Posted: September 13th, 2017

"The Necklace" by (Guy De Maupassant),

“The Necklace” by (Guy De Maupassant),

Which one of the works that we have discussed would you recommend to another student at the university? in your essay, please explain what is so important about the

story you would recommend.

More instructions:
1 story which is called “The Necklace” by (Guy De Maupassant),

The Necklace
By Guy de Maupassant
© 2006 by http://www.HorrorMasters.com
She was one of those pretty and charming girls who are sometimes, as if by a mistake of destiny,
born in a family of clerks. She had no dowry, no expectations, no means of being known,
understood, loved, wedded, by any rich and distingui
shed man; and she let herself be married to
a little clerk at the Ministry of Public Instruction.
She dressed plainly because she could not dress well, but she was as unhappy as though she
had really fallen from her proper station; since w
ith women there is neither caste nor rank; and
beauty, grace, and charm act instead of family and birth. Natural fineness, instinct for what is
elegant, suppleness of wit, are the sole hierar
chy, and make from women of the people the equals
of the very greatest ladies.
She suffered ceaselessly, feeling herself born for all the delicacies and all the luxuries. She
suffered from the poverty of her dwelling, from the wretched look of the walls, from the worn-
out chairs, from the ugliness of the curtains. All those things, of which another woman of her
rank would never even have been conscious, tort
ured her and made her angry. The sight of the
little Breton peasant who did her humble house-work aroused in her regrets which were despair-
ing, and distracted dreams. She thought of the silent antechambers hung with Oriental tapestry,
lit by tall bronze candelabra, land of the two great footmen in knee-breeches who sleep in the big
arm-chairs, made drowsy by the heavy warmth of the hot-air stove. She thought of the long
salons
fitted up with ancient silk, of the delicate furniture carrying priceless curiosities, and of
the coquettish perfumed boudoirs made for talks at
five o’clock with intimate friends, with men –
famous and sought after, whom all women envy and whose attention they all desire.
When she sat down to dinner, before the round ta
ble covered with a table-cloth three days old,
opposite her husband, who uncovered the soup-tureen and declared with an enchanted air, “Ah,
the good
pot-au-feu!
I don’t know anything better than that,” she thought of dainty dinners, of
shining silverware, of tapestry which peopled the walls with ancient personages and with strange
birds flying in the midst of a fairy forest; and she thought of delicious dishes served on
marvellous plates, and of the whispered gallantries which you listen to with a sphinx-like smile,
while you are eating the pink flesh of a trout or the wings of a quail.
She had no dresses, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that; she felt made for that.
She would so have liked to please, to be envied, to be charming, to be sought after.
She had a friend, a former school-mate at the convent, who was rich, and whom she did not
like to go and see any more she suffered so much when she came back.
But, one evening, her husband returned home with a triumphant air, and holding a large
envelope in his hand.
“There,” said he, “here is something for you.”
She tore the paper sharply, and drew out a printed card which bore these words:
“The Minister of Public Instruction and Mine. Georges Ramponneau request the honor of M. and
Mine. Loisel’s company at the palace of the Ministry on Monday evening, January 18th.”
Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she threw the invitation on the table with
disdain, murmuring:
“What do you want me to do with that?”
“But, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is such a fine
opportunity. I had awful trouble to get it. Every one wants to go; it is very select, and they are
not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole official world will be there.”
She looked at him with an irritated eye, and she said, impatiently:
“And what do you want me to put on my back?”
He had not thought of that; he stammered:
“Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very well, to me.”
He stopped, distracted, seeing that his wife was crying. Two great tears descended slowly from
the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth. He stuttered:
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter?”
But, by a violent effort, she had conquered her
grief, and she replied, with a calm voice, while
she wiped her wet cheeks:
“Nothing. Only I have no dress, and therefore I can’t go to this ball. Give your card to some
colleague whose wife is better equipped than I.”
He was in despair. He resumed:
“Come, let us see, Mathilde. How much would it cost, a suitable dress, which you could use on
other occasions, something very simple?”
She reflected several seconds, making her calculations and wondering also what sum she could
ask without drawing on herself an immediate refusal and a frightened exclamation from the
economical clerk.
Finally, she replied, hesitatingly:
“I don’t know exactly, but I think I could manage it with four hundred francs.”
He had grown a little pale, because he was la
ying aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat
himself to a little shooting next summer on the plai
n of Nanterre, with several friends who went
to shoot larks down there, of a Sunday.
But he said:
“All right. I will give you four hundred francs. And try to have a pretty dress.”
The day of the ball drew near, and Mine. Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her dress was
ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening:
“What is the matter? Come, you’ve been so queer these last three days.”
And she answered:
“It annoys me not to have a single jewel, not
a single stone, nothing to put on. I shall look like
distress. I should almost rather not go at all.”
He resumed:
“You might wear natural flowers. It’s very sty
lish at this time of the year. For ten francs you
can get two or three magnificent roses.”
She was not convinced.
“No; there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.”
But her husband cried:
“How stupid you are! Go look up your friend Mme. Forestier, and ask her to lend you some
jewels. You’re quite thick enough with her to do that.”
She uttered a cry of joy:

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