When Madame Loisel took back the necklace Madame Forestier said to her with a chilly manner: 

“You should have returned it sooner; I might have needed it.”

She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared.  If she had detected the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said?  Would she not have taken Madame Loisel for a thief?

Thereafter Madame Loisel knew the horrible existence of the needy.  She bore her part, however, with sudden heroism.  That dreadful debt must be paid.  She would pay it.  They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings; they rented a garret under the roof.

She came to know what heavy housework meant and the odious cares of the kitchen.  She washed the dishes, using her dainty fingers and rosy nails on greasy pots and pans.  She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and the dishcloths, which she dried upon a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning and carried up the water, stopping for breath at every landing.  And dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer, the grocer, the butcher, a basket on her arm, bargaining, meeting with impertinence, defending her miserable money, sou by sou.

Every month they had to meet some notes, renew others, obtain more time.

Her husband worked evenings, making up a tradesman’s accounts, and late at night he often copied manuscript for five sous a page.

This life lasted ten years.

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

Madame Loisel looked old now.  She had become the woman of impoverished households—­strong and hard and rough.  With frowsy hair, skirts askew and red hands, she talked loud while washing the floor with great swishes of water.  But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down near the window and she thought of that gay evening of long ago, of that ball where 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 and changeful is life!  How small a thing is needed to make or ruin us!

But one Sunday, having gone to take a walk in the Champs Elysees to refresh herself after the labors of the week, she suddenly perceived a woman who was leading a child.  It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.

Madame Loisel felt moved.  Should she speak to her?  Yes, certainly.  And now that she had paid, she would tell her all about it.  Why not?

She went up.

“Good-day, Jeanne.”

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain good-wife, did not recognize her at all and stammered: 

“But—­madame!—­I do not know—­You must have mistaken.”

“No.  I am Mathilde Loisel.”

Her friend uttered a cry.