Hanka expels Jagna from the Boryna household after a bitter confrontation over Jagna’s relationship with Antek. The expulsion is at once a domestic rupture and a material one: Hanka orders Jagna out, Jagna casts aside the settlement document for six morgen of land, and the household divides possessions before Jagna and Dominikowa leave by cart. Yet the scene does not conclude in triumph. Hanka resumes her work, but the threat and the uncertainty about Antek’s response follow her into the afternoon.

The confrontation

The expulsion follows a quarrel in which Hanka demands that Jagna answer for her involvement with Antek. Hanka’s distress is not merely anger: as she confronts Jagna, memories of Antek’s betrayals overwhelm her, and she can barely get out her accusation. She says Jagna pursued her husband and invokes God’s punishment. Her words break off in sobs, making the accusation an outpouring of injury as much as a charge.

Jagna answers by rejecting Hanka’s account of who pursued whom. She insists that she tried to drive Antek away, that he was the one who sought her out, and that he loved her while growing sick of his wife. She goes further, claiming he might leave Hanka and run away with her if she wished it. The words strike Hanka with devastating force: she collapses onto a bench, loses strength and consciousness, and sits trembling, unable to cry even as sobs continue to tear at her.

Jagna’s anger changes the balance of the encounter. She is described as fearless and beautiful, but also as dangerous, like a cloud hurling thunderbolts; even Dominikowa listens in astonishment and fear. Hanka, by contrast, is left to absorb the humiliation alone. Once she has recovered enough to think, she reasons that she cannot equal Jagna in beauty but is Antek’s wife and the mother of his children. She tells herself that he may return and that he cannot marry Jagna. This private effort to steady herself precedes, rather than prevents, her decision to remove Jagna from the home.

Hanka orders Jagna out

As noon approaches, people return from the fields and cattle are driven along the dusty poplar road. In this ordinary bustle, Hanka reaches a resolve. After leaning against the wall and thinking for another Hail Mary or so, she crosses the hallway to Jagna’s room and calmly orders her to leave the house at once. When Jagna does not immediately go, Hanka repeats the command in a hoarse voice and threatens to have the farmhand throw her out.

Dominikowa tries to intervene, but Jagna shrugs her off and dismisses Hanka as a drudge. The argument then turns to the settlement. Jagna takes a paper from the bottom of the chest and throws it at Hanka, telling her, “If it’s the settlement you want, the morgen, then take it and gorge yourself on it!” She wishes Hanka would choke on it. Jagna’s gesture makes the land arrangement part of the expulsion: rather than bargain over the promised fields, she contemptuously casts away the document that represents them.

Hanka picks up the paper, astonished that Jagna would reject six morgen of fields so abruptly. The account presents this as a startling choice, not as proof that the settlement has been legally cancelled: Hanka puts the paper away in the chest and locks it. Jagna, meanwhile, begins tying up her belongings and carrying them into the yard, ignoring her mother’s protests. The document remains with Hanka, while Jagna’s departure proceeds around the practical work of gathering what she will take.

Possessions and departure

The division of belongings exposes a second dispute. As Jagna takes pictures down, Józka of the Boryna Household demands the beads, saying they belonged to her after her mother. Jagna begins to unwind them from her neck, then stops and insists that Maciej Boryna gave them to her and that they are hers. Józka flies into a rage, and Hanka has to shout her down. Jagna appears deaf to further provocation; the scene records her claim to the beads, but does not describe a separate settlement of the dispute.

After taking her things outside, Jagna goes to fetch Jędrzych. Dominikowa, who had tried to intervene, now offers no further protest or response to Hanka and Józka. Once the belongings have been loaded onto the cart, she raises a fist and curses Hanka, wishing that the worst would not pass her by. Hanka freezes at the threat, but answers in practical terms: Witek the Stork-Keeper will bring Jagna’s cow when he returns the cattle, and someone can come in the evening to gather the remaining animals. Even at the moment of rupture, the separation must be managed through the farm’s routine and the disposition of livestock.

Jagna and Dominikowa leave in silence. Their cart turns onto the road and passes around the pond at its edge, where both figures and vehicle are reflected in the water. The quiet departure contrasts with the violence of the words that preceded it. Hanka watches them for a long while, feeling vexed and gloomy, before the returning hired hands make demands on her attention.

Aftermath and significance

Hanka hides the settlement paper back in the chest, locks it, closes the door to Maciej Boryna’s side of the house, and begins preparing dinner. Her actions restore the household’s immediate order, but do not settle the emotional consequences. She is ill at ease and silent through the afternoon, and refuses to listen to Jagustynka’s approving remarks that Jagna should have been expelled long ago and that the parish priest had protected her from public condemnation.

Hanka leaves rather than hear more, then takes Józka of the Boryna Household to weed the flax. Quickweed has thickened across parts of the field, turning the strips yellow in the distance, and Hanka applies herself to the work. Still, Dominikowa’s curse frightens her, while the question of what Antek will say occupies her thoughts. The scene therefore ends with the expulsion accomplished but its consequences unresolved: Jagna is gone from the home, the land document is locked away, and Hanka’s authority over the farm has been exercised under the pressure of betrayal, insult, and uncertainty.