Once there was a pretty girl called Mathilda, married to a young clerk in government service. As his salary was quite low, he was unable to provide his wife with any of the fine clothes she would have liked, and this made Mathilda very unhappy.
One day, her husband came home from the office with an invitation from the Lord Mayor to a dinner dance at his residence. All the most important people in the town would be there. Mathilda was very excited, and urged her husband to buy her a beautiful new dress to wear for the occasion. He readily agreed and together they went to an expensive shop in the town, where he spent every penny he had on a fine gown.
However, Mathilda was still not satisfied and insisted on jewels to wear with the dress. As there was no more money available, her husband could not buy her any, but he suggested that she should ask her old school friend, Lady Semolina, to help them. Lady Semolina was a very rich, with lots of jewels and she readily agreed to lend Mathilda a beautiful diamond necklace.
Mathilda was a great success at the dinner dance. Everyone admired her very much and she enjoyed herself enormously, dancing the night away. Finally at four o’clock in the morning the young couple arrived home, extremely happy. Then as Mathilda prepared herself for bed, she noticed to her horror that the diamond necklace was gone. They searched everywhere frantically, even walking all the way back to the Lord Mayor’s residence, but they could not find it.
“Whatever shall we do?” wailed Mathilda. “I can’t tell Lady Semolina that I’ve lost her diamond necklace. You must buy another necklace to replace it.”
Next day, the poor young man went round all the shops, trying to find a necklace that was exactly like the lost one. Finally, in a very expensive shop, he found a perfect copy. The price was 1,000/Dollars, which he borrowed from his friends in order to buy the necklace. Mathilda took it to Lady Semolina with her heart in her mouth, hoping that her friend would not notice that it was a different necklace. She was immensely relieved when Lady Semolina took the necklace from her and put it straight back into its case without even glancing at it.
From that day, the lives of the young couple changed. They moved into a tiny flat, lived on the simplest food, and worked night and day to repay the 1,000dollars they had borrowed. As the young man’s salary was less than 20/dollars a month this was a most difficult task.
This situation lasted for almost ten years, by which time Mathilda had lost all her beauty. Her hands were rough from washing other people’s clothes, and her face had become wrinkled with constant worry. She looked at least ten years older than she really was. However, the debt was finally repaid.
After consulting her husband, Mathilda decided that the time had come to tell Lady Semolina the truth about the necklace. So, one morning she plucked up courage and called on her friend. Lady Semolina still looked young and beautiful and she was very sad to see how Mathilda had aged so quickly.
“You have changed so much,” she said. “Have you been very ill?”
“No,” said Mathilda. “It is really your fault that I look like this. If I hadn’t lost your necklace this would never have happened. We had to spend 1,000/dollars to buy an exact copy of the necklace so that you would never know.”
“Oh, my dear friend,” replied Lady Semolina, horrified, “my necklace was made of fake diamonds. It was worth less than 20/dollars.”
More abstracts about the The Necklace