The Story Archive

The Necklace

Guy de Maupassant · 1884 CE · Short Story · French · Victorian

A clerk's wife, convinced she was meant for a better life, borrows a diamond necklace from a rich school friend to wear to a ministry ball. She loses it on the way home and, rather than confess, she and her husband borrow against everything they have to buy a replacement. Ten years of ruin bought by one evening's vanity.

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