"Lasiseinä : Romaani" by Signe Stenbäck-Lönnberg is a novel written in the early 20th century. Set in an Alpine spa town and convent hospital, it follows the Finnish sculptor and mother Ritva Orjatmaa as illness, memory, and beauty pull her back toward life while a charged connection with the young doctor Franz Haller unsettles the steadfast nun Sister Felicia. The story probes faith and doubt, desire and duty, art and motherhood, and
the invisible “glass wall” between renunciation and lived passion. The opening of the novel paints an Alpine valley in 1910: nuns process to mass, bells roll across the mountains, and Sister Felicia wrestles with an inner storm, recalling her childhood healing, her mother’s vow, and the distant figure of Franz from her home valley. Into the convent’s hospital arrives Ritva, a gifted Finnish artist, with a rational, distant husband, Eero; exhausted but defiant, she clings to her twin daughters in memory and balks at death. Her care is split between stern, self-contained Felicia and the warm novice Sister Anna, while Dr. Franz Haller’s visits kindle hope. Ritva’s backstory unfolds: seaside childhood and clay figures, Paris studies cut short, marriage to the much older Eero, an isolating domestic life, a tender dance with her mother broken by Eero’s severity, and the stillbirth of a son. As spring comes, Ritva’s fever lifts, her will to live returns, and conversations with Franz (about his ancestral Ramez, its shrines, and the art of the valley) deepen their bond; Felicia’s own crisis intensifies into silent jealousy. Ritva hides her husband’s letters, accepts Franz’s invitation, and rides through flowering slopes to the Ramez castle, where Franz’s father welcomes her—just as the first tour of the old halls begins. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
