Home ⇒ 📌Brief contents ⇒ Summary The nun of Denis Diderot

Summary The nun of Denis Diderot

Denis Diderot The
Nun
The story is written in the form of notes of the heroine addressed to the Marquise de Croamar, whom she asks for help and for this purpose tells him the story of her misfortunes.
The heroine’s name is Maria-Suzanne Simonen. Her father is a lawyer, he has a great fortune. She is not liked in the house, although she surpasses the sisters in beauty and spiritual qualities, and Suzanne suggests that she is not Simonen’s daughter. Parents suggest Suzanne to take monastic vows in the monastery of Sts. Mary on the pretext that they were ruined and would not be able to give her a dowry. Suzanne does not want; she was persuaded to spend two years as a novice, but after the expiration of the term she still refuses to become a nun. She is imprisoned in a cell; she decides to pretend that she has agreed, but in fact wants to publicly protest on the day of the tonsure; for this purpose she invites friends and girlfriends to the ceremony and, answering

the priest’s questions, refuses to make a vow. A month later she was taken home; she is locked up, her parents do not want to see her. Father Seraphim (the confessor of Suzanne and her mother), with the permission of the mother, informs Susanna that she is not Simonen’s daughter, Mr. Simonen guesses about it, so that the mother can not equate her to legal daughters, and parents want to minimize her part of the inheritance, and therefore she has no choice but to accept monasticism. The mother agrees to meet with the daughter and tells her that her existence reminds her of the abominable betrayal by the real father of Suzanne, and her hatred of this man extends to Suzanne. The mother wants her daughter to atone for her sin, so she stores for Susanna the contribution to the monastery. He says that after an escapade in the monastery of St. Maria Suzanne has nothing to think about her husband. The mother does not want her after her death, Susannah introduced discord into the house, but she can not officially deprive Susannah of the inheritance,
After this conversation, Susanna decides to become a nun.

Lonshansky Monastery agrees to take it. Suzanne is brought to the monastery when a certain Madame de Moni has just become abbess, a kind, intelligent woman who knows the human heart well; she and Suzanne immediately imbued with mutual sympathy. Meanwhile, Suzanne becomes a novice. She often falls into despair at the thought that she should soon become a nun, and then runs to the abbess. The abbess has a special gift of consolation; all the nuns come to her in difficult moments. She comforts Suzanne. But with the approach of the day of the tonsure, Suzanne often embraces such a longing that the abbess does not know what to do. The gift of comfort leaves her; she can not say anything to Suzanne. During the taking of the tonsure, Suzanne is in deep prostration, completely does not remember what happened that day. In the same year, Mr. Simonen, mother superior and mother of Suzanne, die. The abbess in her last moments returns the gift of consolation; she dies, anticipating eternal bliss. The mother before the death passes for Suzanne a letter and money; in the letter – a request to his daughter to atone for his mother’s sin by his good deeds. Instead of Madame de Monie, Sister Cristina becomes the abbess, a petty, limited woman. She is fond of new religious trends, makes nuns engage in ridiculous rites, revives the methods of repentance, debilitating flesh, which were abolished by the sister de Moni. Suzanne praises the previous superioress at every opportunity, does not obey the customs restored by her sister Christina, rejects all sectarianism, learns the charter by heart, not to do what is not included in it. With her speeches and actions, she carries away some of the nuns and acquires the reputation of a rebel. It can not be accused of anything; then her life is made unbearable: they forbid everyone to communicate with her, they constantly punish her, prevent her from sleeping, pray, steal things, and ruin the work done by Suzanne. Susannah is thinking about suicide, but sees that everyone wants it, and abandons this intention. She decides to terminate the vow. To begin with, she wants to write a detailed note and pass it on to someone from the lay people. Suzanne takes a lot of paper from the abbess on the pretext that she needs to write a confession, but she has suspicions that the paper went to other records. steal things, spoil the work done by Suzanne. Susannah is thinking about suicide, but sees that everyone wants it, and abandons this intention. She decides to terminate the vow. To begin with, she wants to write a detailed note and pass it on to someone from the lay people. Suzanne takes a lot of paper from the abbess on the pretext that she needs to write a confession, but she has suspicions that the paper went to other records. steal things, spoil the work done by Suzanne. Susannah is thinking about suicide, but sees that everyone wants it, and abandons this intention. She decides to terminate the vow. To begin with, she wants to write a detailed note and pass it on to someone from the lay people. Suzanne takes a lot of paper from the abbess on the pretext that she needs to write a confession, but she has suspicions that the paper went to other records.
Suzanne succeeds, during a prayer, to hand over papers to Sister Ursula, who treats Suzanne in a friendly manner; this nun all the time eliminated, as far as she could, the obstacles that Suzanne put up with other nuns. Suzanne is searched, everywhere they look for these papers; she is interrogated by the prioress and can not achieve anything. Susannah is thrown into the dungeon and released on the third day. She gets sick, but soon he recovers. Meanwhile, the time is approaching when people come to Longchamp to listen to church singing; Since Suzanne has a very good voice and musical abilities, she sings in the choir and teaches singing to other nuns. Among her students is Ursula. Suzanne asks her to forward the notes to some clever lawyer; Ursula does this. Suzanne has great success with the public. Some of the laity get acquainted with her; she meets with Mr. Manuri, who undertook to lead her case, converses with the people coming to her, trying to interest them in their fate and acquire patrons. When the community learns of Suzanne’s desire to terminate the vow, she is declared a cursed God; before it can not even touch. She is not fed, she herself asks for food, and all sorts of scum are given to her. Above her in every way scoffed (killed her dishes, took out of the cell furniture and other things, at night in her cell noisy, beat the glass, pour under her feet broken glass). The nuns consider that the devil has settled in Suzanne, and they report this to the senior vicar, Mr. Eber. He arrives, and Suzanne manages to defend herself from the charges. She is called in the position with the rest of the nuns. Meanwhile, the Suzanne case is lost in court. Suzanne is obliged within a few days to wear a hair shirt, scourge himself, fast every other day. She gets sick; Sister Ursula takes care of her. Suzanna’s life is in danger, but she is recovering. Meanwhile, Sister Ursula is seriously ill and dies.
Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Manuri, Suzanne was transferred to the Arpazhonsky Monastery of St. Eutropy. The abbess of this monastery is an extremely uneven, contradictory character. She never keeps herself at a proper distance: either too close, or too distant; then everything resolves, it becomes very harsh. She is incredibly affectionate with Suzanne. Suzanne is surprised by the behavior of a nun named Teresa; Suzanne comes to the conclusion that she is jealous of her superior. The abbess praises Suzanne, her appearance and spiritual qualities, Suzanna with gifts, frees her from services. Sister Teresa suffers, watches over them; Suzanne can not understand anything. With the advent of Suzanne, all the unevenness of the superior’s character was smoothed out; the community is experiencing a happy time. But Susanne sometimes seems strange behavior of the abbess: she often showered Suzanne with kisses, hugs her and at the same time gets very excited; Suzanne, in her innocence, does not understand what’s the matter. Once the abbess comes to Suzanne at night. She is shivering, she asks permission to go to Suzanne under the blanket, presses against her, but there comes a knock at the door. It turns out that this is Sister Teresa. The abbess is very angry, Suzanne asks to forgive her sister, and the abbess in the end forgives. There comes a time of confession. The confessor of the community is Father Lemoine. The Prioress asks Susanna not to tell him about what happened between her and Suzanne, but Father Lemoine himself asks Susannah and finds out everything. He forbids Suzanne to allow such caresses and demands to avoid the abbess, for in it – Satan himself. The abbess says that Lemoine’s father is not right, that there is nothing sinful in her love for Suzanne. But Suzanne, although very innocent, does not understand why the behavior of the abbess is sinful, nevertheless decides to establish restraint in their relationship. Meanwhile, at the request of the prioress, the confessor changes, but Susannah strictly follows the advice of Father Lemoine. The behavior of the abbess becomes quite strange: she walks the corridors at night, constantly observes Suzanne, follows her every step, terribly laments and says that she can not live without Suzanne. A merry day in the community comes to an end; everything obeys the strictest order. The abbess of melancholy turns to piety, and from him to delirium. Chaos reigns in the monastery. The Prioress is seriously afflicted, asks for her to pray, fasts three times a week, she beats herself. The nuns hated Suzanne. She shares her grief with a new spiritual father, Morel’s father; she tells him the story of her life, speaks of her aversion to monasticism. He opens it completely to her; it turns out that he also hates his position. They are often seen, their mutual sympathy is strengthened. Meanwhile, the abbess begins fever and delirium. She sees hell, flames around her, she talks about Suzanne with immense love, idolizing her. She dies in a few months; Soon, Sister Teresa also dies.
Suzanne is accused of bewitching the deceased abbess; her sorrows resume. The confessor convinces her to flee with him. On the way to Paris, he encroaches on her honor. In Paris, Suzanne lives for two weeks in some sort of stash. Finally she runs away from there, and she manages to enter into a service to the laundress. The work is hard, they feed badly, but the owners are not bad. The monk who had stolen her was already caught; he faces a life sentence. About her escape, too, is everywhere known. Mr. Manuri is no longer there, she has no one to consult, she lives in constant anxiety. She asks the Marquis de Croixar to help; says that she just needs a maid’s place somewhere in the wilderness, in obscurity, in decent people.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

Summary The nun of Denis Diderot

« “Moscow 2042” Voinovich in brief summary

Christianization of Europe »

Related posts: