The Necklace
Storyboard Text
- She was one of those pretty and charming girls born into a family of clerks. She had no dowry and so she let herself be married to a minor official at the Ministry of Education. She dressed plainly because she had never been able to afford anything better, but she was as unhappy as if she had once been wealthy. One evening her husband came home with an air of triumph, holding a large envelope in his hand.
- The husband hesitate telling his wife that he would buy a dress and told her to go to her friend Madame Forestier to lend her jewels
- And what do you expect me to wear if I go? Only I have no dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to a friend whose wife has better clothes than I do
- Invitation
- Look! But, my dear, I thought you would be pleased. You never go out, and it will be such a lovely occasion! I had awful trouble getting it. Every one wants to go; it is very exclusive, and they're not giving many invitations to clerks. The whole ministry will be there.
- Would you lend me just this?
- Why, yes, of course.
- Choose, my dear!
- The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was prettier than all the other women, elegant, gracious, smiling and full of joy. All them stared at her, asked her name, tried to be introduced. All the cabinet officials wanted to waltz with her. The minister noticed her.
- I have ... I have ... I no longer have Madame Forestier's necklace
- Yes. I touched it in the hall at the Ministry.
- We must consider how to replace the jewel.
- They left at about four o'clock in the morning, They walked down toward the Seine in despair, shivering with cold. At last, they found on the quay one of those old night cabs that one sees in Paris only after dark, as if they were ashamed to show their shabbiness during the day. In front of the mirror, she took off the clothes around her shoulders, taking a final look at herself in all her glory. But suddenly she uttered a cry. She no longer had the necklace round her neck!
- I'm going back, over the whole route we walked, see if I can find it.
- What is the matter?
- Are you sure you still had it on when you left the ball?
- Her husband worked every evening, doing accounts for a tradesman, and often, late into the night, he sat copying a manuscript at five sous a page. And this life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years, they had paid off everything, everything, usurer's rates, and with the accumulations of compound interest. Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become strong, hard and rough-like all women of impoverished households. With hair half combed, withskirts awry, and reddened hands, she talked loudly as she washed the floorwith great swishes of waterOne Sunday, as she was walking in the Champs Élysées to refresh herself after the week's work, suddenly she saw a woman walking with a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still charming.
- Good morning, Jeanne!
- The necklace i Lost it and I brought you back another exactly like it. And it has taken us teny earsto pay for it. It wasn't easy for us, we had very little. But at last it is over, and I am very glad.
- Yes, I have had some hard times since I last saw you, and many miseries ... and all because of you! ...
- No, I am Mathilde Loisel.
- But - madame - I don't know. You must have made a mistake.
- Oh! ... my poor Mathilde, how you've changed! ...
- Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five hundred francs at most!
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