Literary Inspiration The set
In his novel, Guy de Maupassant takes us on an unexpected journey. A diamond-studded tale of absurdity and misfortune, or how a piece of jewelry can lead to disaster.
Diamond Set © Piaget
Mathilde Loisel is a very beautiful woman, a Parisian woman who lives in a home; she dreams of a luxurious life:
«She was simple, unable to be adorned, but unfortunate like a discarded object; for women have no caste or race; their beauty, grace, and charm serve as their birth and family. Their innate finesse, their instinct for elegance, and their flexibility of mind are their only hierarchy, and make the girls of the people equal to the greatest ladies. She had no toiletry, no jewels, nothing. And she loved only that; she felt herself made for it. She would have so much wished to please, to be envied, to be seductive, and to be sought after.» (…)
One day her husband presented her with an invitation to a party at the ministry. Mathilde, saddened by the thought of going, had nothing to wear.
Mr Loisel agreed to offer her a proper toilette. However, Mathilde seemed sad: her dress was ready, but she had no jewels!
«It annoys me not having a jewel, not having a stone, nothing to put on. I would look like a total loser. I almost wish I didn’t have to go to this party.".
Her husband continued: You will use natural flowers. It’s very chic this season. For ten francs you will have two or three beautiful roses.
-No… there’s nothing more humiliating than looking poor in the middle of rich women.
But her husband shouted:
– You are a fool! Go find your friend Mrs. Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewelry. You are close enough to her to do this.
She cried out with joy. (…) The next day, she went to her friend’s house and told her of her distress. Mrs. Forestier went to her icebox, took a large case, brought it, opened it, and said to Mrs. Loisel:
– Choose, my dear.
She started with bracelets, then a necklace of beads, then a Venetian cross, made with admirable craftsmanship. She tried on the jewelry in front of the ice, hesitated, couldn’t decide to leave them, to return them. She kept asking:
– Do you have anything else?
– But yes. I’m looking. I don’t know what you might like.
Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin box, a magnificent river of diamonds; and her heart beat with an unbridled desire. Her hands trembled as she took it. She tied it around her neck, on her flowing gown, and remained in ecstasy before it herself.
Then, she asked, hesitatingly and full of anxiety:
– Could you lend me this, just for a moment?
– But yes, definitely.
She jumped onto her friend’s shoulder, kissed her eagerly, and then fled with her treasure.
The day of the celebration arrived. Mrs Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all the others; elegant, graceful, smiling, and full of joy. All the men looked at her, asked for her name, and tried to be introduced to her. All the staff of the cabinet wanted to dance with her. The Minister noticed her.
She danced with intoxication, with abandon, intoxicated by pleasure, thinking of nothing at all, in the triumph of her beauty, in the glory of her success, in a kind of cloud of happiness made up of all those tributes, all those adulations, all those awakened desires, of that complete and sweet victory in the hearts of women.
Her husband had been sleeping in a small, deserted living room since midnight with three other gentlemen, whose wives were having a great time.
He threw the clothes he had brought for the outing—modest clothes from ordinary life—onto her shoulders; the poverty swore with the elegance of a ball gown. She felt it and wanted to run away, so as not to be noticed by the other women who were wrapping themselves in rich furs. (…)
They found on the quay one of those old nocturnal boats that are only seen in Paris at night, as if they were ashamed of their misery during the day.
He took them to their door, Rue des Martyrs, and they sadly returned to their home. It was over for her. And he thought to himself that he would have to be at the Ministry at ten o’clock.
She took off the clothes she had wrapped around her shoulders in front of the ice so that she could see herself again in her glory. But suddenly she cried out. She no longer had her river around her neck!
They searched the folds of the dress, the folds of the coat, the pockets, everywhere. They did not find it.
They looked at each other in astonishment. (…)
They had to be informed to replace this jewel. (…) Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, searching for a piece of jewelry similar to the other one, consulting their memories, both of them suffering from grief and anxiety.
They found, in a shop in the PalaisRoyal, a necklace of diamonds that looked exactly like the one they were looking for. It was worth forty thousand francs. They were to be given it for thirty-six thousand.
Loisel had eighteen thousand francs that his father had left him. He would borrow the rest.
He borrowed, asking one thousand francs from one, five hundred from the other, five louis here, three louis there. He made bills, took ruinous engagements, dealt with usurers, with all races of lenders. He compromised the whole end of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing whether he could do it honorably, and, terrified by the anxieties of the future, by the black misery that was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all the physical privations and all the moral tortures, he went in search of the new river.
When Mme Loisel handed the jewelry back to Mme Forestier, the latter said to her in a strained voice:
-You should have given it to me earlier, because I might need it.(…)
Mrs. Loisel experienced the horrible life of the poor. She took matters into her own hands, quite heroically, all at once. She had to pay this dreadful debt. She would pay it. The good woman was dismissed; they changed her place of residence; they rented a loft in the attic.
She endured the heavy chores of the household, the odious chores of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, using her pink nails on the greasy pots and the bottoms of the pots. She washed the dirty laundry, the shirts and the towels, which she dried on a rope; she went down to the street every morning with the trash and brought up the water, stopping at each floor to blow. And, dressed as a peasant woman, she went to the fruit vendor, the grocer, the butcher, carrying a basket on her arm, trading, insulted, defending her miserable money with every breath.
After ten years, they had returned everything, everything, with the interest rate and the accumulation of the added interest.
Mrs. Loisel seemed old now. She had become the strong, tough, and tough woman of the poor households. Shaggy-haired and with her skirts tucked inside, she spoke loudly and washed the floors with plenty of water. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she would sit by the window and think of that bygone evening, the ball where she had been so beautiful and so festive.
What would have happened if she had not lost that piece of jewelry? Who knows? Who knows? As life is unique and ever-changing! As it takes little to lose you or to save you!
But one Sunday, as she had gone for a stroll in the Champs-Elysées to take her mind off the worries of the week, she suddenly saw a woman walking with a child. It was Mme Forestier, always young, always beautiful, always seductive.
Mrs. Loisel felt moved. Was she going to talk to him? Yes, of course. And now that she had paid, she would tell him everything. Why not?
She approached.
– Hello, Jeanne.
The other did not recognize her, wondering why she was being called by that bourgeois name. She stammered:
– But… Madam!… I don’t know… You must be mistaken.
– No. I'm Mathilde Loisel.
His friend screamed.
– Oh!… my poor Mathilde, how you have changed!…
– Yes, I have had very hard days since I haven’t seen you; and many hardships… and it’s because of you!…
– From me... How so?
– You remember that river of diamonds that you lent me to go to the Ministry’s party.
– Yes. Well?
– Well, I lost it.
– How? since you brought it to me.
– I brought you another one just like it. And here we are paying for it ten years on. You understand that it wasn’t easy for us, who had nothing… Well, it’s over, and I’m extremely happy.
Mrs. Forestier had stopped.
– You’re saying that you bought a river of diamonds to replace mine?
– Yes. You didn’t notice it, did you? They were quite similar.
And she was smiling with proud and naive joy.
Mrs. Forestier, deeply moved, took both of his hands.
– Oh! My poor Mathilde! But mine was false.
It was worth at most five hundred francs!… »
A tragic irony that prompts us to reflect.
