The Broken Violin

Every afternoon, a street musician named Oliver sat on the same corner near Maple Avenue. His violin was old, scratched, and missing a string. Still, he held it with great care, as if it were the most precious thing in the world.

One sunny Saturday, a boy named Ethan walked by with his dad. Ethan came from a wealthy family. He had the best tutors, the best toys, and even his own brand-new violin—something he rarely played.

Ethan stopped when he saw Oliver holding that broken violin.

“You can’t make music with that,” Ethan said, surprised.

Oliver smiled. “Music isn’t only sound.”

Ethan frowned. “Then what is it?”

“Here,” Oliver said, patting the space beside him. “Sit.”

Ethan hesitated but sat down. Oliver lifted the bow to the broken violin. No sound came out, only silence.

But as he moved the bow gently, his eyes softened. His face told a story—of joy, pain, dreams, and memories. People walking by slowed down. Some even stopped. No one heard music, yet everyone felt something.

After a minute, Oliver lowered the bow.

“What did you feel?” he asked.

Ethan didn’t answer for a moment. He felt a warm and heavy sensation in his chest—something he couldn’t explain. Finally he whispered, “I felt… sad and happy, somehow.”

Oliver nodded. “That’s music. Sound helps. But the heart plays the real notes.”

Ethan looked at his own violin case and thought about how he had never really tried to play—not with his heart, anyway.

Before leaving, he reached into his violin case and took out a new set of strings.

“These are for you,” he said quietly.

Oliver accepted them with a grateful smile. “And remember,” he told the boy, “your violin isn’t special because it’s new. It becomes special when you pour yourself into every note.”

Ethan walked away holding his father’s hand—yet something had changed inside him. For the first time, he wanted to make music… not to impress anyone, but to feel something.

And on Maple Avenue, the next day, Oliver sat in his usual spot—his old violin now repaired. This time when he played, the sound floated into the air.

And Ethan listened from across the street, smiling.

Because now, he finally understood.

The Open Window – Saki (H.H. Munro, 1914)

“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece without unduly discounting the aunt. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.

“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, about four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady.

“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was married or widowed when the niece answered his unspoken question.

“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time.”

“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”

“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered.”

Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it gets quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out—her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window—”

She broke off with a shudder.

It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

“I hope Vera has been amusing you,” she said.

“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.

“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk to a less ghastly topic, and was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.

It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,” announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.

“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice that was sharply different in tone from the one she had been using earlier.

She was staring out through the open window with a look of dazed horror in her eyes.

“It’s them at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic understanding. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them had a white coat slung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.

Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out: “I say, Bertie, why do you bound?”

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat.

A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window. “Fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”

“A most extraordinary man — a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton. “He could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”

“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”

Romance at short notice was her speciality.

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI — O. Henry (Original 1905 Text)

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, the letters of “Dillingham” looked blurred, as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above, he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out next door to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with a brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly because of the old leather strap he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection and said, “If Jim doesn’t kill me before he takes a second look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

At seven o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della held the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read that terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror—any of the sentiments she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her with that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and ran to him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow out again. You won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction.

Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The Magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch—I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim sank down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em awhile. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The Magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were doubtless wise ones—possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.

But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest.

Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are the wisest. Everywhere they are the wisest. They are the Magi.

Memory Market - A Sci-Fi Short Story About Sacrifice, Memories & Humanity

In Neo-Delhi 2099, memories were no longer private — they were currency.

The Memory Exchange Tower, a hundred-floor glass giant, stood like a silent predator in the center of the city. Here, the rich bought beautiful memories to relive joy, and the poor sold their past piece by piece just to survive. Prices were displayed like stocks — childhood laughter, first love kiss, a parent’s warm embrace — everything had value.

A Father’s Desperation

Raghav wasn’t always poor. Once he was a happy man — until an incurable disease struck his 8-year-old daughter, Tara. The treatment was expensive, and time was running out.

He tried everything — jobs, loans, charities — nothing was enough.

There was only one option left: Sell his happiest memory.

That memory wasn’t just a moment. It was his wife — dancing barefoot in the rain, holding his face, laughing with love. She died years ago, and that memory was all he had left of her.

But to save his daughter, he walked into the Memory Exchange.

The Transaction

The machine was a silver helmet covered with glowing wires. The clerk, emotionless as a robot, didn’t even look up when he said:

 “Extract: Happiest Memory. Level A.”

Raghav hesitated only for a second — then nodded.

The world went white.

When he opened his eyes, he remembered everything about his wife — except that one memory. The image was gone. The warmth was gone. The love was dimmer now.

But the money was there.

Tara survived.

A Dangerous Realization

Weeks later, on the news:

 “A mysterious pattern has been discovered in purchased memories — suggesting a hidden conspiracy in the Memory Market.”

Whispers spread that memories weren’t just emotions — they contained codes, clues, and even government secrets buried inside neural layers.

One night, a stranger came to his door — a woman in a black coat.

 “Your memory… the one you sold… did you ever wonder why it was the highest bidder in weeks?”

Raghav felt a chill.

The woman continued:

“Inside it was something you weren’t supposed to know — something your wife saw, something they need to erase forever.”

Raghav’s heart pounded. But he couldn’t remember what it was.

The Fight for Truth

The woman offered a deal:

“Help us steal that memory back — it might save thousands of lives.”

Raghav agreed—not because he cared about conspiracies, but because he wanted that piece of his wife back.

They broke into the Memory Exchange Tower — alarms, drones, guards everywhere — and reached the Vault of Premium Memories. Thousands floated in glass pods like captured fireflies.

Then he saw it.

A glowing sphere labeled: A-Class: Rain Dance — Owner Raghav Verma

When he touched the pod, the memory surged back into his brain.

And with it — the truth.

His wife had witnessed something horrifying years ago — a secret plan to control the population by rewriting memories. That night in the rain, she wasn't laughing out of joy — she was crying in terror while pretending to smile so he wouldn’t worry.

She died because she knew too much.

They had come for her.

Now they were coming for him.

A Final Choice

Raghav held the memory pod — inside it was truth the world needed… and the last piece of love he had for his wife.

But the system was rigged — once the pod left the vault, it would self-destruct unless uploaded publicly.

If he uploaded it, the truth would save millions. But he would lose the memory forever.

He whispered through tears:

“I won’t let your death be for nothing.”

He pressed upload.

The pod shattered.

The memory vanished from him forever.

Aftermath

Riots broke out. The city demanded justice. The Memory Market collapsed — and people realized memories were not products but identity, humanity, and freedom.

Tara grew up safe. Raghav raised her with love… even if he could no longer remember the woman who taught him how to love.

Sometimes he stood in the rain without knowing why.

But somehow, he always smiled.

The First Hair Cut

 In 

a tiny village in traditional India lived a girl named Ananya.

There is one silent rule in society every girl to have long hair—

long hair was not just beauty, it was identity.

Mothers braided their daughters’ hair every morning.

Grandmothers proudly applied oil to strengthen it.

Teachers praised students whose hair reached their waist.

And everyone repeated the same sentence:

> “A good girl always keeps her hair long.”

But Ananya… was different.

She didn’t hate beauty — she simply dreamed of short hair. 

The heavy braid hurt her head. The daily oiling annoyed her.

She wanted to run fast, feel light, study freely, live freely.

Every time she looked at the mirror she whispered,

 “Why can’t I have short hair like boys?”

Whenever she asked, her mother would reply:

 “Girls must keep long hair. It shows respect, tradition, and discip”

So Ananya waited quietly.

Years passed, and while the other girls took pride in their long shiny braids,

Ananya secretly imagined herself with a short and fearless haircut. 

After her studies, Ananya received a job letter from Mumbai, a big city she had dreamed of.

Her father hesitated, her mother cried, relatives gossiped.

“Living alone in a city? It’s not right for a girl.”

But Ananya didn’t step back.

She packed her clothes, her certificates, and her courage.

The moment she reached Mumbai, she took a deep breath.

The noise, the lights, the independence — it was overwhelming, but perfect.

The very next day, she walked into a salon.

Her hands trembled.

The old rule echoed in her head: “Good girls keep long hair.”

The stylist asked gently,

 “Are you sure?”

Ananya smiled for the first time in years.

“I’ve never been more sure.”

And the scissors began their music — snip, snip, snip.

When the braid fell, her heart felt lighter than her head.

She looked in the mirror —

Not just a new hairstyle…

but a new woman.

Ananya visited her home months later.

Everyone stared at her short haircut, stunned.

But they also noticed something else —

her confidence, her happiness, her success.

Her mother looked into her eyes and finally understood.

 “Hair does not decide who our daughter is.

Her courage does.”

The Wise Old Woman and the Wooden Chest

 In a quiet village lived an old woman who valued her independence above all else. Surrounded by wealth but longing for love, she finally decided to reunite with her family. Yet danger awaited her on the forest road — thieves lurked in the shadows. With wit and wisdom born of age, she devised a clever plan to protect her treasures and herself. This is the tale of how intelligence and foresight can outshine even gold.

There was an old woman who lived in a village. She lived alone in a big house. She had a lot of gold and silver jewelry. She was very wealthy. She had many servants and maids who did all her work for her.

She had been living alone for a very long time. Her family lived in the very next village. Family members would come to visit her from time to time. They would tell her, "It's been too long now, living alone. Come, live with all of us. We keep worrying about you."

But the old woman wanted to stay in her own house and preferred living alone. The family members would give up and go back. After much thought and deliberation, the family said, "Alright, when you feel like you want to live with us, send us a message or just come yourself. We won't bother you now."

A lot of time passed like this. Now she had become very old. She walked bent over, leaning on a stick. She started missing her family. Now she wanted to live with her family.

She felt that she had caused her family a lot of worry and now she didn't want to trouble them anymore. So, the old woman wanted to go to her family herself.

When she started preparing to travel, she remembered that she had a lot of valuable jewelry and precious gems. She couldn't travel with so much expensive wealth. The path went through a forest where thieves and dacoits lay in wait, ambushing people. News of robberies came every day.

She was very worried: "Why did I keep all this valuable wealth with me? What should I do now?" After much thinking, the old woman devised a plan.

She asked the village carpenter to build a very big and strong wooden chest, so big that she could sit inside it. She called all her servants and told them, "I want to go to my family, and all of you will take me there."

The chest was prepared. The old woman fixed the day for departure and informed her servants.

The next day, the old woman put on all her jewels, sat inside the chest, and told the servants, "I can't walk, so you all carry me by lifting the chest." The servants did exactly that. And in this way, through her cleverness, the old woman reached her family safely.

 

“The Necklace” – Guy de Maupassant (1884)

 A classic story of pride and irony, The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant tells of Mathilde Loisel, a woman who loses a borrowed diamond necklace and spends years paying the price—only to learn a heartbreaking truth. A timeless tale about vanity, honesty, and the true cost of appearances.

She was one of those pretty and charming girls born, as though fate had blundered over her, into a family of artisans. She had no marriage portion, no expectations, no means of getting known, understood, loved, and wedded by a man of wealth and distinction; and she let herself be married off to a little clerk in the Ministry of Education. Her tastes were simple because she had never been able to afford any other, but she was as unhappy as though she had married beneath her; for women have no caste or class, their beauty, grace, and charm serving them for birth or family, their natural delicacy, their instinctive elegance, their nimbleness of wit, are their only mark of rank, and put the slum girl on a level with the highest lady in the land.

She suffered endlessly, feeling herself born for every delicacy and luxury. She suffered from the poorness of her house, from its mean walls, worn chairs, and ugly curtains. All these things, of which other women of her class would not even have been aware, tormented and insulted her. The sight of the little Breton girl who came to do the work in her little house aroused heart-broken regrets and hopeless dreams in her mind. She imagined silent antechambers, heavy with Oriental tapestries, lit by torches in lofty bronze sockets, with two tall footmen in knee-breeches sleeping in large arm-chairs, overcome by the heavy warmth of the stove. She imagined vast saloons hung with antique silks, exquisite pieces of furniture supporting priceless ornaments, and small, charming, perfumed rooms, created just for little parties of intimate friends, men who were famous and sought after, whose homage roused every other woman's envious longings.

 

When she sat down for dinner at the round table covered with a three-days-old cloth, opposite her husband, who took the cover off the soup-tureen, exclaiming delightedly: "Aha! Scotch broth! What could be better?" she imagined delicate meals, gleaming silver, tapestries peopling the walls with folk of a past age and strange birds in faery forests; she imagined delicate food served in marvellous dishes, murmured gallantries, listened to with an inscrutable smile as one trifled with the rosy flesh of trout or wings of asparagus chicken.

She had no clothes, no jewels, nothing. And these were the only things she loved; she felt that she was made for them. She had longed so eagerly to charm, to be desired, to be wildly attractive and sought after.

She had a rich friend, an old school friend whom she refused to visit, because she suffered so keenly when she returned home. She would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery.

One evening her husband came home with an exultant air, holding a large envelope in his hand. "Here's something for you," he said.

Swiftly she tore the paper and drew out a printed card on which were these words:

"The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau request the pleasure of the company of Monsieur and Madame Loisel at the Ministry on the evening of Monday, January the 18th."

Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table, murmuring: "What do you want me to do with this?"

"Why, darling, I thought you'd be pleased. You never go out, and this is a great occasion. I had tremendous trouble to get it. Every one wants one; it's very select, and very few go to the clerks. You'll see all the really big people there."

She looked at him out of furious eyes, and said impatiently: "And what do you suppose I am to wear at such an affair?"

He had not thought about it; he stammered:

"Why, the dress you go to the theatre in. It looks very nice, to me . . ."

He stopped, stupefied and utterly at a loss when he saw that his wife was beginning to cry. Two large tears ran slowly down from the corners of her eyes towards the corners of her mouth.

"What's the matter with you? What's the matter with you?" he faltered.

But with a violent effort she overcame her grief and replied in a calm voice, wiping her wet cheeks:

"Nothing. Only I haven't a dress and so I can't go to this party. Give your invitation to some friend of yours whose wife will be turned out better than I shall."

He was heart-broken.

"Look here, Mathilde," he persisted. "What would be the cost of a suitable dress, which you could use on other occasions as well, something very simple?"

She thought for several seconds, reckoning up prices and also wondering for how large a sum she could ask without bringing upon herself an immediate refusal and an exclamation of horror from the careful-minded clerk. At last she replied with some hesitation:

"I don't know exactly, but I think I could do it on four hundred francs." He grew slightly pale, for this was exactly the amount he had been saving for a gun, intending to get a little shooting next summer on the plain of Nanterre with some friends who went lark-shooting there on Sundays.

Nevertheless he said: "Very well. I'll give you four hundred francs. But try and get a really nice dress with the money." The day of the party drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy and anxious.

Her dress was ready, however. One evening her husband said to her:

"What's the matter with you? You've been very odd for the last three days."

"I'm utterly miserable at not having any jewels, not a single stone, to wear," she replied. "I shall look absolutely no one. I would almost rather not go to the party."

"Wear flowers," he said. "They're very smart at this time of the year. For ten francs yo could get two or three gorgeous roses."

She was not convinced.

"No . . . there's nothing so humiliating as looking poor in the middle of a lot of rich women."

"How stupid you are!" exclaimed her husband. "Go and see Madame Forestier and ask

her to lend you some jewels. You know her quite well enough for that."

She uttered a cry of delight. "That's true. I never thought of it."

Next day she went to see her friend and told her her trouble.

Madame Forestier went to her dressing-table, took up a large box, brought it to Madame Loisel, opened it, and said: "Choose, my dear."

First she saw some bracelets, then a pearl necklace, then a Venetian cross in gold and gems, of exquisite workmanship. She tried the effect of the jewels before the mirror, hesitating, unable to make up her mind to leave them, to give them up. She kept on asking:

"Haven't you anything else?"

"Yes. Look for yourself. I don't know what you would like best."

Suddenly she discovered, in a black satin case, a superb diamond necklace; her heart began to beat covetously. Her hands trembled as she lifted it. She fastened it round her neck, upon her high dress, and remained in ecstasy at sight of herself.

Then, with hesitation, she asked in anguish:

"Could you lend me this, just this alone?" "Yes, of course."

She flung herself on her friend's breast, embraced her frenziedly, and went away with her treasure. The day of the party arrived. Madame Loisel was a success. She was the prettiest woman present, elegant, graceful, smiling, and quite above herself with happiness. All the men stared at her, inquired her name, and asked to be introduced to her. All the Under-Secretaries of State were eager to waltz with her. The Minister noticed her.

She danced madly, ecstatically, drunk with pleasure, with no thought for anything, in the triumph of her beauty, in the pride of her success, in a cloud of happiness made up of this universal homage and admiration, of the desires she had aroused, of the completeness of a victory so dear to her feminine heart.

She left about four o'clock in the morning. Since midnight her husband had been dozing in a deserted little room, in company with three other men whose wives were having a good time. He threw over her shoulders the garments he had brought for them to go home in, modest everyday clothes, whose poverty clashed with the beauty of the ball- dress. She was conscious of this and was anxious to hurry away, so that she should not be noticed by the other women putting on their costly furs.

Loisel restrained her.

"Wait a little. You'll catch cold in the open. I'm going to fetch a cab."

But she did not listen to him and rapidly descended the staircase. When they were out in the street they could not find a cab; they began to look for one, shouting at the drivers whom they saw passing in the distance.

They walked down towards the Seine, desperate and shivering. At last they found on the quay one of those old nightprowling carriages which are only to be seen in Paris after dark, as though they were ashamed of their shabbiness in the daylight.

It brought them to their door in the Rue des Martyrs, and sadly they walked up to their own apartment. It was the end, for her. As for him, he was thinking that he must be at the office at ten.

She took off the garments in which she had wrapped her shoulders, so as to see herself in all her glory before the mirror. But suddenly she uttered a cry. The necklace was no longer round her neck!

"What's the matter with you?" asked her husband, already half undressed. She turned towards him in the utmost distress.

"I . . . I . . . I've no longer got Madame Forestier's necklace"

He started with astonishment. "What!         Impossible!"

They searched in the folds of her dress, in the folds of the coat, in the pockets, everywhere. They could not find it. "Are you sure that you still had it on when you came away from the ball?" he asked.

"Yes, I touched it in the hall at the Ministry."

"But if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it fall."

"Yes. Probably we should. Did you take the number of the cab?" "No. You didn't notice it, did you?"

"No."

They stared at one another, dumbfounded. At last Loisel put on his clothes again. "I'll go over all the ground we walked," he said, "and see if I can't find it."

 

And he went out. She remained in her evening clothes, lacking strength to get into bed, huddled on a chair, without volition or power of thought.

 

Her husband returned about seven. He had found nothing.

He went to the police station, to the newspapers, to offer a reward, to the cab companies, everywhere that a ray of hope impelled him.

 

She waited all day long, in the same state of bewilderment at this fearful catastrophe. Loisel came home at night, his face lined and pale; he had discovered nothing.

 

"You must write to your friend," he said, "and tell her that you've broken the clasp of her

necklace and are getting it mended. That will give us time to look about  us."

 

She wrote at his dictation.By the end of a week they had lost all hope. Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

 

"We must see about replacing the diamonds."

 

Next day they took the box which had held the necklace and went to the jewellers whose name was inside. He consulted his books.

 

"It was not I who sold this necklace, Madame; I must have merely supplied the clasp."

 

Then they went from jeweller to jeweller, searching for another necklace like the first, consulting their memories, both ill with remorse and anguish of mind.

 

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

 

They begged the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And they arranged matters on the understanding that it would be taken back for thirty-four thousand francs, if the first one were found before the end of February.

 

Loisel possessed eighteen thousand francs left to him by his father. He intended to borrow the rest.

 

He did borrow it, getting a thousand from one man, five hundred from another, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes of hand, entered into ruinous agreements, did business with usurers and the whole tribe of money- lenders. He mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it, and, appalled at the agonising face of the future, at the black misery about to fall upon him, at the prospect of every possible physical privation and moral torture, he went to get the new necklace and put down upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

 

When Madame Loisel took back the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her in a chilly voice: "You ought to have brought it back sooner; I might have needed it."

 

She did not, as her friend had feared, open the case. If she had noticed the substitution, what would she have thought? What would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?

 

Madame Loisel came to know the ghastly life of abject poverty. From the very first she played her part heroically. This fearful debt must be paid off. She would pay it. The servant was dismissed. They changed their flat; they took a garret under the roof.

 

She came to know the heavy work of the house, the hateful duties of the kitchen. She washed the plates, wearing out her pink nails on the coarse pottery and the bottoms of pans. She washed the dirty linen, the shirts and dish- cloths, and hung them out to dry on a string; every morning she took the dustbin down into the street and carried up the water, stopping on each landing to get her breath. And, clad like a poor woman, she went to the fruiterer, to the grocer, to the butcher, a basket on her arm, haggling, insulted, fighting for every wretched halfpenny of her money.

 

Every month notes had to be paid off, others renewed, time gained.Her husband worked in the evenings at putting straight a merchant's accounts, and often at night he did copying at twopence-halfpenny a page.

 

And this life lasted ten years. At the end of ten years everything was paid off, everything, the usurer's charges and the accumulation of superimposed interest.

Madame Loisel looked old now. She had become like all the other strong, hard, coarse women of poor households. Her hair was badly done, her skirts were awry, her hands were red. She spoke in a shrill voice, and the water slopped all over the floor when she scrubbed it. But sometimes, when her husband was at the office, she sat down by the window and thought of that evening long ago, of the ball at which she had been so beautiful and so much admired.

What would have happened if she had never lost those jewels. Who knows? Who knows? How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!

One Sunday, as she had gone for a walk along the Champs-Elysees to freshen herself after the labours of the week, she caught sight suddenly of a woman who was taking a child out for a walk. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still attractive.

Madame Loisel was conscious of some emotion. Should she speak to her? Yes, certainly. And now that she had paid, she would tell her all. Why not?

She went up to her. "Good morning, Jeanne."

The other did not recognise her, and was surprised at being thus familiarly addressed by a poor woman. "But . . .

Madame . . ." she stammered. "I don't know . . . you must be making a mistake." "No . . . I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry. "Oh! . . . my poor Mathilde, how you have changed! . . ."

"Yes, I've had some hard times since I saw you last; and many sorrows . . . and all on your account." "On my account! . . . How was that?"

"You remember the diamond necklace you lent me for the ball at the Ministry?" "Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"How could you? Why, you brought it back."

"I brought you another one just like it. And for the last ten years we have been paying for it. You realise it wasn't easy for us; we had no money        Well, it's paid for at last, and I'm glad indeed."

Madame Forestier had halted. "You say you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes. You hadn't noticed it? They were very much alike." And she smiled in proud and innocent happiness.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, took her two hands. "Oh, my poor Mathilde! But mine was imitation. It was worth at the very most five hundred francs!  "