When Madame Loisel loses her friend's very expensive-looking necklace, she and her husband find a look-alike for thirty-six thousand francs. They have only half that sum to their names, and so they must borrow the rest. Monsieur Loisel "mortgaged the whole remaining years of his existence, risked his signature without even knowing if he could honour it [...]." His wife gives the look-alike necklace back to her friend, and so begins the life of "abject poverty" for the Loisels. They dismiss their servant and move to a cheaper apartment; Madame Loisel "came to know the heavy work of the house": the cooking and the cleaning, the pot scraping, the laundry, taking out the garbage, bringing in the water. She now visits the local shops, haggling over "every wretched halfpenny" that she must spend now. Monsieur Loisel continues to work his regular job, and he takes on additional, low-paying work at night, just to try to get his debts paid off as quickly as possible. These routines last for ten years, though it seems as though Madame has aged quite a bit more than ten years during this time. The hardships she and her husband have faced have changed her appearance, her voice, her entire life.
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