Tymów

Tymów is the nearby town where people from Lipce and the surrounding countryside converge to sell goods, buy provisions, seek news, and attend to public business. Its fairs turn the streets into crowded routes of exchange, while its courthouse and monumental monastery church give the town a civic and religious prominence that contrasts with the dispersed work of village life. In the novel, Tymów is not simply a destination: it is a recurring meeting ground where household need becomes visible in public.

Setting and Approach

On one visit, Maciej Boryna reaches Tymów after eight in the morning, when people in the fields have already stopped for their second breakfast. The streets he enters are lined with dilapidated houses beside gutters crowded with rubbish, chickens, pigs, and children. The description makes the town’s poverty and bustle part of the setting rather than a backdrop to a polished market. Almost as soon as he arrives, people gather around his cart and search the straw and space beneath the seat to see whether he has brought anything to sell.

Maciej Boryna drives into the marketplace, where wagons are already standing beneath old chestnut trees. He feeds his filly, puts away his whip, brushes straw from his clothes, and goes to Mordko’s to have a shave. That small errand places an ordinary concern for appearance amid the practical business of the trip; when he emerges, a nick on his chin is still covered with paper. The courthouse has not yet opened, so the visit’s commercial setting gives way to waiting for a hearing.

Courthouse and Monastery Square

The courthouse stands on the marketplace opposite a large former monastery church. A crowd waits outside, sitting on the worn steps or gathering beneath the windows; women squat against the whitewashed walls, their red aprons slipping from their heads as they talk. The scene makes the courthouse a public threshold, where private claims and disputes are watched by neighbors before they are heard by officials.

Maciej Boryna spots Ewka among the people waiting with witnesses, her child in her arms. Irritated, he spits and goes into another hallway that runs alongside the judge’s dwelling. On one side is the courthouse; on the other is the secretary’s residence. There, Jacek is setting a samovar on the threshold and fanning it with his boot until it smokes. The paired uses of the building—official business and domestic life—make the court feel embedded in the same crowded social world as the marketplace outside.

The Fair as a Regional Gathering

At another fair, the roads and paths into Tymów fill before dawn. People come from all around the countryside, some to buy, some to sell, and others simply to see the fair. They bring cows and calves, sows and piglets, sheep, geese, cockerels, and carts loaded with goods. Animals strain at ropes or appear from beneath hay and wicker coverings; the road is so congested that some people have to step into the field furrows to let traffic pass.

The crowd thickens as the town brightens after rain. People, carts, and merchandise pour through streets, squares, alleys, and courtyards toward the monastery church square, where churned mud reaches the ankles. The noise builds into a continuous uproar, broken by the lowing of cattle, a barrel organ, beggars’ laments, and the piercing whistles of basketmakers’ reed pipes. Tin stoves offer hot tea and food, while beggars—blind, lame, mute, and people without arms or legs—play hymns or sing as they ask for alms. The fair gathers trade, entertainment, hardship, and religious sound into one crowded scene.

Maciej Boryna eventually pushes through to the pig market behind the monastery, a sandy square beside the wall and beneath oaks still bearing yellow leaves. He finds Hanka and Józka near the edge and asks whether they have sold anything. Their presence is part of a wider household effort: they have come with a sow and a fattened hog, while Antek has taken ten sacks of wheat and a bushel of red clover seed. At home, Kuba and Witek remain with Jagustynka, who has been called in to prepare food and tend the cows. Witek longs to go to the fair, but Maciej Boryna leaves him behind. The journey therefore reveals both the fair’s attraction and the farm labor that must continue in its absence.

Tymów and Life in Lipce

The town’s pull is not limited to selling livestock. After the imprisonment of Lipce’s men, an official letter concerning their return is read aloud as a document addressed to the Christians of Lipce, in the commune of Tymów. The women cannot make out its words, but its official character gives them hope as it passes from hand to hand. Tymów thus names the administrative framework to which Lipce belongs, as well as the destination its people travel to for commerce.

A later fair day interrupts the village’s attempt to resume work. Although the men have returned and daily necessity is gradually drawing them back to labor, almost no one goes to the fields while people prepare for Tymów. The preharvest shortage is acute: households take out whatever remains to sell, and the need for money is sharpened by the Voyt’s demands for taxes and threats of fines. Women set out with hens, geese, eggs, butter, wool skirts, and pieces of linen. The earlier Mass is hurried, and Tereska, who hopes to speak with the priest about business, misses her chance when he leaves for Tymów. Soon the wagons have gone, and Lipce falls quiet, with the mill still and the forge shut.

Tymów’s significance comes from this repeated contrast. In Lipce, labor, food, and household survival are bound to the farm; in Tymów, those needs are carried into a public crowd of sellers, buyers, officials, churchgoers, and beggars. The fair offers exchange and contact, but the goods on display also reveal how far harvest remains and how urgently families need cash. The courthouse and the market are different parts of the same civic landscape: one receives disputes and official news, the other makes the village’s material pressures visible.