lace, putting down
upon the merchant's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Mme. Loisel took back the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her,
with a chilly manner:

"You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had
detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she
have said? Would she not have taken Mme. Loisel for a thief?

Mme. Loisel now knew the horrible existence of the needy. She took her
part, moreover, all on a sudden, with heroism. That dreadful debt must
be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed
their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.

She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the
kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her rosy nails on the greasy pots
and pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts, and the dish-cloths,
which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street
every morning, and carried up the water, stopping for breath at every
landing. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the
fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, her basket on her arm, bargaining,
insulted, defending her miserable money sou by sou.

Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.

Her husband worked in the evening making a fair copy of some
tradesman's accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for
five sous a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

At the end of ten years they had paid everything, everything, with the
rates of usury, and the accumulations of the compound interest.

Mme. Loisel looked old now. She had become the woman of impoverished
households--strong and hard and rough. With frowsy hair, skirts askew,
and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great
swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office,
she sat down near the window, and she thought of that gay evening of
long ago, of that ball where she had been so beautiful and so feted.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows?
who knows? How life is strange and changeful! How little a thing is
needed for us to be lost or to be saved!

But, one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees to
refresh herself from the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a
woman who was leading a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young,
still be