Terezie witnessed Rodin abusing students

Therese’s witnessing of Rodin abusing students exposes the violence concealed within his school’s disciplinary routines and reveals that Rosalie, too, has been harmed by her father. What begins as observation from a hiding place becomes a confrontation with the institution’s wider pattern: Rodin targets both boys and girls, suppresses religious instruction, and uses punishment to maintain control. The episode supplies Therese with grounds to reject his later advances and marks a shift from suspicion to knowledge.

Setting and Circumstances

The events take place at Rodin’s school. Therese has come to understand that Rosalie may be at risk, and Rosalie directs her to watch from a closet rather than remain with her during the lessons. The concealment is practical: if Rodin noticed Therese beside his daughter, he might become suspicious. From this restricted vantage, Therese sees what Rodin does to pupils and later what happens when the classroom is used for abuse outside lesson time.

Rodin’s role as teacher gives him control over the children and the setting. The punishments are presented as corrections, but the scene shows how he turns that authority into a means of violence. The classroom’s double function—as a place of instruction and a place where Rodin abuses those under his care—makes the school’s apparent order inseparable from the private abuse it conceals.

The Punishments Therese Witnesses

After releasing Julie from her bonds, Rodin sends her back to class and fetches a fifteen-year-old boy. He reprimands the pupil, alternates threats and gestures of apparent affection, and then abuses him. When the boy resists, Rodin takes up the whip and beats him. The shift from scolding to assault makes clear that discipline is not a separate pretext for the violence: Rodin uses his authority as a teacher to put the children within his reach.

The scene extends beyond a single pupil. Rodin successively whips nine students: five boys and four girls. The last is a fourteen-year-old boy who resists; Rodin beats him and then sends him back to class after warning him against repeating what Rodin characterizes as misconduct. Therese describes the episode as something she heard and saw. Her testimony frames the scene not as rumor but as direct witness to a repeated practice.

The count gives the episode a grim institutional scale. Rodin has not simply singled out one child: he cycles through pupils, and the nine cases form a sequence that makes the abuse appear routine. The repetition also matters to Therese’s understanding: the severity of Rodin’s conduct is not an isolated loss of control, but part of his recurring treatment of students.

Rosalie’s Disclosure

After the lesson, Therese asks Rosalie how anyone could take pleasure in inflicting such torment. Rosalie replies that Therese has not yet seen the full extent of her father’s conduct. She explains that when Rodin believes a pupil is particularly vulnerable, he abuses girls as well as boys. She describes his method as one intended to avoid pregnancy, while insisting that this does not make the girls safe from harm or free from his exploitation.

Rosalie gives the pattern specific proportions: she says that of fourteen girls Therese has seen, eight have already been subjected to Rodin’s abuse, and that he has abused nine boys. She also says the two women who serve in the household are subject to his treatment. These disclosures widen the meaning of the nine punishments Therese has just witnessed. The school is not merely a setting where Rodin sometimes mistreats pupils; Rosalie presents his abuse as an established practice extending across the children and household.

Rosalie then reveals that she herself became Rodin’s victim when she was barely eleven. Her disclosure changes the scene from a report about students into a revelation about the person who brought Therese to the closet. Rosalie’s childhood experience shows that Rodin’s abuse reaches into his own family and begins before a child is able to protect herself.

Religious Control and the Second Observation

Therese asks whether Rosalie could have turned to religion or confessed what had happened. Rosalie explains that Rodin forbade religious devotions and had given the children little religious instruction. She says that he ridiculed religious belief and worked to remove it from those he corrupted; where families compelled children to fulfill religious duties, their observance was so indifferent that Rodin had little reason to fear disclosure. The episode thus connects physical abuse with deliberate control over the children’s access to religious guidance and potential sources of support.

Rosalie invites Therese back into the closet to witness what happens after lessons. She explains that the same room where Rodin punishes students is used for his abuse of the women in the household. Rodin enters Rosalie’s room, brings her into the other room, and is joined by the two household women. Therese watches rather than risk being discovered beside Rosalie. The return to the closet makes witnessing a repeated act: first Therese sees the public-facing punishment of pupils, then she sees the private violence that the school’s routines conceal.

Consequences and Narrative Significance

After seeing enough to convince herself, Therese decides what answer to give Rodin’s offers. Two days later, he comes to her room and claims that he is checking whether her wounds have healed. The routine of examining her, which he has performed twice daily for a month without what Therese understood as an offense against her modesty, gives him an excuse to approach her. This time, he restrains her and makes clear that he intends to exploit her. Her observation of his conduct toward Julie, the other pupils, Rosalie, and the household women has prepared her to recognize the danger in his conduct toward her.

The episode therefore links the school’s repeated abuse to Therese’s immediate peril. Rodin’s authority, the children’s isolation from religious instruction, and the concealment afforded by an ordinary classroom combine to make his conduct difficult to challenge. Yet the act of watching also gives Therese knowledge that cannot be dismissed as an isolated accusation: she has seen the punishments herself and heard Rosalie explain the broader pattern. The scene turns the school from a place Therese is merely visiting into a system she understands as dangerous.