Mateusz Gołąb

Mateusz Gołąb is one of Lipce’s outspoken young men, defined by a temperament that turns private frustration into public challenge. Imprisoned alongside the villagers after their conflict with the authorities, he becomes a focus of visits and speculation; later, he voices the desperation of people crowded onto too little land and confronts the German settlers at Podlesie. His mixture of anger, loyalty, and desire makes him a vivid figure in the village’s conflicts, where the struggle over land repeatedly shapes both political choices and personal ties.

Identity and place in Lipce

The family record identifies Mateusz as the son of Gołębowa and the brother of Nastusia. His place in the village is also defined by his closeness to other young people and by the readiness with which he enters their disputes. The evidence does not give him a separate occupation or a sustained account of his earlier life; instead, it shows him through the pressures of the community around him—imprisonment, contested land, threatened settlement, and the prospect of leaving a village he finds increasingly constricted.

That constriction becomes explicit when a discussion of hardship drives Mateusz to his feet. He strikes the table and says that he has had enough: he could leave Lipce for town, where people live better. He immediately explains the source of his fury. Too many people are squeezed into too few houses, poverty is severe, and land lies nearby that villagers cannot acquire because they lack the money and cannot borrow it. His complaint is not simply that life is difficult; it is that need and access have been separated by a system that leaves usable land beyond the reach of the hungry.

Imprisonment and Tereska

After the arrests, Mateusz is imprisoned with the other men, while Antek Boryna is held separately. Hanka asks whether there is news of him, and Nastka Gołębianka reports what the Voyt has said: that Mateusz is improving. The exchange shows how uncertain information circulates between the prison and Lipce. Even the priest has little to say about Antek, and reports from the Voyt are treated with suspicion. Mateusz’s condition is therefore part of a wider anxiety about the detained men, but the distinction between his being with the others and Antek’s isolation makes their circumstances notably different.

Tereska, whose husband is away in the army, repeatedly seeks news of Mateusz. When Rocho visits the men, she presses him to say whether Mateusz is well, whether he is in good spirits, and when he might be released. She avoids Rocho’s eyes; when he turns the conversation toward her husband, she reddens and hurries away. The scene leaves the nature of her attachment unstated, but its unease is sharpened by village talk: people say she goes to Mateusz every week, waits around the prison for days, and brings him whatever she can. That same gossip notes that her husband is far away and Mateusz is close at hand. The contrast between her anxious acts of care and the community’s knowing, judgmental explanation makes their connection a matter of both personal concern and public scrutiny.

Jagustynka’s account supplies a concrete picture of the prisoners’ conditions. She has seen the men together in rooms she describes as high and light, with proper floors and ironwork at the windows to keep them from walking about. The meals are poor enough to invite her mockery, and the prisoners must pay for their own food; without money, they have little beyond prayer to sustain them. She has heard that some may be released on the second Sunday. Her report places Mateusz among a group sharing the same confinement, but also shows how release dates and daily conditions reach the village as uncertain, relayed news.

Land anger and confrontation at Podlesie

Mateusz’s private complaint about land becomes a public stance when Lipce villagers confront the German settlers at Podlesie. As the crowd edges forward, he brushes Rocho aside and steps in front of the settlers, fists extended. He accuses them of answering the villagers’ peaceful approach with threats of prison and mockery, then declares that if they reject peace, the villagers will answer with war. He names the imbalance between them: the settlers have courts, officials, and money behind them, while the villagers have only their bare fists. His words turn an argument about settlement into a direct challenge over who can claim power and protection.

Mateusz’s threat is vivid and menacing. He warns that fire may consume brick as readily as straw, that cattle may fall in the pasture, and that misfortune can reach anyone; he insists that conflict could come by night or day and in every place. The villagers take up his cry, answering with a collective declaration of war. The German settlers reach for poles, rifles, and stones, while the women raise an alarm. Mateusz’s intervention thus does more than express resentment: it helps move the confrontation toward physical danger. His speech draws force from the villagers’ real lack of money and institutional backing, but its threats also risk turning their grievance into violence.

Desire, marriage, and contested property

Mateusz’s attention to Jagusia appears in smaller, revealing gestures. After the men leave for mowing, he is the last to go; he takes time to light a cigarette beside her house and keeps looking back greedily, like a cat driven from milk. The comparison makes his interest unmistakable, though the scene does not establish a relationship between them. Later, when marriage is raised as a practical possibility, he grimaces at the suggestion of arranging a match after harvest and brings Jasiek into the discussion instead. His response redirects talk of his own future toward another man and toward matters tied to Jagusia.

In that conversation, Mateusz discloses that Dominikowa is considering taking legal action over the land Maciej transferred to Jagusia. He acknowledges that the transfer was signed, but says he will not hand over the land itself and will pay its value. He then asks whether Jagusia has given her settlement to Hanka. When told that the document has not been notarized, he appears somewhat cheered and repeatedly returns to praising Jagusia. The exchange links his attraction to the practical and legal uncertainty surrounding her property, without resolving what he hopes to gain from either. For Mateusz, as for other villagers, land is not an abstract issue: it affects marriage, claims within families, and the possibility of building a secure life.

Loyalty, anger, and leaving

Mateusz’s forcefulness also appears as loyalty to people threatened by authority. When villagers fear that Rocho may be the person the authorities intend to seize, Mateusz refuses the idea of handing him over and presses the group to consider warning him. Later, as Rocho leaves Lipce, Antek Boryna says that the worst part is losing him from the village. Mateusz curses the pursuit of Rocho as if he were a rabid dog. His anger here is directed not at a rival or an inaccessible piece of land, but at the hunt for a man the villagers regard as their own.

Mateusz also takes immediate action when he hears news concerning Jasiek. He rushes to Podlesie to warn him, finds him at Szymek’s with Nastusia, and tells him the story Antek has relayed. Mateusz reacts with a curse, then returns to the village with Antek, frowning and sighing. The scene places him in a chain of communication and mutual aid: he carries a warning, reacts emotionally to what he learns, and goes back with the person who brought him the news.

Across these episodes, Mateusz remains unsettled rather than resolved. He threatens to leave Lipce because its poverty and land shortage seem intolerable, yet he repeatedly acts within the village—confronting settlers, defending Rocho, and carrying warnings to others. His volatile speech can sharpen collective resistance into danger, but the same impatience also exposes the material limits that make ordinary solutions feel impossible. The character’s significance lies in that tension: he is both a product of the village’s cramped conditions and one of the voices pushing against them.