Suzanne

Suzanne is a young woman held as a slave at Roland’s château, where her past exposes the false promises behind her captivity and her death reveals the danger shared by the women imprisoned there. After three years under Roland’s control, she is drawn into a lethal test alongside Therese, with no meaningful power over the outcome.

Identity and Captivity

Suzanne is the youngest of four women Therese observes at the château, all between twenty-five and thirty. Though years of misery and forced labor have diminished them, the narration notes that they retain traces of their former beauty. Suzanne is singled out for her charming eyes and fine hair, details that stand in stark contrast to the suffering she has endured.

Roland seized Suzanne in Lyon, took advantage of her, and promised her family he would marry her. Instead, he brought her to his château and kept her there for three years as a slave. The promise of marriage thus marks the beginning of a betrayal: the assurance offered to her family conceals the captivity imposed on Suzanne.

Life at the Château

The women are forced to work at a wheel outside the château and are not allowed inside. They receive a two-hour break around noon, which they use to rest and eat in their cells, and then return to work until nightfall. Their isolation and labor form the daily conditions of Suzanne’s captivity.

Roland’s punishments are not confined to the workday. After a week in which Therese sees no sign of him, he visits the women at work and accuses Suzanne and Therese of applying themselves improperly. He punishes both, and later that night summons Therese to his cell. The episode shows how Roland uses the women’s forced labor as grounds for further abuse, without any possibility of appeal.

Connection with Therese

Suzanne gives Therese information about Roland’s plans to leave for Venice. He has sent substantial sums to Spain in the hope of converting them into credit usable in Italy, and he avoids circulating his counterfeit money in the country where he intends to settle. His hoped-for retirement depends on whether the fraud succeeds. Therese interprets this news as a possible opening for justice, but the expectation is soon undercut by events.

After six months in Roland’s household, Therese is summoned with Suzanne to an underground vault. Roland tells them that one of them will be left behind and makes them take turns in a test tied to his decision. Suzanne objects to his injustice, but her protest cannot alter the terms he has imposed. Their shared ordeal brings the château’s routine domination to its most extreme consequence.

Death and Significance

Roland gives Therese the first turn and has her stand on a stool with a cord around her neck. Therese uses a sickle to cut the cord when the stool is removed and falls without being injured. Roland then orders Suzanne to take her place, offering to spare her if she can manage as Therese did. Suzanne does not survive the ordeal. Roland sends Therese back to her cell, while the other women accept the news with little surprise, having expected that they too might meet the same fate.

Suzanne’s brief but consequential story links an individual betrayal to a system of captivity: a promise of marriage becomes years of enslavement, and forced labor ends in a lethal contest devised by the captor. Her death also changes the stakes for Therese and the surviving women, who recognize that they remain exposed to the same threatened fate.