Boryna’s Night Watch against a Feared Arson Threat turns a report of Antek’s anger into a season of suspicion. No fire is set in this episode, and Boryna has no proof that his son intends one; what takes hold instead is the possibility of an attack, which reshapes his nights, his household’s defenses, and his already bitter refusal to share land. The watch is both practical protection and the outward sign of a fear that Boryna can neither verify nor put aside.

The Report and Its Uncertain Grounds

A fortnight or so after the priest visits Boryna, Jagustynka catches Antek by the pond and tells him that his father has spoken against him to the priest. She specifies the accusation: Boryna has said that Antek is stirring people against the manor and should be handed over to the gendarmes. Antek responds that, if his father tries, he will set the roof ablaze before anyone can reach him. Jagustynka carries this news straight back to Boryna. The report reaches him as an apparent threat of arson, but it comes through a woman whom Rocho immediately warns him not to trust.

Boryna does not dismiss the story outright. He recalls a similar case: Pryczek burned his brother-in-law’s house after a dispute over the division of land, and went to jail for it. The comparison makes Antek’s reported words seem possible without confirming that they are true. Rocho urges Boryna to make peace and give his son some land, arguing that Antek needs somewhere to live and might then stop quarrelling and threatening. Boryna refuses. He says he would rather be ruined and driven to begging than give up a single field. Though he claims he could have endured Antek’s earlier assault, the possibility of another attack brings the conflict over land and family injury together in his mind.

From Fear to Vigilance

Boryna’s anxiety is sharpened by what he thinks he has already seen in Antek. He has no evidence of an arson plan and has not previously entertained the idea; deep down, he is even sure of Jagna’s innocence. Yet he reads the frenzy in Antek’s eyes as evidence of something beyond anger over inheritance. The thought leaves him cold with horror, and he tells Rocho, “Lipce is too small for the both of us!” When he adds that God help Antek if he catches him at it, Rocho tries to calm him, but cannot persuade him to let the matter go.

From then on, Boryna’s evenings acquire the pattern of a watch. At dusk he moves discreetly around the corners of the house and its outbuildings, looks beneath the thatch, and circles the farmstead. During the night he wakes at small sounds, listens for long stretches, springs from bed at the slightest creak, and checks each corner with his dog. A trampled patch beneath the hayrick, its traces partly swept away, becomes one clue. Later, tracks by the stile seem to him to confirm that Antek has been coming at night to inspect how a fire might be started. The tracks do not establish who made them or why; the narration makes clear that Boryna’s certainty grows beyond what the signs themselves can prove.

The Guard Dog and the Cost of Suspicion

Boryna buys a powerful, savage dog from The Miller and makes a kennel for it beside the shed. He repeatedly provokes, starves, and goads the animal. At night it runs wild, barking and hurling itself at people; several villagers are bitten, and some bring charges. The measures meant to protect Boryna’s property therefore create a danger for the community and a public consequence of his private fear. The dog is not merely a warning presence at the farmstead: Boryna’s deliberate treatment of it turns his imagined threat into real injury for others.

The watch also wears Boryna down. He grows thin and haggard until his belt slips halfway down his hips; his face darkens, his back hunches, and he drags his feet. The account links this bodily change to hidden rumination and agitation. His eyes alone seem fever-bright. Because he lets no one near and has no one with whom to confide or complain, his inward alarm has no release. The neighbors can see the precautions and the deterioration, but no one guesses what is eating at him.

A Real Threatened Winter, an Unproved One

The episode places Boryna’s fear against dangers that are not imaginary. That winter, wolves have multiplied near Lipce; their howling can be heard, and they sometimes dig into byres and carry off livestock. As spring approaches, rumors of robbery also spread. A peasant at Dębica has reportedly lost mares, someone at Rudki a hog, and another household a cow, without a trace left behind. Other villagers respond by checking locks and guarding their stables, especially since Lipce has the area’s best horses. Boryna’s care for his livestock and a guard at the farm therefore fit the wider climate of insecurity.

But the narration distinguishes these shared, practical anxieties from Boryna’s concealed fixation on Antek. He searches for signs of a particular human threat, interpreting the trampled ground and tracks through the suspicion already planted by Jagustynka’s report. The contrast leaves the arson danger unresolved: Antek’s words have been reported, not independently confirmed; Boryna’s precautions are real, and so are their costs. The night watch thus makes the feud over land palpable as a daily condition of fear, while showing how a family conflict can turn ordinary sounds, tracks, and safeguards into evidence of an attack that has not occurred.