The Necklace — RBSE Class 10 English (Footprints without Feet)
A borrowed diamond necklace, one glittering evening, and a single careless loss — and a whole life is destroyed. Guy de Maupassant's classic story follows a woman who longs for luxury she cannot afford, and shows, with a devastating final twist, how vanity and dishonesty about our means can cost us everything.
1. Matilda's discontent
Matilda Loisel was a pretty, charming woman who felt she had been born for a life of luxury — but she was married to a modest clerk in the Ministry of Education and lived a simple, middle-class life. She was perpetually unhappy, tormented by her plain home and clothes, dreaming endlessly of elegant dinners, jewels and rich admirers. Her discontent poisoned her happiness.
2. The invitation and the necklace
One day her husband, Monsieur Loisel, proudly brought home an invitation to a grand ball at the Ministry. Instead of being pleased, Matilda cried — she had nothing to wear. Her kind husband gave her the 400 francs he had saved (for a gun) to buy a dress. Still she was unhappy: she had no jewels. Her husband suggested she borrow some from her rich friend, Madame Forestier. Matilda visited her and borrowed a beautiful diamond necklace.
At the ball, Matilda was a triumph — the prettiest, most admired woman there, radiant with joy. But when they returned home in the early hours, she made a horrifying discovery: the necklace was gone.
3. Ten years of ruin
They searched everywhere in vain. Too ashamed to confess, they decided to replace it secretly. They found a similar diamond necklace worth 36,000 francs. To buy it, Monsieur Loisel used his inheritance of 18,000 francs and borrowed the rest at ruinous interest, ruining themselves financially. They returned the new necklace to Madame Forestier, who did not notice the substitution.
Then began ten years of grinding poverty and hard labour to repay the enormous debt. They dismissed their maid and moved to a cheap attic. Matilda did all the heavy housework herself — scrubbing floors, washing clothes, bargaining at shops. Monsieur Loisel worked at extra jobs at night. In ten years, Matilda grew old, coarse and worn — the pretty woman was gone. But at last the whole debt, with interest, was paid.
4. The shattering twist
Years later, worn and aged, Matilda met Madame Forestier by chance, still young and beautiful, in a park. Matilda, now with nothing to hide, told her the whole story — how she had lost the necklace, replaced it, and paid for it with ten years of misery.
Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her hands and revealed the crushing truth:
"Oh, my poor Matilda! Why, my necklace was paste (an imitation). It was worth at most only five hundred francs!"
The diamonds Matilda had spent ten years of her life to replace had been fake all along — a cruel, final irony.
5. Themes
- Vanity and discontent — Matilda's endless craving for a life beyond her means is the root of her ruin.
- Honesty vs pride — had she simply confessed the loss, the disaster could have been avoided; false pride destroyed her.
- The irony of fate — ten years of suffering for a necklace that was worthless.
- Hard work and dignity — ironically, poverty and labour finally make Matilda honest and hard-working, though at a terrible price.
6. Closing thought
"The Necklace" is a masterpiece of the twist ending, but its power is moral. Matilda is ruined not by bad luck alone but by two flaws: a discontent that makes her ashamed of her honest, comfortable life, and a false pride that stops her confessing the loss. Maupassant's cruel final line — the necklace was paste — hammers home the lesson: appearances deceive, vanity is costly, and honesty would have saved everything. Ten years of a woman's life are the price of a lie she told to keep up appearances.
For the RBSE board, remember Matilda's discontent, the borrowing, loss and secret replacement of the necklace, the ten years of hardship, and the final twist (the necklace was fake). Value-based questions on honesty, contentment and the dangers of vanity are common.
