Antek and Rocho’s alliance

Antek and Rocho’s alliance is revealed most clearly under pressure: when the gendarmes come looking for Rocho, Antek hides him, helps secure his papers, and arranges a route out of the village. Their cooperation turns a sudden search into a carefully managed escape, while their parting exchange connects their personal loyalty to Rocho’s stated pursuit of truth and justice for the people.

A warning and an immediate response

When Grzela hears that Rocho may be in danger, he runs through the gardens and wheat field to warn Antek at the Boryna household. Antek is on the porch, sharpening a sickle on an anvil; frightened by the news, he nevertheless responds at once. Learning that Rocho has just arrived, he calls for him rather than letting the warning pass unheard. The quick exchange establishes the practical character of their alliance: Antek is someone Rocho can reach in an emergency, and Antek treats the danger as requiring action, not deliberation at a distance.

The alarm becomes more urgent when the organist’s Michał reports that the gendarmes are already by the pond and are coming for Antek. Rocho recognizes that he is the target. Hanka cries out and begins to weep, while Michał offers to rally the village and resist handing Rocho over. Antek instead takes charge of the immediate concealment. He tells Rocho to move beyond the hayrick into the rye and hide in a furrow until called. The speed and specificity of the directions show trust made operational: Rocho is expected to follow Antek’s plan, and Antek assumes responsibility for getting him out of sight before the search reaches them.

Concealment and the limits of shelter

Rocho does not leave empty-handed. Before slipping away, he thrusts papers to Józka, who is lying in bed, and tells her to hide them beneath herself and say nothing. The episode thus gives Antek’s assistance a wider scope than hiding a person: the flight also requires protecting material Rocho considers important. The evidence does not identify the papers’ contents, but their hurried concealment makes secrecy part of the alliance’s immediate work. Rocho entrusts them to the household, while Antek directs his physical escape through the fields and orchard.

The gendarmes ride through the village, questioning people and searching at several cottages, including those of the Kłąbs, Grzela, and Mateusz. They accomplish nothing and leave after sunset. The village then fills with competing accounts of who saw most and feared least. Once Antek and Hanka are alone, Antek says there seems to be no way to keep Rocho in the house any longer. Hanka objects to the prospect of throwing him out, calling him holy and good. Their exchange marks a limit, not a repudiation, of Antek’s support: after the search, keeping Rocho under the same roof is no longer treated as viable, so protection has to change from hiding him to helping him leave.

Planning the departure

Antek waits until the roads empty and villagers are at supper before bringing Rocho to Józka’s side of the cottage. He does not allow the fire to be stoked. Rocho eats quickly, gathers his things, and says farewell to the women; Hanka falls at his feet, and Józka sobs. Antek’s role remains active even in this intimate parting. Rocho embraces and kisses them, blesses the children and the house, and crosses himself, but Antek hastens him onward. The household’s grief and the need for haste occupy the same scene: affection cannot cancel the danger that has forced Rocho to go.

The route is arranged in advance. Antek tells Rocho that horses will be waiting at Szymek’s at Podlesie and that Mateusz will take him. This concrete handoff extends the escape beyond Antek’s own immediate shelter, turning the alliance into coordinated assistance. At the hayrick, Rocho pauses and says that he has one more person to visit in the village before asking where they will meet. The pause shows that departure is not a clean break from the community; even while leaving under pursuit, Rocho has another personal obligation to fulfill. Antek’s help makes room for that farewell while continuing to move him toward safety.

Shared purpose and parting

Later, when Rocho’s legs begin to fail, he sits among those accompanying him, while Jagusia sits apart in the deep shadow of the birches beside a cross. Antek tells Rocho that the worst part is his leaving. Rocho answers that perhaps he will return someday. The exchange gives the alliance an emotional measure without making a promise of reunion: Antek names the loss, and Rocho leaves the possibility open while acknowledging uncertainty.

The reason for Rocho’s pursuit is voiced in his own reply to the others’ protests. Asked, in effect, why a man should be hunted like a rabid dog, Rocho says it is for wanting truth and justice for the people. He then observes that the world is hardest for a just man and urges Grzela not to worry because it may yet change for the better. Antek’s earlier decision to conceal and escort him now stands beside that declared purpose. The scene does not present their alliance as a formal pact or explain its full history; it shows its substance through warning, trust, guarded papers, a planned escape, and a painful farewell. Their bond joins practical mutual aid to Rocho’s public cause, even as the gendarmes’ search forces that cooperation into secrecy and separation.