hours with the most intimate friends chat, known and wanted all women men envy and want
attention.
When she sat for dinner, before the round table covered a sheet of three days, from her husband
who discovered the soup tureen by declaring an enchanted air: "Ah!". the good stew! I know nothingbetter that that, she was thinking of fine dinners, the shiny silverware, tapestries from the walls of
old characters and strange birds in a forest of Enchantment; She had in mind to exquisite dishes
served in wonderful dishes to the galanteries chuchotees and watched with a smile of sphinx, eating
the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of Ruffed grouse.
She had no toilets, no jewelry, nothing. And she liked that it; She was made to do this. She had so
desired please, be envied, attractive and sought.
She had a rich friend, a classmate of convent that she did want to go, so she was returning. And she
cried for whole days, grief, regret, despair and distress.
However, one evening, her husband returned, the glorious air and holding a large envelope.
-Wish, he says, here is something for you.
She tore the paper strongly and drew a card carrying the words:
"The Minister of Public Instruction and Ms. Georges Ramponneau request Mr. and Mrs. Loisel to
honour to come and spend the evening at the hotel of the Department, on Monday, January 18."
Instead of being delighted, as hoped by her husband, she threw with despite the invitation on the
table, whistling:
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-What do you want me to do this?
- But, my dear, I thought that you'd be happy. You never get, and this is an opportunity, this, a
beautiful! I had an infinite punishment to it. Everyone wants; It is very and it does not provide many
employees. Here you'll see all the official world.
She looked irritated eye, and she declared looking forward:
-What do you want that I am put on the back to go?
He had not thought; It balbutia:
- But the dress with which you go to the theatre. Well, it seems to me...
It to UTU, stunned, distracted, seeing that his wife was crying. Two large tears slowly descended
from the corners of the eyes to the corners of the mouth; It bgaya:
-What have you? that do you?
But, by an effort violent, it had tamed his sentence and she replied in a calm voice wiping her wet
cheeks:
-Nothing. Only I have no toilet and therefore, I can go to a party. Give your card to a colleague whose
wife will be better nippee than me.
He was sorry. He resumed:
-See, Mathilde. How much this would cost it a proper toilet, that could serve you again on other
occasions, something very simple?
It reflects a few seconds, establishing its accounts and also thinking of the sum that it could seek
without attracting an immediate refusal and a frighteningly exclamation of the efficient clerk.
Finally, she replied in hesitating:
-I do not know exactly, but it seems to me that with four hundred francs I could reach.
LL had a little faded, because it reserved just this sum to purchase a shotgun and afford parts of
hunting, the following summer, in the plain of Nanterre, with a few friends who would draw
alouettes, thereby, the Sunday.
However, he said:
-Either. I give you four hundred francs. But task to have a beautiful dress.
The feast day was approaching, and Mrs. Loisel appeared sad, worried, anxious. However, her toilet
was ready. Her husband told her one night:
-What have you? See, you're very funny for three days.
And she replied:
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-This bored of not having a jewel, not a stone, nothing to put on me. I will have the misery like air. I'd
almost rather do not go to this evening.
He resumed:
-You put natural flowers. It is very chic in this season. For ten francs you will have two or threebeautiful roses.
It was point satisfied.
-Not... There is nothing more humiliating to have poor air in the middle of rich women.
But her husband shouted:
-That you are stupid! Go find your friend Ms. Forester and asks it to you jewellery. You're well
enough connected with it to do this.
She pushed a cry of joy.
-It is true. I'd point thought.
The next day, she went with her friend and him conta his distress. Ms. Forester went to his Cabinet
to ice, took a large box, brought it, opened it, and told Mrs. Loisel:
-Selected, my dear.
She first saw bracelets, a necklace of beads, then a Venetian cross, gold and precious stones,
admirable work. She tried to dress before the ice, hesitated, could not decide to leave, to make
them. Always asking:
-You have more nothing else?
- But if. Seeks. I do not know what can you please.
All of a sudden she discovered in a black satin box, a beautiful river of diamonds; and her heart
began to beat an inordinate desire. His hands shaking into consideration. She tied it around his
throat, on her dress rising. and remained in Ecstasy before itself.
Then she asked, hesitant, full of anxiety:
-Can you lend me this, nothing that this?
-But yes, certainly.
She jumped to the neck of her friend, kissed avee outburst, then fled with his treasure.
The day arrived. Mrs. Loisel was a success. She was more beautiful than all, elegant, gracious, smiling
and mad with joy. All the men were watching, asked his name, sought to be presented. All cabinet
officers wanted to tango with her. The Minister saw.
She was dancing with drunkenness, with anger, shaded by the pleasure, thinking more to nothing, inthe triumph of beauty, in the glory of his success, in a sort of cloud of happiness of all these tributes,
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of all the admiration of all these desires awake, this victory so complete and so fresh in the heart of
the women.
She moved around four in the morning. Her husband, since midnight, sleeping in a small desert salon
with three other men whose women to play much.
He threw him on the shoulders the clothing he had brought for the release, modest clothing of
ordinary life, whose poverty swore with the elegance of the toilet of ball. The felt and wanted to run
away, to not be noticed by the other women who are shrouded in rich furs.
Loisel the retained:
-Expect so. You'll catch cold outside. I will call a cab.
But point listened and descended the stairs quickly. When they were on the street, they found no
car; and they began to seek, shouting after the innovative that they saw go by far.
They descended to the Seine, desperate, Buchenwald. Finally, they found on the wharf one of these
old people cuts seen in Paris at that night, as if they were ashamed of their misery during the day.
He brought them to their door, rue des Martyrs, and they sailed up sadly at home. It was finished for
her. And he had in mind, he would be at the Department in ten hours.
It took the vetenoents which it is was wrapped shoulders, before the ice, to be once again in his
glory. But suddenly she pushed a cry. It no longer had its river around the neck!
Her husband, half already stripped asked:
-What do you have?
She turned to him, and distraught:
-I have... I have... I no longer have Ms. forest River.
He stood, distracted:
-What! how!... This is not possible!
And they sought in the folds of the dress, in the folds of the mantle into the pockets everywhere.
They the point found.
He asked:
-You're sure that you had still leaving the ball?
-Yes, I it have affected in the vestibule of the Department.
-But if you had lost it in the street, we would have heard it fall. It must be in the carriage.
-Yes. It is likely. Have you taken the number?
-No. And you, you do as not look it?
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-No.
They viewed aghast. Finally Loisel rhabilla.
-I will, he said, again all the way we did on foot, to see if I do not myself.
And he was released. She remained in toilet evening, without force to lie down, shot on a Chair,
without fire, without thinking.
Her husband returned to seven hours. He had nothing found.
He went to the Prefecture of police, to newspapers, to promise a reward, companies to small cars,
everywhere finally where a hint of hope was growing.
She waited all day, in the same State of dismay to this horrible disaster.
Loisel came back the night, with the cut figure, plie; He did had nothing found.
-It is necessary, he says, write to your friend that you have broken the closure of its river and you do
the repair. This will give us time to return to us.
She wrote at his dictation.
After a week, they had lost all hope.
And Loisel, aged five, declared:
-He must notify to replace this gem.
They took the next day, the box in which it was contained, and went to the jeweler, whose name
was inside. He consulted his books:
-It's not me, Madam, who sold this river; I had to only provide the backdrop.
Then they went of jeweller in jeweller, seeking one such adornment, consulting their memories, sick
both grief and anguish.
They found, in a shop of the PalaisRoyal, a string of diamonds that appeared them entirely similar to
the one they were looking. It was worth forty thousand francs. On the leave them for thirty-six
thousand.
They therefore prayed the jeweler does not sell prior to three days. And they made condition on the
resume for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first was found before the end of February.
Loisel had eighteen thousand francs that he had left his father. He would borrow the rest.
He borrowed, asked I thousand francs', five hundred to five louis here, three louis there. He made
notes, took expensive commitments, was case to moneylenders, to all races of lenders. He
compromit the end of its existence, risked his signature without even knowing it would do honour,
and, appalled by the anxieties of the future by the black misery that was going down on him, by the
prospect of all the physical deprivations and all moral torture, he went looking for the new river, by
filing on the counter of the thirty-six thousand francs merchant.
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When Mrs. Loisel reported adornment to Ms. Forester, it said, a crumpled air:
-You should have make it me earlier because I could need.
It was opened the case, what was her friend. If it was sighted substitution, its think? What would she
say? Have it not taken to a thief?
Mrs. Loisel had horrible life of the needy. She took his party, indeed, all of a sudden, heroically. He
had to pay this terrible debt. It would pay. It sent good; It changed housing; it leased a Garret under
the roof.
It was the heavy work of the household, the odious work in the kitchen. It lava crockery, using her
pink nails on fat pottery and the bottom of the Cookware. She savonna dirty laundry, shirts and
cloths, it was dry on a rope. It fell to the street each morning, garbage, and rose water, stopping at
every floor to blow. And, dressed as a woman of the people, she went with the fruitier, in the grocer
in the butcher, the basket to the arm, haggling, insulted, defending his miserable money sou sou.
Needed each month pay tickets, renew others, time.
The husband worked, the evening to the net accounts of a trader, and the night, often, he was the
copy to five under the page.
And this life lasted ten years.
After ten years, they were all rendered, while, with the rate of wear and tear, and the accumulation
of the overlapping interests.
Mrs. Loisel looked old, now. She became the woman strong and hard, and rude, poor households.Badly worsted, wrong skirts with red hands, she spoke up, washed the floors with water. But
sometimes, when her husband was in Office, she sat at the window, and she was thinking this
evening of the past, at the ball where it was so beautiful and so specialities.
That would have happened if she had point lost this adornment? Who knows? who knows? As life is
unique, changing! Since it takes very little to lose or save you!
However, a Sunday, as she had gone take a ride to the Champs-lyses to relax with work of the
week, she saw suddenly a woman who was walking a child. It was Ms. Forester, always young,
always beautiful, always attractive.
Mrs. Loisel felt moved. Would she speak to him? Yes, of course. And now that she had paid, she
would say it all. Why not?
She approached.
-Hello, Jeanne.
The other recognized the point, be surprising to be colloquially called thus by this bourgeois.
It balbutia:
-But... Madam!... I know... You fool you.
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-No. I am Mathilde Loisel.
His friend pushed a cry.
-Oh!... my poor Mathilde, as you're changed!...
-Yes, I have had many hard days, since I saw you; and many of the poverty... and this because of
you!...
-Of me... How ca?
-You remember well this river of diamonds that you me as loan to go to the feast of the Department.
-Yes. Well?
-Well, I've lost it.
-How! Since you as reported me it.
-I to have reported you an any other such. And ten years ago that we pay. You understand that it
was not easy for us, who had nothing... Finally it's over and I'm roughly happy.
Ms. Forester had stopped.
-You say that you have bought a river of diamonds to replace mine?
-Yes. You you in was not sighted, eh! They were well such.
And she smiled of arrogant and naive joy.
Ms. Forester, very moved, took both hands.
-Oh! my poor Mathilde! But mine was false. It was worth more than five hundred francs!...