‘You can’t have! You gave it back to me!’

‘You’re right but what I gave back to you was a replica. Exactly the same. But it’s taken us ten years to pay for it. Not an easy thing to do, given our finances. However, thank goodness, it’s all paid for now and I can’t tell you how glad I am.’

Madame Forestier stopped in her tracks: ‘Are you telling me you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?’

‘Yes, of course. And you didn’t spot the difference, did you? It was a perfect match, wasn’t it?’

She was smiling with innocent pride.

Madame Forestier, clearly appalled, took her friend’s two hands in her own: ‘Oh my poor Mathilde!’ she said. ‘Mine wasn’t real! It was worth 500 francs at the most! …’

Notes

BOULE DE SUIF

First published in 1880 as ‘Boule de Suif’.

1. Boule de Suif: ‘Dumpling’, ‘Dimples’, ‘Butterball’, ‘Lardycake’, etc. Literally a ball of fat, suet or tallow.

2. routed army: Following the disastrous defeat of the French at the battle of Sedan in September 1870 when Napoleon III himself was captured, the Prussian army continued to make huge gains and moved inexorably westwards. Rouen was captured without a fight and used by the occupying forces as their winter quarters.

3. francs-tireurs: Literally ‘free-lance’, or in this case ‘free-shots’. Irregular troops. First formed in 1792 in the Vosges, detachments of these guerrilla fighters sprang up in many of the main cities of France in 1867. Marginal to the army proper, they were particularly feared by the enemy.

4. National Guard: The Garde Nationale was an ill-prepared body of local recruits mustered for the defence of their individual towns and cities.

5. Uhlans: A German name with Tartar roots signifying a lancer in the German, Russian or Austrian armies.

6. Such an attitude … honour and glory: Maupassant is writing ironically here. Rouen was the city of William the Conqueror and in earlier times a symbol of a free and independent France. Its once brave citizens, traditionally renowned for their stout defence of the town against depredations by the English over the centuries, have turned soft and compliant in the face of the present enemy forces. The suggestion is that commercialism has sapped the former proud spirit of the inhabitants and turned them into followers of expediency.

7. Croisset: One of the first places downstream of Rouen and famous for being the spot where Flaubert had his little writing pavilion, which exists to this day.

8. a fall of cotton-wool: Rouen in the mid-nineteenth century was one of the most prosperous cities of France and renowned for the manufacture, import and export of textile material, particularly cotton.

9. L’oiseau vole: A pun on the name of the wine merchant Loiseau (the bird). ‘L’oiseau vole’ can mean in French both ‘the bird flies’ and ‘the bird steals’. In suggesting this game, Monsieur Tournel is hinting broadly that Loiseau is a man who feathers his own nest.