few indifferent fellows were quickly on their feet, and running to the
door or the windows, their mouths full, their napkins in their hands.
When he had finished his roulade the public crier held forth in a jerky
voice, cutting his phrases at the wrong place:
"It is made known to the inhabitants of Goderville and in general to
all--the people present at market, that there was lost this morning, on
the Benzeville road between--nine and ten o'clock, a wallet containing
five hundred francs and important papers. You are asked to return--it
to the town hall, without delay, or to the house of Master Fortuné
Houlebrèque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."
Then the crier went on. One heard once more far off the muffled beating
of his drum, and his voice enfeebled by the distance. Then they all
began to talk of the event, estimating Master Houlebrèque's chances of
finding or not finding his wallet.
And the meal went on.
They were finishing their coffee when the chief of police appeared at
the door.
"Where is Master Hauchecorne of Bréauté?" he asked.
Hauchecorne, seated at the farther end of the table, replied:
"I'm here."
The chief proceeded:
"Master Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to accompany me to the
town hall? The mayor wishes to speak with you."
The countryman, surprised and disquieted, emptied at a draft his little
glass of rum, arose, and, still more bent than in the morning, for the
first movement after each relaxation was particularly difficult, he set
out, repeating:
"I'm here, I'm here."
And he followed the chief.
The mayor was waiting for him, seated in his fauteuil. He was the
notary of the vicinity, a big, solemn man, of pompous phrases.
"Master Hauchecorne," said he, "you were seen to pick up, on the
Benzeville road, this morning, the wallet lost by Master Houlebrèque,
of Manneville."
The peasant, astonished, looked at the mayor, frightened already,
without knowing why, by this suspicion which had fallen on him.
"What! what! I picked up the wallet?"
"Yes; you yourself."
"Word of honor, I didn't even know of it."
"You were seen."
"Seen? What? Who saw me?"
"Monsieur Malandin, the harness-maker."
Then the old man remembered, understood, reddened with anger.
"He saw meh, th' lout? He saw meh pick up that string! See here, m'sieu
mayor," and feeling in the bottom of his pocket, he drew out the bit of
cord.
But the mayor, incredulous, shook his head.
"You won't make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Malandin, who is a
man worthy of credence, took that thread for a wallet."
The peasant, furious, raised his hand, spit, to attest his innocence,
and declared:
"Yet it's the truth of God, the sacred truth, m'sieu mayor. On my soul
and my salvation, I repeat it."
The mayor continued:
"After picking up the object you went on searching in the mud a long
time to see if some piece of money mightn't have escaped you."
The old man gasped with indignation and fear.
"May one tell--may one tell lies like that to injure an honest man? May
one say--"
His protest was vain. He was not believed. He was confronted with
Monsieur Malandin, who repeated and sustained his former affirmation.
For an hour the two men hurled insults at each other. Hauchecorne was
searched, at his demand, and nothing was found on him. Finally the
mayor, greatly perplexed, sent him away, warning him that he should
inform the council and await orders.
The news spread. When he came out of the town hall the old man was
surrounded and questioned with a curiosity serious or mocking, but with
no ill-will in it.
He began to recount the story of the string, but no one believed
him--they only laughed.
He went on, stopped by everybody, stopping his acquaintances, beginning
anew his tale and his protestations, turning his pockets inside out to
prove that he had nothing.
"Move on, old quibbler," they said to him.
And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, sick at heart, at not being
believed. He did not know what to do, but told his story over and over.
Night came. It was time to go home. He set out with three of his
neighbors, to whom he pointed out the place where he had picked up
the bit of cord, and all the way home he talked of his adventure. In
the evening he made a circuit of the village of Bréauté to tell it
to everybody. He met only incredulity. He was ill all night from his
trouble.
The next day, toward one o'clock in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle,
a farm hand, of Ymanville, returned the wallet and its contents to
Monsieur Houlebrèque, of Manneville. The man stated, in effect, that
he had found the wallet in the road, but not knowing how to read, had
taken it home to his employer.
The news spread all about. Master Hauchecorne was told of it. He at
once set out again on his travels, and began to narrate his story,
completed by the dénouement. He was triumphant.
"It's not the thing 'at grieved me most, you understand," he said, "but
it's the lie. Nothing harms you like being charged with a lie."
All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the streets to
men passing, in the taverns to men drinking, after church the next
Sunday. He stopped strangers to tell it to them. Now he was tranquil,
yet something half disturbed him, without his knowing exactly what.
People had an amused air as they listened to him. They did not appear
convinced. He thought he detected whispers behind his back.
Tuesday of the following week he betook himself to the market of
Goderville, driven there by the need of exploiting his case. Malandin,
standing in his doorway, began to laugh when he saw him passing. Why?
He accosted a farmer of Criquetot, who did not let him finish, but
giving him a blow in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face:
"Go your way, humbug!"
Master Hauchecorne was dumfounded, and more and more ill at ease. Why
had he been called a humbug?
When he was seated at table in Jourdain's inn he again began to explain
the affair. A jockey of Montivilliers cried to him:
"Come, come, old croaker, I know about your string!"
Hauchecorne stammered:
"But since it is found--the wallet?"
The other answered:
"Hold your tongue, father. One finds, another returns. I know nothing
about it, but I implicate you."
The peasant was left choking. He understood at last. He was accused of
having returned the wallet through an accomplice. He tried to protest.
The whole table began to laugh. He could not finish his dinner, and
went out in the midst of mockeries.
He returned home, ashamed and disgraced, strangling with rage and
confusion, so much the more overwhelmed, in that he was capable, with
his Norman duplicity, of doing the very thing of which he was accused,
and even boasting of it as a good stroke. Confusedly he saw his
innocence impossible to prove, his chicanery being well known, and he
felt himself cut to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.
Then he commenced again to recount his adventure, lengthening each
day his story, adding each time new reasonings, more energetic
protestations, more solemn oaths, which he invented and arranged in
his hours of solitude, his mind occupied solely with the story of the
string. He was believed the less in proportion to the complication of
his defense and the subtlety of his argument.
"That's the reasoning of a liar," they said behind his back.
He felt it, spent himself, wore his life out in useless efforts. He
wasted away visibly. Wags now made him tell "the string" for their
amusement, as one makes a soldier who has fought recount his battle.
His mind, harassed and unsettled, grew feeble.
Toward the end of December he took to his bed. He died early in
January, and in the delirium of his agony he attested his innocence,
repeating:
"A little string ... a little string ... wait, here it is, m'sieu
mayor!"
THE NECKLACE
BY GUY DE MAUPASSANT
Translated by Mathilde Weissenhorn.
Copyright, 1898, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
She was one of those charming girls, born by a freak of destiny in
a family of toilers. She had no fortune, no expectations, no means
of satisfying her ambitions, except by a marriage with a rich and
distinguished man, and, as she knew none, in order to escape from her
surroundings, she married a clerk in the office of the Minister of
Public Instruction.
She dressed simply, because she had no means of adornment; but she was
as unhappy as though she had fallen from a high social position, for
the women who have neither caste nor race use their beauty, grace,
and charm as stepping-stones to those heights from which they are
otherwise barred, their natural tact and instinctive elegance and
quick perceptions being their only inheritance, and, skilfully used,
make them the equal of their more fortunate sisters. She suffered
incessantly when she glanced around her humble home, and felt the
absence of all those delicacies and luxuries which are enjoyed only by
the rich. In short, all the little nothings, that another woman of her
caste would not have seen, tortured and wounded her. The sight of the
old Breton peasant woman who performed her simple household duties
awakened in her vain longings and troubled dreams.
She dreamed of beautiful halls, discreetly lighted by candles in great
bronze candlesticks, whose rich carpets gave back no sounds and whose
walls were covered with silks from the Orient, and of obsequious
footmen half asleep in their large armchairs, ready to attend to your
every want at a moment's notice; of large salons draped in ancient
silks; of "étagers" covered with priceless bric-à-brac. She thought
also of coquettish small salons, made expressly for the "five o'clock,"
when one receives only one's intimates or distinguished men of letters,
from whom it is every woman's ambition to receive attentions.
When she was seated at the table (whose cloth had already done duty
for three days) or opposite her husband--who evinced his entire
satisfaction with the evening's repast by such exclamations as: "Oh,
the good 'pot-au-feu'! I know nothing better!"--her imagination carried
her away to stately banquet halls, whose walls were covered with rich
tapestries, portraying scenes in which ancient personages and strange
birds were pictured in the middle of a fairy-like forest. She pictured
the glittering silver, strange dishes, exquisitely served on marvelous
plate, and gallantries whispered and listened to with the sphinx-like
smile with which a woman of the world knows so well how to conceal her
emotions, all the while eating a rosy trout or dallying with a wing of
a lark. She had no toilets, no jewels, and it was for these things that
she longed, as the fleet Arabian longs for his native desert. What
pleasure to have pleased, been envied, to be seductive and sought after!
She had a rich friend, a comrade from the convent, whom she no longer
visited, because she suffered from seeing the things she could not
have, and on returning wept whole days for grief, regret, despair, and
distress.
One evening her husband came home radiant, holding in his hand a large
envelope.
"See," said he, "here is something for you."
She nervously tore open the envelope, drew out a card, on which these
words were printed:
"The Minister of Public Instruction and Madame Georges Ramponeau beg
the honor of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel for the evening
of Monday, January 18th."
Instead of being wild with delight, as he had expected, she threw
the invitation on the table, with an exclamation of disgust, saying
sullenly:
"What do you wish me to do with that?"
"But, my dear, I thought you would be so pleased. You never go out, and
this is an event. I only obtained it after infinite trouble. Everybody
wants one; they are much sought after, and they are not generally given
to employees. You will see there all of the official world."
She looked at him with supreme disdain, and said impatiently:
"What would you like me to wear?" The secret was out. Manlike, he had
not thought of that.
"But--the dress--that you wear to the theatre," stammered he. "You
always look beautiful to me in that."
He stopped speaking, stupefied and dismayed on seeing his wife in
tears. Two large tears trickled slowly down her cheeks.
"What is the matter? What is the matter?" asked he tenderly. By violent
effort she conquered her grief and calmly said, while wiping her humid
cheeks:
"Nothing; only I have no toilet, and, of course, can not go. Give the
card to one of your comrades whose wife is fortunate enough to have
something suitable for the occasion."
Despairingly he said:
"See, Mathilde, how much will a dress cost to wear to this ball; one
which can also be used for other occasions--something very simple."
She reflected a few moments, figuring in her own mind the sum she could
ask without danger of immediate refusal and frightening her economical
husband. Finally she hesitatingly said:
"I do not know exactly; but it seems to me I might manage with about
400 francs."
He paled a little, because he had been saving just that sum to buy a
gun for the following summer, when he would go with some of his friends
to the plains of Nanterre on Sundays to shoot larks. Stifling his
regrets, however, he replied:
"Very well, I will give you 400 francs, but try to have a beautiful
dress."
The day of the fête drew near; but Madame Loisel seemed sad, anxious,
and uneasy. Her toilet was ready, what could it be? Her husband said
to her one evening:
"What is the matter? You have been so queer for the last few days!"
She replied: "It worries me that I have not one jewel, not a precious
stone to wear. What a miserable figure I shall be! I think I would
rather not go at all!"
"You can wear natural flowers; it is all the rage at this season, and
for ten francs you can have two or three magnificent roses."
But she was not convinced.
"No; there is nothing more humiliating than to be poorly dressed among
so many rich women."
"But how silly you are! Go to your friend, Madame Forestier, and ask
her to lend you her jewels. You are friendly enough with her to do
that."
She gave a cry of joy.
"Yes; that is true--I had not thought of it."
The following day she went to her friend and explained her predicament.
Madame Forestier went to a closet and took out a large casket, and,
opening it, said:
"Choose, my dear; they are at your service."
She saw first bracelets, then a necklace of pearls, a Venetian cross,
gold and precious stones of exquisite workmanship. She tried them on
before the glass, unable to decide whether to wear them or not.
"Have you nothing else?" said she.
"Oh, yes; look them over, I don't know what might please you."
Suddenly she opened a black satin case, disclosing to view a superb
rivière of diamonds, her heart beat furiously with the desire of
possession. She took them in her trembling hands and put them on over
her simple high-neck gown, and stood lost in an ecstasy of admiration
of herself. Then, fearfully, hesitatingly, dreading the agony of a
refusal:
"Can you lend me only that?"
"Why, certainly; if it pleases you."
She fell on her friend's neck, embraced her tempestuously, and then
left hastily with her treasure.
The day of the ball arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. Among all
the beautiful women she was the most beautiful, elegant, gracious,
and smiling with joy. She attracted the attention of some of the most
distinguished men present, and on all sides was heard:
"Who is she?"
All the attachés of the cabinet sought her dancing card eagerly, and
even the Minister himself expressed his approval. She danced with
pleasure, thinking of nothing but the triumph of her beauty and the
glory of her success. Intoxicated by all the admiration, she seemed to
float through a cloud of happiness, intensified by her complete victory
and the tribute paid to her charms, so sweet to the hearts of women.
She left about four o'clock in the morning; her husband had slept since
midnight in a small room, deserted except by two or three gentlemen who
also awaited their wives.
He threw over her shoulders the modest cloak which she had brought,
whose shabbiness seemed to mock the elegance of the ball toilet. She
felt the incongruity, and walked swiftly away in order not to be seen
by those whose rich furs were more in accordance with the occasion.
"Wait," said her husband, "you will take cold; I will call a carriage."
But she heeded him not, and rapidly descended the staircase. When they
reached the street, there was no carriage in sight, and they were
obliged to look for one, calling to the drivers who passed by, but in
vain. Shiveringly they walked toward the Seine and finally found on the
quay one of those nocturnal coupés one finds only in Paris after dark,
hovering about the great city like grim birds of prey, who conceal
their misery during the day. It carried them to their door (Rue de
Martyrs), and they slowly and sadly entered their small apartments. It
was ended for her, and he only remembered that he would have to be at
his desk at ten o'clock.
She took off her cloak in front of the glass in order to admire herself
once more in all her bravery, but, suddenly, she cried out: "The
diamonds are gone!" Her husband, almost half asleep, started at the cry
and asked:
"What is the matter?"
She turned toward him with a frightened air.
"I--I have lost Madame Forestier's necklace!"
He rose dismayed.
"What--how! But it is not possible!" And they immediately
began to search in the folds of the dress, the cloak, in the
pockets--everywhere, and found nothing.
"Are you sure that you had it when you left the ball?"
"Yes; I felt it while still in the vestibule at the Minister's."
"But if you had lost it in the street we should have heard it drop. It
ought to be in the carriage."
"Yes; it is possible. Did you take the number?"
"No; and you have not looked at it, either?"
"No."
They looked at each other fearfully; finally Loisel dressed himself.
"I shall go over the whole ground that we traveled on foot, to see
whether I can not find it."
He went out. She sat still in her brilliant ball toilet; no desire to
sleep, no power to think, all swallowed up in the fear of the calamity
which had fallen upon them.
Her husband came in at seven o'clock. He had found nothing. He had been
to the Prefecture of the Police, to the papers offering a reward, to
all small cab companies, anywhere, in short, where he could have the
shadow of hope of recovery.
She waited all day in the same state of fear in the face of this
frightful disaster.
Loisel returned in the evening pallid and haggard. No news as yet.
"You must write to your friend that you have broken the clasp of the
necklace and are having it repaired. That will give us time to look
around."
* * * * *
At the end of the week they had lost all hope, and Loisel, to whom it
seemed this care and trouble had added five years to his age, said:
"We must try and replace the jewels."
The following day they went to the jeweler whose name was stamped
inside the case. He consulted his books: "I did not sell that necklace,
madame, I only furnished the case."
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, racking their memories to find
the same, both of them sick with grief and agony. At last, in a small
shop in the Palais Royal, they found one which seemed to them like the
one they had lost. With beating hearts they asked the price.
Forty thousand francs; but they could have it for 36,000 francs.
They asked the jeweler not to dispose of it for three days, and he also
promised to take it back at 34,000 francs if the first one was found
before the end of February.
Loisel had inherited 18,000 francs from his father. He borrowed the
rest.
He borrowed a thousand francs from one, five hundred from another, five
louis here, five louis there--he gave notes, made ruinous engagements,
had recourse to the usurers, ran the whole gamut of money-lenders. He
compromised his whole existence risking his signature, without knowing
that it would be honored, terrified by the agony of the future, by the
black misery which enveloped him, by the prospect of all the physical
privations and moral tortures. He went for the new necklace and
deposited on the counter his 36,000 francs.
When Madame Loisel returned the necklace to Madame Forestier, she
coldly said:
"You should have returned it sooner, as I might have needed it."
She did not open the case, the one thing Madame Loisel had dreaded.
What if she had discovered the change--what would she have thought?
Would she not be taken for a thief?
* * * * *
From that time on Madame Loisel knew what life meant to the very
poor in all its phases. She took her part heroically. This frightful
debt must be paid. Her share of privations was bravely borne. They
discharged their one domestic, changed their location, and rented
smaller apartments near the roof.
She knew now what meant the duties of the household, the heavy work
of the kitchen. Her pretty hands soon lost all semblance of the care
of bygone days. She washed the soiled linen and dried it in her
room. She went every morning to the street with the refuse of the
kitchen, carrying the water, stopping at each flight of stairs to take
breath--wearing the dress of the women of the people; she went each day
to the grocer, the fruiterer, the butcher, carrying her basket on her
arm, bargaining, defending cent by cent her miserable money.
They were obliged each month to pay some notes and renew others in
order to gain time. Her husband worked in the evening balancing the
books of merchants, and often was busy all night, copying at five
cents a page.
And this life they endured for ten years.
At the end of this time they had paid all the tax of the usurers and
compound interest.
Madame Loisel seemed an old woman now. She had become strong and
hardy as the women of the provinces, and with tousled head, short
skirts, red hands, she was foremost among the loud-voiced women of the
neighborhood, who passed their time gossiping at their doorsteps.
But sometimes when her husband was at his office she seated herself at
the window and thought of that evening in the past and that ball, where
she had been so beautiful and so admired.
What would have happened if she had not lost the necklace? Who knows?
Life is a singular and changeable thing, full of vicissitudes. How
little it takes to save or wreck us!
* * * * *
One Sunday as she was walking in the Champs Elysées to divert herself
from the cares and duties of the week she suddenly perceived a lady,
with a little child, coming toward her. It was Madame Forestier,
still young, beautiful and charming. Madame Loisel stopped short, too
agitated to move. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that
the necklace was paid for she would tell her everything. Why not?
She walked up to her and said: "Good day, Jeanne."
Madame Forestier did not recognize her and seemed astonished at being
spoken to so familiarly by this woman of the people.
"But--madame--I do not--I think you are mistaken."
"No; I am Mathilde Loisel."
"Oh!--my poor Mathilde, how you are changed!"
"Yes; I have had lots of trouble and misery since last I saw you--and
all for you."
"For me! And how was that?"
"Do you remember the necklace of diamonds you lent me, to wear to the
Minister's ball?"
"Yes; well?"
"Well, I lost it."
"Lost it! How could you, since you returned it to me?"
"I returned you one just like it, and for ten years we have been paying
for it. You know, it was not easy for us, who had nothing--but it is
finished, and I am very happy."
"You say that you bought a necklace of diamonds to replace mine," said
Madame Forestier.
"Yes; and you never found it out! They were so much alike," and she
smiled proudly.
Touched to the heart, Madame Forestier took the poor, rough hands in
hers, drawing her tenderly toward her, her voice filled with tears:
"Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine were false. They were not worth more
than 500 francs at most."
THE WALL OPPOSITE
BY PIERRE LOTI
[Illustration]