Compare Mathilda's life before and after the fateful dinner?

Before the fateful night
of the fancy party,
Mathilde Loisel's life is actually pretty good, though she doesn't know it

and is not exactly grateful for what she has. She is "pretty and charming,"
and
married to a good man with a good job, but she is not satisfied. She
"suffer[s]
ceaselessly" because she feels that she was "born for all the
delicacies and all the
luxuries" that she cannot afford. Another woman, the
narrator tells us, would not even have
been conscious of the deficiencies
Mathilde sees in her home, her possessions, and so on. She
actually has a
"little Breton peasant who did her humble housework," though the sight
of the
girl also makes Mathilde feel badly because she cannot afford better. Her husband
is
happy with her, happy with their food and their lives, but "she loved
nothing" but
dresses and jewels which she could not buy.

After the fateful party,
Mathilde learns what hardship really is.
In order to pay for the lost necklace, the couple had
to dismiss their
servant and even change lodgings. Mathilde "came to know what heavy
housework
meant and the odious cares of the kitchen." She grows old quickly, and she
and
her husband work themselves to the bone, day and night. She has changed
so much in ten years
that not even her friend who had loaned her the necklace
recognizes her anymore. "She had
become the woman of impoverished households
strong and hard and rough." Mathilde learns
that her suffering was little
before, back before the party, and it is much greater now. We can
only
imagine her response when her friend informed her that the necklace had not even been
made
of real diamonds!