The

Neckl Guy De Maupassant

ace
She was one of those pretty and charming girls, born, as if by an accident
WORDS TO of fate, into a family of clerks. With no dowry, no prospects, no way of
KNOW any kind of being met, understood, loved, and married by a man both
Prospects prosperous and famous, she was finally married to a minor clerk in the
Ministry of Education.
She dressed plainly because she could not afford fine clothes, but was as
unhappy as a woman who has come down in the world; for women have no family rank or social
class. With them, beauty, grace, and charm take the place of birth and breeding. Their natural
poise, their instinctive good taste, and their mental cleverness are the sole guiding principles
which make daughters of the common people the equals of ladies in high society.
She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of
living. She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn-out
appearance of the chairs, the ugliness of the draperies. All these things, which another woman of
her class would not even have noticed, gnawed at her and made her furious. The sight of the little
Breton1 girl who did her humble housework roused in her disconsolate regrets and wild
daydreams. She would dream of silent chambers, draped with Oriental tapestries and lighted by
tall bronze floor lamps, and of two handsome butlers in knee breeches, who, drowsy from the
heavy warmth cast by the central stove, dozed in large overstuffed armchairs.
ACTIVE READING: VISUALIZE
She would dream of great reception halls hung with old silks, of fine furniture filled with
priceless curios, and of small, stylish, scented sitting rooms just right for the four o’clock chat
with intimate friends, with distinguished and sought-after men whose attention every woman
envies and longs to attract.
When dining at the round table, covered for the third day with the same cloth, opposite her
husband, who would raise the cover of the soup tureen, declaring delightedly, “Ah! A good stew!
There’s nothing I like better . . .” she would dream of fashionable dinner parties, of gleaming
silverware, of tapestries making the walls alive with characters out of history and strange birds in
a fairyland forest; she would dream of delicious dishes served on wonderful china, of gallant
compliments whispered and listened to with a sphinxlike smile as one eats the rosy flesh of a
trout or nibbles at the wings of a grouse.
She had no evening clothes, no jewels, nothing. But those were the things she wanted; she felt
that was the kind of life for her. She so much longed to please, be envied, be fascinating and
sought after.
ACTIVE READING: CLARIFY

She had a well-to-do friend, a classmate of convent-school days whom she would no longer go to
see, simply because she would feel so distressed on returning home. And
WORDS TO
she would weep for days on end from vexation, regret, despair, and
KNOW
anguish.
Vexation
Then one evening, her husband came home proudly holding out a large
envelope. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got something for you.”
She excitedly tore open the envelope and pulled out a printed card bearing these words: “The
Minister of Education and Mme. Georges Ramponneau beg M. and Mme. Loisel to do them the
honor of attending an evening reception at the Ministerial Mansion on Friday, January 18.”
Instead of being delighted, as her husband had hoped, she VOCABULARY
scornfully tossed the invitation on the table, murmuring,
“What good is that to me?” 1. Clerk: office worker who
handles routine tasks such as
“But, my dear, I thought you’d be thrilled to death. You letter writing and record
never get a chance to go out, and this is a real affair, a keeping.
2. Breton: of or relating to the
wonderful one! I had an awful time getting a card. province of Britanny in
Everybody wants one; it’s much sought after, and not many northwestern France.
clerks have a chance at one. You’ll see all the most 3. Disconsolate: very unhappy;
important people there.” beyond cheering up.
4. Curios: rare or unusual
She gave him an irritated glance and burst out impatiently, ornamental objects.
“What do you think I have to go in?” 5. Sphinxlike: mysterious; from
the Greek myth of the sphinx,
He hadn’t given that a thought. He stammered, “Why, the winged creature that killed
dress you wear when we go to the theater. That looks quite those who could not answer the
nice, I think.” riddle.

He stopped talking, dazed and distracted to see his wife burst out weeping. Two large tears
slowly rolled from the corners of her eyes to the corners of her mouth; he gasped, “Why, what’s
the matter? What’s the trouble?”
By sheer will power she overcame her outburst and answered in a calm voice while wiping the
tears from her wet cheeks: “Oh, nothing. Only I don’t have an evening dress and therefore I can’t
go to that affair. Give the card to some friend at the office whose wife can dress better than I
can.”
ACTIVE READING: EVALUATE
He was stunned. He resumed. “Let’s see, Mathilde. How much would a suitable outfit cost—one
you could wear for other affairs too—something very simple?”
She thought it over for several seconds, going over her allowance
and thinking also of the amount she could ask for without bringing an WORDS TO
KNOW
Pauper
immediate refusal and an exclamation of dismay from the thrifty clerk. Finally, she answered
hesitatingly, “I’m not sure exactly, but I think with four hundred francs I could manage it.”
He turned a bit pale, for he had set aside just that amount to buy a rifle so that, the following
summer, he could join some friends who were getting up a group to shoot larks on the plain near
Nanterre. However, he said, “All right. I’ll give you four hundred francs. But try to get a nice
dress.”
As the day of the party approached, Mme. Loisel seemed sad,
moody, and ill at ease. Her outfit was ready, however. Her
VOCABULARY
husband said to her one evening, “What’s the matter? You’ve
6. Mme. Georges Ramponneau: been all out of sorts for three days.”
Mme. is an abbreviation for
Madame, a title of courtesy for And she answered, “It’s embarrassing not to have a jewel or a
a married French woman. gem—nothing to wear on my dress. I’ll look like a pauper:
7. M. and Mme. Loisel: M is an I’d almost rather not go to that party.” He answered, “Why
abbreviation for Monsieur, a
title of courtesy for a
not wear some flowers? They’re very fashionable this season.
Frenhman. For ten francs you can get two or three gorgeous roses.
8. Francs: the francs is the basic
monetary unit of France. She wasn’t at all convinced. “No. . . . There’s nothing more
humiliating than to look poor among a lot of rich women.”
But her husband exclaimed, “My, but you’re silly! Go see
your friend Mme. Forestier and ask her to lend you some
jewelry. You and she know each other well enough for you to do that.
ACTIVE READING: CONNECT

She gave a cry of joy, “Why, that’s so! I hadn’t thought of it.” The next day she paid her friend a
visit and told her of her predicament. Mme. Forestier went toward a large closet with mirrored
doors, took out a large jewel box, brought it over, opened it, and said to Mme. Loisel, “Pick
something out, my dear.
At first her eyes noted some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross, gold and
gems, of marvelous workmanship. She tried on these adornments in front of the mirror, but
hesitated, unable to decide which to part with and put back. She kept on asking, “Haven’t you
something else?”
“Oh, yes, keep on looking. I don’t know just what you’d like.” All at once she found, in a black
satin box, a superb diamond necklace; and her pulse beat faster with longing. Her hands trembled
as she took it up. Clasping it around her throat, outside her high-necked dress, she stood in
ecstasy looking at her reflection. Then she asked, hesitatingly, pleading, “Could I borrow that,
just that and nothing else?”
ACTIVE READING: QUESTION
“Why, of course.” She threw her arms around her friend, kissed her warmly, and fled with her
treasure. The day of the party arrived. Mme. Loisel was a sensation. She
WORDS TO was the prettiest one there, fashionable, gracious, smiling, and wild with
KNOW joy. All the men turned to look at her, asked who she was, begged to be
Adulation introduced. All the Cabinet officials wanted to waltz with her. The
Aghast minister took notice of her. She danced madly, wildly, drunk with
Ruinous
Gamut
Privations
pleasure, giving no thought to anything in the triumph of her beauty, the pride of her success, in
a kind of happy cloud composed of all the adulation, of all the admiring glances, of all the
awakened longings, of a sense of complete victory that is so sweet to a woman’s heart.

Too Early (1873), Jacques-Joseph Tissot Guildhall Gallery, London/Art Resource, New York
She left around four o’clock in the morning. Her husband, since midnight, had been dozing in a
small empty sitting room with three other gentlemen whose wives were having too good a time.
He threw over her shoulders the wraps he had brought for going home, modest garments of
everyday life whose shabbiness clashed with the stylishness of her evening clothes. She felt this
and longed to escape, unseen by the other women who were draped in expensive furs.
Loisel held her back. “Hold on! You’ll catch cold outside. I’ll call a cab.” But she wouldn’t listen
to him and went rapidly down the stairs. When they were on the street, they didn’t find a
carriage; and they set out to hunt for one, hailing drivers whom they saw going by at a distance.
They walked toward the Seine, disconsolate and shivering. Finally on the docks they found one
of those carriages that one sees in Paris only after nightfall, as if they were ashamed to show
their drabness during daylight hours.
It dropped them at their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and they climbed wearily up to their
apartment. For her, it was all over. For him, there was the thought that he would have to be at the
Ministry at ten o’clock. e Before the mirror, she let the wraps fall from her shoulders to see
herself once again in all her glory. Suddenly she gave a cry.
The necklace was gone. VOCABULARY
Her husband, already half-undressed, said, “What’s the 9. Seine: the principal river of
trouble?” Paris.
10. Rue des Martyrs: a street in
Paris.
She turned toward him despairingly, “I . . . I . . . I don’t have Mme. Forestier’s necklace.”
“What! You can’t mean it! It’s impossible!”
They hunted everywhere, through the folds of the dress, through the folds of the coat, in the
pockets. They found nothing.
He asked, “Are you sure you had it when leaving the dance?”
“Yes, I felt it when I was in the hall of the Ministry.”
“But if you had lost it on the street, we’d have heard it drop. It must be in the cab.”
“Yes. Quite likely. Did you get its number?”
“No. Didn’t you notice it either?”
“No.” They looked at each other aghast. Finally Loisel got dressed again.
“I’ll retrace our steps on foot,” he said, “to see if I can find it.”
And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, without the strength to go to bed,
slumped in a chair in the unheated room, her mind a blank. Her husband came in about seven
o’clock. He had had no luck. He went to the police station, to the newspapers to post a reward, to
the cab companies, everywhere the slightest hope drove him. That evening Loisel returned, pale,
his face lined; still he had learned nothing.
“We’ll have to write your friend,” he said, “to tell her you have broken the catch and are having
it repaired. That will give us a little time to turn around.” She wrote to his dictation.
At the end of a week, they had given up all hope. And Loisel, looking five years older, declared,
“We must take steps to replace that piece of jewelry.”
The next day they took the case to the jeweler whose name they found inside. He consulted his
records. “I didn’t sell that necklace, madame,” he said. “I only supplied the case.”
Then they went from one jeweler to another hunting for a similar necklace, going over their
recollections, both sick with despair and anxiety. They found, in a shop in Palais Royal, a string
of diamonds which seemed exactly like the one they were seeking. It was priced at forty
thousand francs. They could get it for thirty-six.
They asked the jeweler to hold it for them for three days. And they reached an agreement that he
would take it back for thirty-four thousand if the lost one was found before the end of February.
Loisel had eighteen thousand francs he had inherited from his father. He would borrow the rest.
He went about raising the money, asking a thousand francs from one, four hundred from another,
a hundred here, sixty there. He signed notes, made ruinous deals, did business with loan sharks,
ran the whole gamut of moneylenders. He compromised the rest of his life, risked his signature
without knowing if he’d be able to honor it, and then, terrified by the outlook for the future, by
the blackness of despair about to close around him, by the prospect of all the privations of the
body and tortures of the spirit, he went to claim the new necklace with the thirty-six thousand
francs which he placed on the counter of the shopkeeper.
When Mme. Loisel took the necklace back, Mme. Forestier said to her frostily, “You should
have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it.” She didn’t open the case, an action her
friend was afraid of. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What
would she have said? Would she have thought her a thief?
ACTIVE READING: CONNECT

Mme. Loisel experienced the horrible life the needy live. She played her part, however, with
sudden heroism. That frightful debt had to be paid. She would pay it. She dismissed her maid;
they rented a garret under the eaves. She learned to do the heavy housework, to perform the
hateful duties of cooking. She washed dishes, wearing down her shell-pink nails scouring the
grease from pots and pans; she scrubbed dirty linen, shirts, and cleaning rags which she hung on
a line to dry; she took the
WORDS TO
garbage down to the street
KNOW
each morning and brought up
water, stopping on each Exorbitant
landing to get her breath. Askew
And, clad like a peasant
woman, basket on arm,
guarding sou by sou her scanty allowance, she
bargained with the fruit dealers, the grocer, the
butcher, and was insulted by them.
Each month notes had to be paid, and others renewed
to give more time. Her husband labored evenings to
balance a tradesman’s accounts, and at night, often,
he copied documents at five sous a page. And this
went on for ten years.
Finally, all was paid back, everything including the
exorbitant rates of the loan sharks and accumulated
compound interest.
Mme. Loisel appeared an old woman, now. She
became heavy, rough, harsh, like one of the poor. Her hair untended, her skirts askew, her hands
red, her voice shrill, she even slopped water on her floors and scrubbed them herself. But,
sometimes, while her husband was at work, she would sit near the window and think of that
long-ago evening when, at the dance, she had been so beautiful and admired.
What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who can say? How
strange and unpredictable life is! How little there is between happiness and misery! Then one
Sunday when she had gone for a walk on the Champs Élysées to relax a bit from the week’s
labors, she suddenly noticed a woman strolling with a child. It was Mme. Forestier, still young-
looking; still beautiful, still charming.
Mme. Loisel felt a rush of emotion. Should she speak to her? Of course. And now that
everything was paid off, she would tell her the whole story. Why not? She went toward her.
ACTIVE READING: PREDICT
 VOCABULARY “Hello, Jeanne.” The other, not recognizing her, showed
astonishment at being spoken to so familiarly by this
11. Compromised: exposed to common person.
danger.
12. Garret: room just below the She stammered. “But . . . madame . . . I don’t recognize . . .
sloping roof of a building; You must be mistaken.”
attic.
13. Sou: a French coin of small “No, I’m Mathilde Loisel.” Her friend gave a cry, “Oh, my
value. poor Mathilde, how you’ve changed!”
14. Champs Elysees: a famous
wild street in Paris.
“Yes, I’ve had a hard time since last seeing you. And plenty
15. Paste: a hard, glassy of misfortunes— and all on account of you!”
material in making “Of me . . . How do you mean?”
imitations of precious
stones. “Do you remember that diamond necklace you loaned me to
wear to the dance at the Ministry?”
“Yes, but what about it?”
“Well, I lost it.”
“You lost it! But you returned it.”
“I brought you another just like it. And we’ve been paying for it for ten years now. You can
imagine that wasn’t easy for us who had nothing. Well, it’s over now, and I am glad of it.”
Mme. Forestier stopped short, “You mean to say you bought a diamond necklace to replace
mine?
“Yes. You never noticed, then? They were quite alike.”
And she smiled with proud and simple joy.
Mme. Forestier, quite overcome, clasped her by the hands.
“Oh, my poor Mathilde. But mine was only paste. Why, at most it was worth only five hundred
francs!”
ACTIVE READING: EVALUATE
Name : Ramirez, Andrei Gabriel M.
Section: 12-HUMSS (LOCKE)
ACTIVITY 3
CONNECT TO THE LITERATURE
1. What do you think? What was your reaction to the surprise ending? Share your
thoughts.

I was startled to learn that her friend's jewelry was only a phase. Consider how hard
they are working to repay the money they borrowed and spent to replace the missing
necklace. I feel sorry for both of them. They had to go through such a difficult
circumstance just to pay off the jewelry, she says.

THINK CRITICALLY
2. What might be Madame Losel’s thoughts and feelings right after she learns that the
diamond necklace was only a paste?

She felt guilty for not telling her friend the truth sooner, because if she had, she would
have known that the necklace was only a phase. She felt she had squandered her
husband's and her own money, as well as her time, and years, on the necklace - and that
if she hadn't borrowed the necklace, she wouldn't have had to suffer the consequences.

3. Madame Loisel pays for jumping to wrong conclusion. Do you think it ultimately ruins
her life or saves her life? Explain your answer.
 If she had just told him earlier, her life could not have gotten any worse. Jumping to the
wrong conclusion ruined her life. Instead of enjoying her life, she had to deal with a slew
of problems as a result of the necklace. On the other hand, it teaches her to do
housework and to appreciate what she has.

EXTEND INTERPRETATIONS
4. What if? Suppose that Madame Loisel had not lost the necklace. On the basis of her
feelings and actions up to that point in the story, what do you think her future would
have been like?

Imitation is the story of a young woman who loses a necklace, which leads her back to a
life she would have led if she had not lost it. According to my interpretation of the story,
if she hadn't lost the necklace, her future would have been similar to her previous life.
She would still wonder where she belongs and ask herself for fancy things without doing
anything to get them.

5. Connect to life. Do people still chase after wealth and social status today? Do you think
the pursuit of status is worthwhile? Explain your opinion.

Most people believe that we should hire someone who will bring us a lot of money; this
is simply common sense. Having someone who does not have enough money by your
side is priceless. You will be happy if you simply prioritize your needs, but if you stick
with someone who is content with his life, you will find the true happiness that you have
been seeking.

GROUP REPORT
1. Gather the answers of your groupmates.
2. Put it on PowerPoint presentation or your choice of editing app.
3. Choose a presenter/s to present the conclusion of your answers.