The short story “The False Gems” talks about a modest man, Monsieur

Lantin, and his wife, Madame Lantin, who has a particular interest in
jewellery. The jewellery that Madame Lantin brings home seem to be
nothing more than mere reproductions, but after her death, Monsieur
Lantin discovers that they are actually real and are worth thousands of
francs. This fact leads the reader to understand one of central themes of
the story: appearance versus reality. The first impression we have of the
wife is a virtuous woman, she had “the charm of angelic modesty”, an
“imperceptible smile which constantly hovered about the lips” which
seemed a reflection of “a pure and lovely soul”. This is her appearance
and how everybody saw her, including her husband who was totally in
love with her and sees her as a perfect woman. But her appearance and
the idea her husband had of her change just when he discovers that the
jewels were just apparently false. The situation now is reversed; she can
be associated with a gem, at the beginning she seems like a “real gem”,
she is pretty, young and gentle, but then she turns out to be a “fake
gem” because she has hidden some aspects of her that disprove her
perfect appearance. In fact we know that the jewels were a gift but we
can not know who gave them to her, but an appropriate theory could be
that she had a lover, who was rich enough to buy her such expensive
jewels, thus she was actually not that perfect virtuous woman described
at the beginning. Furthermore it is also possible that she has started a
relationship with a rich man in order to afford the jewellery she so
desired, in this case she would be by no means modest, as she is in the
description given at the beginning. The title of the story is also
important, it has a symbolic meaning, in fact it refers to Madame Lantin
who is herself “The false gems”. This story leads the reader to wonder
what is real and what is not real, since everything we believed to be true
turns out to be the exact opposite, and this is the exact purpose of the
story.