Hanka refuses the blacksmith’s plan to hide Boryna’s property

Hanka refuses Antek's Brother-in-law's plan to hide Boryna's property before the inventory, choosing an open accounting over a scheme that would protect her household through concealment. The exchange exposes the blacksmith's self-interest beneath his language of friendship and leaves Hanka's refusal as a direct challenge to his attempt to manage the family's assets for his own benefit.

The proposal

Antek's Brother-in-law first gets Hanka outside by saying that he wants to advise her. He proposes acting before the property listings: two cows should be brought to his place, the sow entrusted to a cousin, and other possessions hidden with people he will identify. The wheat, he suggests, can be declared already sold to Jankiel, who would confirm the story in return for a bushel. The Miller could take the colt to graze, while tools and wares could be concealed in a potato pit or in the rye.

He presents this arrangement as sensible, common practice and sincere friendship. Hanka has worked hard, he argues, and deserves to keep more; in return, she could give him a small share. He also promises to help her remain on the land and claims that even The Squire is glad to listen to his advice. The proposal thus combines practical instructions for hiding assets with a personal bid for a reward and a claim to influence over Hanka's future.

Hanka's refusal

Hanka answers that she will not give up what is hers, but is not greedy for what belongs to someone else. Her reply rejects the underlying bargain as well as its evasive method: she will neither surrender her own claim nor take property through a false inventory. Her contemptuous look makes the refusal pointed rather than hesitant.

Antek's Brother-in-law responds by accusing her of having already fleeced Boryna. Hanka does not retreat or accept his charge as a reason to cooperate. Instead, she tells him to mention it to Antek, who can question him about the advice he has just offered. She turns the accusation back on its source and makes clear that the proposal may be exposed within the family.

The confrontation's aftermath

The blacksmith suppresses his curses, spits, and walks away. As he leaves, he calls through the open window to Magda to keep watch over everything so that burglars do not take more. His warning recasts the household as a place vulnerable to theft, even as he has just urged Hanka to conceal its property and offered himself a share.

The scene therefore ends not in agreement but in a visible rupture: Hanka refuses the scheme, and the blacksmith departs angry. Her response establishes a boundary between protecting what the household owns and appropriating what belongs to others, while her appeal to Antek shifts the dispute from private persuasion toward possible scrutiny by another member of the family.