One evening her husband came home with a proud air, holding a large envelope in his hand. "Here," he said, "here is something for you." She tore the paper quickly and drew out a printed card, which carried these words: "The Minister of Education and Madame Ramponneau beg Monsieur and Madame Loisel to come to the palace on Monday evening, the eighteenth of January." But she was not delighted, as her husband had hoped. She threw the invitation on the table with anger. "What do you want me to do with that?" she said. "But, my dear, I thought you would be glad. You never go out, and this is a fine chance." She looked at him with an irritated eye and said impatiently: "What do you want me to wear to such a ball?" He had not thought of that. He answered softly: "Why, your theatre dress seems very nice to me." He stopped, amazed, when he saw that his wife was crying. "What is the matter? What is the matter?" he asked. With a great effort she answered: "Nothing. Only I have no dress, and so I cannot go to this ball." Her husband was sad. He said: "Let us see. How much would a proper dress cost, something simple?" She thought for a few seconds, working out her sums and thinking of a sum which she could ask without an immediate refusal from the careful clerk. At last she answered, with hesitation: "I do not know exactly, but I think I could manage with four hundred francs." He turned a little pale, for he had saved just that sum to buy a gun for hunting the next summer. But he said: "All right. I will give you four hundred francs. But try to have a pretty dress." The day of the ball drew near, and Madame Loisel seemed sad, uneasy, anxious. Her dress was ready, however. Her husband said to her one evening: "What is wrong? You have been quite strange these last three days." She answered: "It troubles me that I have no jewels, not a single stone to put on. I shall look poor. I would almost rather not go." "You might wear some flowers," he said. "They are very fashionable this season. For ten francs you can have two or three lovely roses." She was not convinced. "No. There is nothing more humiliating than to look poor among rich women." Suddenly her husband cried out: "How stupid we are! Go to your friend Madame Forestier and ask her to lend you some jewels. You are close enough to her for that." She gave a cry of joy: "It is true! I had not thought of that." The next day she went to her friend and told her of her trouble.