"What is the matter? Come, now, you've been looking queer these last
three days."

And she replied:

"It worries me that I have no jewels, not a single stone, nothing to put
on. I shall look wretched enough. I would almost rather not go to this
party."

He answered:

"You might wear natural flowers. They are very fashionable this season.
For ten francs you can get two or three magnificent roses."

She was not convinced.

"No; there is nothing more humiliating than to look poor among a lot of
rich women."

But her husband cried:

"How stupid you are! Go and find your friend Madame Forestier and ask
her to lend you some jewels. You are intimate enough with her for that."

She uttered a cry of joy.

"Of course. I had not thought of that."

The next day she went to her friend's house and told her distress.

Madame Forestier went to her handsome wardrobe, took out a large casket,
brought it back, opened it, and said to Madame Loisel:

"Choose, my dear."

She saw first of all some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a
Venetian cross of gold set with precious stones of wonderful
workmanship. She tried on the ornaments before the glass, hesitated,
could not make up her mind to part with them, to give them back. She
kept asking:

"You have nothing else?"

"Why, yes. But I do not know what will please you."

All at once she discovered, in a black satin box, a splendid diamond
necklace, and her heart began to beat with boundless desire. Her hands
trembled as she took it. She fastened it around her throat, over her
high-necked dress, and stood lost in ecstasy as she looked at herself.

Then she asked, hesitating, full of anxiety:

"Would you lend me that,--only that?"

"Why, yes, certainly."

She sprang upon the neck of her friend, embraced her rapturously, then
fled with her treasure.

* * * * *

The day of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was
prettier than all the others, elegant, gracious, smiling, and crazy with
joy. All the men stared at her, asked her name, tried to be introduced.
All the cabinet officials wished to waltz with her. The minister noticed
her.

She danced with delight, with passion, intoxicated with pleasure,
forgetting all in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her
success, in a sort of mist of happiness, the result of all this homage,
all this admiration, all these awakened desires, this victory so
complete and so swee