Mathilde is one of those ‘pretty and charming young girls’ who yearns to be wealthy but having let herself be married to a ‘little clerk of the Ministry of Public Instruction’, she feels nothing but discontent and contempt for her husband. Her husband, Loisel, is a simple man with simple needs who can declare with a delighted air, ‘Ah, the good soup! I don’t know anything better than that’. He tries very hard to give the best to his wife. She cannot appreciate what she has and often thinks of what she doesn’t have. ‘She had no gowns, no jewels, nothing. And she loved nothing but that. She felt made for that.’

One evening, her husband comes home with an invitation to an important function hosted by the Minister of Public Instruction at the palace of the Ministry. It is a great honor to be invited as the ‘whole official world will be there’, and Loisel has taken great trouble to get it. Everyone wants to go; it is very select and they are not giving many invitations to clerks,’

Instead of being delighted, as her husband hopes, she throws the invitation on the table and weeps, complaining she has no suitable gown. In despair, he offers to give her four hundred francs for a new gown. He has set aside just that amount to buy a gun and treat himself to a little shooting the following summer on the plain of Nanterre. Instead of being grateful, Mathilde now laments she has no jewellery to go with it and scoffs at her husband’s idea of wearing natural flowers, ‘No, there’s nothing more humiliating than to look poor among other women who are rich.’

Finally, her husband persuades her to borrow some jewellery from former schoolmate Madame Forestier, a very rich lady. Mathilde chooses a superb diamond necklace and fastens it round her throat and is soon lost in ecstasy at her reflection in the mirror. It is the perfect jewellery for her pretty gown.

The night of the ball arrives and Mathilde Loisel is a great success. ‘She is prettier than any other woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling and failed with joy. ‘It is the happiest night in her life. She basks in the administration, and is ‘intoxicated by pleasure, and she feels very fulfilled in that sense of triumph which is so sweet to a woman’s heart. ‘She finally leaves the ball about four o’clock in the morning. Her husband has been sleeping since midnight in a little desert anteroom with three other gentlemen whose wives were enjoying the ball.