for I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, to the relief of her friend. If she had
detected the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she
have said? Would she have taken her friend for a thief?

* * * * *

Madame Loisel now knew the horrible life of the needy. But she took her
part heroically. They must pay this frightful debt. She would pay it.
They dismissed their maid; they gave up their room; they rented another,
under the roof.

She came to know the drudgery of housework, the odious labors of the
kitchen. She washed the dishes, staining her rosy nails on the greasy
pots and the bottoms of the saucepans. She washed the dirty linen, the
shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung to dry on a line; she carried
the garbage down to the street every morning, and carried up the water,
stopping at each landing to rest. And, dressed like a woman of the
people, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her
basket on her arm, bargaining, abusing, defending sou[*] by sou her
miserable money.

[* A sou, or five-centime piece, is equal to one cent of our money.]

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

The husband worked every evening, neatly footing up the account books of
some tradesman, and often far into the night he sat copying manuscript
at five sous a page.

And this life lasted ten years.

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

Madame Loisel seemed aged now. She had become the woman of impoverished
households,--strong and hard and rough. With hair half combed, with
skirts awry, and reddened hands, she talked loud as she washed the floor
with great swishes of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the
office, she sat down near the window and thought of that evening at the
ball so long ago, when she had been so beautiful and so admired.

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

* * * * *

But one Sunday, as she was going for a walk in the Champs Elysees to
refresh herself after the labors of the week, all at once she saw a
woman walking with a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still
beautiful, still charming.

Madame L