She suffered intensely, feeling herself born for all the refinements and luxuries of life.  She suffered from the poverty of her home as she looked at the dirty walls, the worn-out chairs, the ugly curtains.  All those things of which another woman of her station would have been quite unconscious tortured her and made her indignant.  The sight of the country girl who was maid-of-all-work in her humble household filled her almost with desperation.  She dreamed of echoing halls hung with Oriental draperies and lighted by tall bronze candelabra, while two tall footmen in knee-breeches drowsed in great armchairs by reason of the heating stove’s oppressive warmth.  She dreamed of splendid parlors furnished in rare old silks, of carved cabinets loaded with priceless bric-a-brac, and of entrancing little boudoirs just right for afternoon chats with bosom friends—­men famous and sought after, the envy and the desire of all the other women.

When she sat down to dinner at a little table covered with a cloth three days old, and looked across at her husband as he uncovered the soup and exclaimed with an air of rapture, “Oh, the delicious stew!  I know nothing better than that,” she dreamed of dainty dinners, of shining silverware, of tapestries which peopled the walls with antique figures and strange birds in fairy forests; she dreamed of delicious viands served in wonderful dishes, of whispered gallantries heard with a sphinx-like smile as you eat the pink flesh of a trout or the wing of a quail.

She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing; and she loved nothing else.  She felt made for that alone.  She was filled with a desire to please, to be envied, to be bewitching and sought after.  She had a rich friend, a former schoolmate at the convent, whom she no longer wished to visit because she suffered so much when she came home.  For whole days at a time she wept without ceasing in bitterness and hopeless misery.

Now, one evening her husband came home with a triumphant air, holding in his hand a large envelope.

“There,” said he, “there is something for you.”

She quickly tore open the paper and drew out a printed card, bearing these words:—­

“The Minister of Public Instruction and Mme. Georges Rampouneau request the honor of M. and Mme. Loisel’s company at the palace of the Ministry, Monday evening, January 18th.”

Instead of being overcome with delight, as her husband expected, she threw the invitation on the table with disdain, murmuring: 

“What do you wish me to do with that?”

“Why, my dear, I thought you would be pleased.  You never go out, and this is such a fine opportunity!  I had awful trouble in getting it.  Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are not giving many invitations to clerks.  You will see all the official world.”

She looked at him with irritation, and said, impatiently: 

“What do you expect me to put on my back if I go?”