Antek

Antek, the elder son of Maciej Boryna and husband of Hanka, is caught between the claim of his family’s land and the wounds that have made him withdraw from family and village alike. His movement from poverty and isolation back toward the farm is not simply a homecoming: it is a decision to resume the inherited labor of successive generations. Yet his eventual choice to stand with the village when it resolves to expel Jagna shows that belonging can demand a painful surrender as well as offer a home.

Identity and Family

Antek is identified as Maciej Boryna’s elder son and Hanka’s husband. He belongs to a family shaped by two marriages: Antek, Magda, and Grzela are children of Maciej’s first wife, while Józka is his daughter by his second. The family’s history matters because Antek’s bond with the land is also a bond with generations before him, and because the household’s inheritance and authority are divided across these close relationships.

His own household includes Hanka and their son Pietruś. When Antek resolves to stay on the land, he imagines the work passing onward to Pietruś after him. The prospect gives his return a generational horizon: the farm is not merely a place to earn a living, but a burden and inheritance that one generation takes up for the next.

Labor, Poverty, and Withdrawal

During a severe snowfall, Antek works to clear the path around the cottage where Bylica lives. Snow has risen high as a man and hardened enough to be cut into blocks; Antek labors until he is sweating, throwing snowballs at the children as he works. His good spirits do not last uninterrupted. Memories of past torments make his hands falter, and he pauses to look over the land, his thoughts wandering like a lost sheep. The contrast between vigorous physical labor and inward distress recurs in his life: work gives him something concrete to do, but does not by itself settle what troubles him.

At another moment he tells Hanka that he is leaving to look for work and will not stay where he feels he is rotting. Her response makes plain that his departure would leave her alone, but he is not persuaded; he declares that he would rather wither than work for the local peasants. His words register both economic frustration and injured pride. The search for a livelihood is bound up with his refusal to accept a position he experiences as humiliating.

He does take work alongside Bartek from the Sawmill, heaving logs and splitting wood according to the tar marks. The labor is familiar enough for him to handle, though it quickly makes him breathless and sweaty. What strikes him most sharply is not the physical effort but the reversal in status: a Boryna is taking orders from Mateusz. He says nothing, spits on his palms, grips the axe angrily, and continues. The scene makes his need for wages visible without suggesting that need has erased his sense of rank or resentment.

Estrangement and Jagna

Even after beginning work, Antek avoids the places and people that might force him to confront his past. At daybreak he passes the illuminated church and pauses outside to hear the organ and voices, then hurries away by the longer route around the pond rather than pass his father’s house. On Sundays he stays home despite Hanka’s pleas to accompany her to church. He fears seeing Jagna and believes he could not endure the encounter.

The village’s attention deepens his isolation. Antek feels watched and scrutinized; glances from corners seem to probe his thoughts. He interprets this attention as a conspiracy against him, and it pains him. Instead of seeking contact, he responds with hatred and defiance, promising himself that the villagers will get nothing from him, and avoids them even more. His withdrawal therefore has two sources: the anticipated pain of meeting Jagna and the oppressive sense of being judged by the community.

At Christmas Mass, he does go to church, accompanying Hanka and Stach Płoszka’s family, but remains at the back rather than take his former place among the farmers. When he sees Maciej’s household moving down the church, with Jagna at its head, he slips beneath a spruce and watches her. He then pushes through the crowd until he is beside her and kneels close, leaning so far forward that his head touches her knees. Jagna initially does not see him; when she finally looks over during Mass, the encounter overwhelms her. For Antek, who had been avoiding the possibility of seeing her, the service becomes a wordless return to the attachment he has tried to evade.

Return to the Land

When Antek returns with Rocho, Hanka repeatedly asks whether he has come back with him and how he looks. Seeing Antek, she is startled by his altered appearance: he seems paler and more delicate, yet handsome and strong, almost like a gentleman. Her astonishment marks the distance his absence has opened between them, even as their reunion brings him back into the household.

The land itself gives the return its emotional force. Antek feels he is again among his own, on the fields of his father and grandfathers. He welcomes the prospect of beginning a new life there and accepting the heavy labor his forebears carried. His thought reaches forward to Pietruś, who will bear that work in turn. The return is thus neither an escape from hardship nor a claim that the past has been repaired: it is an acceptance of continuity, labor, and inherited obligation.

Rocho and the Village

Antek’s response to danger also shows his capacity to act for others. When Grzela rushes to warn him that Rocho may be in trouble, Antek is on the porch hammering a sickle on an anvil. He quickly understands the warning and takes charge of hiding Rocho in a furrow among the rye before the authorities arrive. While Michał the blacksmith urges the village to resist handing Rocho over, Antek gives practical instructions for getting him out of sight. Later, once the roads have emptied and villagers are eating supper, he brings Rocho to Józka’s side of the cottage without allowing the fire to be stoked. Rocho bids farewell to the women and children, blesses the house, and leaves with Antek hastening him onward. Antek’s help combines discretion, urgency, and an intimate awareness of the household that shelters the fugitive.

Collective Judgment and Character

Antek’s final public position is starkly different from his earlier efforts to avoid the village’s scrutiny. At the inn, Płoszka calls on him to speak about the proposal to banish Jagusia. Antek stands pale and anguished, but declares that he lives in the village and stands with it. He says that if the community wants to cast her out, it should do so, then leaves without looking at anyone. His words do not make him an enthusiastic advocate of the punishment: his silence beforehand, visible anguish, and abrupt departure preserve the cost of the choice. Nevertheless, he does not oppose the decision, and the villagers complete their deliberations after he has gone.

Across these episodes, Antek is shaped by tensions that do not resolve neatly: pride against poverty, desire against avoidance, private feeling against communal authority, and personal hardship against inherited duty. His return to the farm offers a renewed place in the family’s chain of labor, while his stance at the inn demonstrates the force of the village to which he has reattached himself. He can act decisively to protect Rocho and still accept the collective expulsion of Jagusia; his character lies partly in that unresolved division between individual bonds and the obligations of belonging.