the other, consulting their memories, sick both of them with chagrin
and with anguish.

They found, in a shop at the Palais Royal, a string of diamonds which
seemed to them exactly like the one they looked for. It was worth forty
thousand francs. They could have it for thirty-six.

So they begged the jeweler not to sell it for three days yet. And they
made a bargain that he should buy it back for thirty-four thousand
francs in case they found the other one before the end of February.

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs which his father had left
him. He would borrow the rest.

He did borrow, asking a thousand francs of one, five hundred of
another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, took up
ruinous obligations, dealt with usurers, and all the race of lenders.
He compromised all the rest of his life, risked his signature without
even knowing if he could meet it; and, frightened by the pains yet to
come, by the black misery which was about to fall upon him, by the
prospect of all the physical privations and of all the moral tortures
which he was to suffer, he went to get the new necklace, putting down
upon the merchant's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Mme. Loisel took back the necklace, Mme. Forestier said to her,
with a chilly manner:

"You should have returned it sooner, I might have needed it."

She did not open the case, as her friend had so much feared. If she had