Answer and Explanation:
Let's use the final line in Guy de Maupassant's story and continue from there:
<em> "Oh, my poor Mathilde! Mine was an imitation! It was worth five hundred francs at most! ..."</em>
Madame Loisel did not pull her hands back. She allowed them to stay enveloped by friend's warm, young hands. She stared blankly, first at Madame Forestier's face, then at the distance. She could hear people talking, even some laughter, children screaming happily, but it all felt dreamlike. Her shock was too great for Madame Loisel to acknowledge reality at that moment.
Madame Forestier kept on talking. She asked questions, wanted to know what happened, how much Mathilde had paid for the real necklace. Madame Loisel was finally able to move. Withdrawing her hands, she left as if in a trance, her legs doing all the work of carrying her back home while her mind remained numb.
She could not tell her husband. How could she do this to him? Let him know that they had both suffered, for ten whole years, to replace a fake necklace for a real one... Thirty-six thousand francs. Ten years! Madame Loisel did not even realize she was home already. It was only when she heard her husband's voice that she pulled herself out of that ocean of misery. She served him dinner; they ate; they slept. Life went on as if she had never run into Madame Forestier.
