Pamphil's ax

Pamphil's ax is both a tool of care and the means of a family tragedy. In the hands of Pamphil Palykh, it helps him prepare shelter and make toys for his children; later, amid his worsening fear and hallucinations, he uses it to kill his wife and three children. Its changing purpose gives a single object a central place in the contrast between his devotion to his family and the violence that destroys them.

A Tool for Shelter

When the partisan families are expected to arrive, Pamphil is cutting birch saplings to make roof joints for his tent. He explains that he wants to prepare for his wife and children, because the tent is too low and rain comes through. The ax belongs here to the practical labor of welcoming them: Pamphil is trying to make a more habitable shelter before their arrival.

Making Toys for His Children

After his family reaches the camp, the ax serves a gentler purpose. Pamphil uses a sharpened corner of its blade to carve toy rabbits, cocks, and bears for his children. This skill surprises the doctor, and the toys give concrete form to Pamphil's devotion to his family. The same implement associated with rough camp work becomes an instrument of play and affection.

The Ax in the Family Tragedy

News that the families may be sent away from the camp unsettles Pamphil. Although the doctor doubts the plan will be carried out, Pamphil's spirits fall and his hallucinations return. Later, after witnessing a dying man's ordeal and seeing a threatening inscription, Pamphil's fear for what might happen to his family reaches a climax. Imagining that they will suffer if he dies, he kills his wife and three children with the razor-sharp ax he had used to carve toys for them.

Significance

The ax's sequence of uses binds the episode's domestic and destructive actions together without making them equivalent: preparing a roof and carving toys are acts of care, while the murders follow from Pamphil's deluded attempt to forestall imagined future suffering. The object that had helped him prepare for his family's arrival and express love for his children becomes the instrument of their deaths. Its recurrence makes the reversal legible through the material continuity of the ax, even as Pamphil's purpose changes catastrophically.