Ewka

Ewka is Makar’s daughter, a young woman living with her father and brother, Anton the Quail, on a farmstead apart from the settlement. Her place in the household is defined by isolation: she rarely visits the village, and the villagers regard her with suspicion and contempt. The boy, staying at the farm, becomes someone she seeks out, but her family’s secrecy shapes the danger surrounding their home.

Identity and Household

Ewka is a year younger than Anton the Quail. She is described as tall, thin, and blond, with a hoarse voice and a goiter beginning to alter the appearance of her neck. Villagers ridicule her and attribute misfortune to her presence, including the loss of milk from their cows. These accusations mark her as an outsider even within the nearby community, though she lives close enough to its daily life to be judged by it.

Ewka’s isolation is also practical. She does not visit the village, and when Makar and Anton the Quail leave to sell rabbits and rabbit skins, she remains alone at the farm. Anulka, who treats illnesses, visits occasionally. Ewka helps the boy when he is there, inviting him to assist with cooking and household chores. Yet she is not secure in her own home: she fears that Makar and Anton the Quail will force her to spend time with them in the goats’ stable, and sometimes stays indoors for days to avoid them. The farm thus functions both as her place of residence and as a space from which she has limited freedom to withdraw.

Her Relationship with the Boy

Ewka’s connection with the boy begins in the ordinary work of the farm: she likes having him nearby while she cooks, and he peels vegetables, brings firewood, and carries away ashes. It becomes a secret intimate relationship that Ewka initiates. The boy follows her wishes, and the encounters recur at night after Makar and Anton the Quail have gone to sleep, as well as during the day when the men are away. The narrative presents the intimacy through the boy’s limited perspective, emphasizing Ewka’s initiative and his compliance rather than treating the relationship as an equal one.

Their secrecy is shaped by the household’s routines. When Makar and Anton the Quail return, Ewka hurries back to the kitchen while the boy goes to feed the rabbits; on daytime occasions, she leads him away from the farm to a concealed place in the wheat. The boy describes feeling secure and happy with her. That sense of refuge contrasts with his precarious life elsewhere, but the relationship remains enclosed within a household where Ewka herself fears the men and where the boy depends on adults for shelter.

Discovery and Disillusionment

One night, after seeing Anton the Quail lead the family’s buck into Makar’s room, the boy climbs onto the rabbit hutch to watch what happens inside. He sees Makar prepare the animal and Ewka engage sexually with it. The scene exposes a hidden dimension of the household that the boy had not understood, and shatters the sense of safety he had found in his relationship with Ewka. The narrative renders the shock through his mental collapse: his thoughts seem to break apart, leaving him feeling emptied and disoriented.

The discovery also changes how the boy interprets a phrase he has often heard villagers use about people who prosper: they are in league with the Devil. The idiom becomes, in his mind, an explanation for the household’s concealed behavior and the fortunes associated with it. That conclusion belongs to the boy’s fearful, superstitious understanding rather than an independently verified account of supernatural influence; its force lies in how abruptly his intimate refuge becomes, to him, another place governed by secrecy and dread.

Narrative Significance

Ewka’s role is shaped by a sharp contrast between the agency she exercises in her secret relationship with the boy and the vulnerability suggested by her fear of her father and brother. Because the story reaches her largely through the boy’s perspective, her private motives remain difficult to separate from his impressions; the later discovery in Makar’s room does not explain her fully, but overturns the refuge he had associated with her. Her character thus marks the limits of the boy’s understanding: intimacy offers him a temporary sense of safety, yet cannot make the household’s hidden dangers legible in advance.