He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five
louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did
business with usurers and the whote tribe of money-tenders. He mortgaged the whole
remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he coutd
honour it, and, appal.ted at the agonising face of the future, at the btack misery about to
fatl upon him, at the prospect of every possibte physical privation and moral torture, he
went to get the new neck[ace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six
thousand francs.
When Madame Loisel took back the neck[ace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to
her in a chil.l.y voice:
"You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it." .
She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. lf she had noticed the
substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not
have taken her for a thief?
Madame Loisel came to know the ghastLy l.ife of abject poverty. From the very first she
played her part heroicatty. This fearful debt must be paid off. She wouLd pay it. The
servant was dismlssed. They changed their f[at; they took a garret under the roof.
She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She
washed the plates, wearing out her pink naits on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of
pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish-cloths, and hung them out to dry on
a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the
water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went
to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggting, insulted,
fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.
Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.
Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and
often at night he did copying at twopence-ha[fpenny a page.
And this life lasted ten years.
At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's charges and
the accumu[ation of superimposed interest.
Madame Loisel looked otd now. She had become l.ike al.l. the other strong, hard,
coarse women of poor househoids. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her
hands were red. She spoke in a shritl voice, and the water slopped atl over the ftoor when