Hanka retrieves and hides Boryna’s cash

Hanka the Farmstead Keeper secretly retrieves the cash Maciej Boryna had hidden in grain, taking advantage of the household’s departure for the Easter Resurrection service. The scene turns a family secret into a bodily burden: the cold grain remains in her hands, and the bundle stays pressed against her beneath her clothes as she joins the congregation.

An opportunity in the household’s departure

Lipce had been preparing for Easter since daybreak, and the household was setting out for the Resurrection service. Hanka sent Józka ahead with the children and the farmhand, but lingered at home, repeatedly going to the porch to scan the road. Her waiting is precise: she does not enter the storeroom until Jagna has left for church with the blacksmith’s wife and the blacksmith has passed by with the Voyt.

Before going in, Hanka quietly directs a remark to old Bylica, who is keeping watch in the yard. She spends about half an hour in her father-in-law’s storeroom. When she emerges, she carefully fastens her bodice; her eyes shine and her hands tremble. The delay, the watchful pauses, and the cautious adjustment of her clothing mark the retrieval as secret rather than openly claimed.

Cash concealed in grain

Inside the storeroom, Hanka takes cash from the loose grain in which Maciej Boryna had hidden it. The account emphasizes the immediate physical traces of the act: at church, she can still feel the cold kernels in her hands, and repeatedly shrugs her shoulders to reassure herself that the bundle is secure against her breasts. The money is no longer simply hidden property; it has become something she must carry on her person and protect from discovery.

Hanka leaves the storeroom trembling with joy and fear, mutters something incoherent, and goes to the service. The scene does not specify how much she takes or what she intends to do with it. Its decisive change is that she has secretly removed the concealed cash and carried it away from the farm.

The secret carried into the church

The congregation gathers in prayer, but Hanka cannot turn her mind to it. She shakes with fear as though she were still in the storeroom, repeatedly feeling for the bundle beneath her clothes. Her rosary slips from her fingers; she forgets the prayers and looks feverishly over the people without seeing them. Józka, Jagna, and Hanka’s mother are nearby, but her attention remains fixed on the secret she carries.

The service gives the theft a sharp public contrast. Around Hanka, the congregation is absorbed in prayer, while she stands among them physically present but inwardly caught in the storeroom. The movement from hidden grain to the crowded church makes her concealment both material and psychological: she has removed the cash, but cannot set aside her fear that it might be discovered.