Oumphal Is Expelled from the Monastery is a sudden removal within the convent’s system of confinement: after singling Omphale out during an inspection, the superior tells her she is being dismissed and takes her away before she can properly say goodbye. Thérèse understands the order as a threat rather than an ordinary departure, offers to help, and is left grieving when Omphale is taken from the house. The episode makes the monastery’s power visible in its command over the girls’ safety, relationships, and belongings.

The Order to Leave

Near the end of the month, the superior enters the girls’ chamber in an agitated state and examines them one by one. He pays particular attention to Omphale, then abruptly changes the inspection into a dismissal: he tells her that the company is tired of her and that she must be ready that afternoon. The bluntness of the announcement leaves no room for negotiation or explanation.

Omphale weeps and turns to Thérèse, asking whether she can still fail to understand what the threatening preliminaries mean for her. Thérèse does not offer reassurance without qualification. She says she has made up her mind and is waiting for an opportunity, and urges Omphale to seek a delay if the measures against her prove as cruel as they fear. Thérèse promises to try to rescue her from the monastery’s control.

A Departure Without Farewell

Omphale agrees that, if she is released, she will help Thérèse in turn. Their brief exchange establishes a mutual promise at the moment when their ability to act together is about to be cut off. The day passes without an immediate change, but at five the superior returns and demands to know whether Omphale is ready.

Omphale asks permission to embrace her friends. The superior refuses, saying there is no time for emotional farewells and that they are waiting. When she asks whether she should take her belongings, he answers that everything belongs to the house and that she no longer needs any of it. He then partially retracts the implication, explaining that her old clothes have become useless and that she will be given clothes fitted to her size; she is to leave wearing only what she has on. His words present the removal as an administrative transfer while making clear that Omphale has no control over its terms or over her possessions.

Thérèse asks whether she may accompany Omphale to the door. The superior answers with a look that makes her recoil, and she does not press the request. Omphale leaves, turning back toward the girls with an anxious, tearful look. Once she is gone, Thérèse throws herself onto the bed in despair. The scene’s emotional force lies in its compressed separation: a request for one last embrace is denied, and Thérèse’s intended rescue remains only a promise.

What the Departure Reveals

The removal is not narrated as a freely chosen exit. The superior controls its timing, denies Omphale a farewell, claims the girls’ belongings for the house, and gives her no account of where she is going. Omphale’s question about her possessions and the superior’s abrupt correction suggest that the practical arrangements are part of a larger, concealed procedure; the episode does not disclose her eventual destination or fate.

The next evening’s events sharpen the threat without resolving it. Thérèse observes that the Girls of the Watch are absent, that the monks whisper among themselves and drink heavily, and that the girls are sent away early rather than retained as usual. She recalls Clement’s warning and fears that Omphale’s departure may signal danger to the others, yet hope interrupts her deductions. In this way, the expulsion becomes both a specific loss and a warning: within the monastery, an unexplained order can remove a girl from her companions while leaving those still inside to guess what has happened.

Narrative and Thematic Significance

The episode is framed through Thérèse’s first-person testimony to the woman she addresses as Madame. Its details—the hour of the superior’s return, the request to embrace friends, the question about belongings, and the glance that silences Thérèse—come through a narrator who is both witness and would-be rescuer. Her limited knowledge is essential: she recognizes the danger but cannot establish what the order means or prevent Omphale’s departure.

The expulsion also contrasts the convent’s public religious identity with its internal coercion. The same institution that claims authority over the girls’ lives treats a person’s departure as a matter of command, suppresses ordinary expressions of attachment, and asserts ownership of personal effects. Thérèse’s promise to help Omphale offers a fragile counterforce of solidarity, but the superior’s power over movement prevails in this scene. The episode therefore extends the convent narrative’s pattern of isolation and uncertainty without pretending that Thérèse knows more than she does.