Antek Boryna–Hanka

Antek Boryna–Hanka is a marriage shaped by material dependence and emotional distance: Antek’s resentment toward his father’s control of the land repeatedly overwhelms his attention to Hanka, while Hanka’s work and loyalty sustain the household. Their relationship shifts from shared grievance and private estrangement to a hard-won practical solidarity, as Hanka takes responsibility for protecting the farm and insists that the family endure Antek’s imprisonment rather than flee.

A marriage formed under the pressure of land

Antek and Hanka’s early life together is bound to the land Antek works but does not control. He has sown a morgen in return for working for his father, and when he walks the fields with Hanka and their child, he reaches down to touch the emerging blades. The crop is growing thickly, yet Hanka observes that his father’s fields are better. Their comparison turns the landscape into a measure of their unequal prospects: they imagine what three cows, a horse, and produce to sell might make possible, while Antek complains that his father counts every husk and peel.

Their sense of injustice is shared, but not experienced in the same way. Hanka voices the daily grievances, including the goods Maciej Boryna has bought for Józka and the money he sends to Grzela in the army. She also resents that Maciej keeps his late wife’s clothes locked in a chest rather than letting the household see or use them. For Hanka, these details belong to a larger account of what the family is denied; for Antek, they feed a deeper, largely unspoken anger at his father’s refusal to yield authority or land. Their common hardship therefore gives them a language of complaint without ensuring intimacy.

Withdrawal, quarrels, and unequal emotional labor

When Hanka tries to discuss their grievances, Antek sits in stubborn silence and tells her to keep talking as if she were prattling. Her accumulated distress breaks into tears and reproaches: she feels he treats her like a servant and cares neither for her nor for the children. Antek answers by mocking her crying, then walks away without turning when she calls after him. The scene makes the imbalance between them plain. Hanka tries to draw him into speech; he uses silence, ridicule, and departure to end the exchange.

Their quiet moment in the meadow gives that distance a more inward dimension. Hanka nurses the crying child while Antek smokes and stares ahead, unable to tell her what weighs on him. His thoughts reduce women to dependents whose world consists of farm, children, and friends, even as he feels the pain of being unable to share his own distress. The narration places his private alienation beside Hanka’s actual labor and isolation: she is caring for their child and trying to make sense of a household in which he will not confide.

After Antek leaves, Hanka walks back alone, sobbing and carrying the child. She longs for conversation and company but believes Antek will not let her have a friend; she describes a life of housework and toil without a kind word, while other young women can go to the inn or to weddings. Her account also shows why she continues to defend his claim: she believes Maciej should already have transferred the land and that she would care for him generously if he were pensioned off. Affection, grievance, and the hope of security remain entangled. The marriage is not simply a clash between an uncaring husband and a loyal wife; it is also organized around the farm that Antek feels he is owed and Hanka hopes to keep for their family.

Hanka’s burden during Antek’s imprisonment

Later, with Antek imprisoned and his case still unresolved, Hanka carries the household’s work and worry. She does not begrudge the cost of a lawyer, but fears what the hearing may bring and imagines her husband wasting away in prison. At home, the farmhand grows more disobedient, encouraged by the blacksmith, while Hanka must keep the work going because she cannot risk losing the labor on which she depends. She threatens that Antek will deal with Pietrek when he returns, but she has to swallow her anger and postpone the confrontation. The strain, the narrative observes, is wearing down her health.

The effort to secure Antek’s release brings the marriage’s material obligations into sharp focus. Rocho warns Hanka that advice from Michał the blacksmith may conceal a personal advantage and counsels her not to sell land in haste. Hanka discloses savings she has kept: 402 roubles and five zlotys, money Maciej gave her after Easter. It is short of the required 500-rouble pledge, so they consider selling a sow, a barren cow, and wheat. The sum and the proposed sales make her devotion concrete: she is willing to draw on private savings and the household’s livestock to try to bring Antek home, while Rocho helps her find a way forward.

When the court’s letter arrives, Rocho first tells Hanka that she may visit Antek once a week. After the blacksmith has left, he reveals the further condition: the court will release Antek if she provides the 500-rouble bond. Hanka is so overwhelmed that she stands frozen, turns pale, and collapses before the holy pictures. Then she quickly gathers herself and urges Rocho to arrange the sale and set out for Antek. Her response moves from physical shock to decisive action. The possibility of reunion restores her energy, though the bond still has to be raised and his return is not immediate.

Waiting, fear, and a decision to stay

On the evening Hanka expects Antek to return, she prepares a generous supper at the Boryna household after the mowing is finished. She serves the gathering but keeps listening for sounds from the road and repeatedly runs to the fence to look. Antek does not appear. Later she tells the still-unresponsive Maciej that he has been released and that Rocho is waiting for him, then continues to hurry outside, imagining he may already be entering the village. She confides her hope even to the cattle at milking. The long wait leaves her exhausted; she finally puts out the lamps and goes to bed without seeing him.

When Antek is home, his distress does not disappear. He becomes stern and intolerant, and Hanka tries to discover what has changed. She initially suspects that he has resumed seeing Jagusia, but observation and what others report reassure her that the two are avoiding each other. Her care for Antek—keeping the cottage orderly, preparing good food, and maintaining the farm—does not earn tenderness. She faces instead his irritability and long silences, or his evenings drinking with companions at the inn. Their reunion therefore restores shared life without resolving the emotional breach.

After a disturbing incident involving the authorities, Antek finally tells Hanka what is troubling him: he believes they may have to sell up and flee, even to America. Hanka rejects the prospect in terms that reveal both desperation and resolve. She refuses to take the children into ruin and threatens to harm them and herself rather than be forced to leave. Once Antek clarifies that he is only speaking aloud, she turns from panic to reassurance. He will serve his time and return, she says; she will manage the farm and let no strip of land slip from her grasp. Antek eventually accepts that they must wait for the case and leave the outcome to God. Their decision is not a declaration that the marriage has become affectionate or easy. It is a renewed practical alliance, founded on Hanka’s determination to preserve the land and household while Antek faces the judgment still awaiting him.