Bartek

Bartek is a skilled worker at the sawmill, introduced as a tall, thin, stooping man with a pipe between his teeth, a grey fleece cap, a yellow sheepskin, clogs, and red-striped trousers. Leaning on a shining axe, he stands out amid timber and snow as someone whose work depends on judgment and experience, not merely strength. When a worker brings a hatchet to cut frozen wood, the advice is that it will barely bite; an axe should be whetted flat instead. Bartek is then told to pair with Boryna and get an oak cut quickly, before the next timber comes through the saw. His place in the work is clear: he is trusted with a difficult task, even as the mill’s schedule presses the men to hurry.

Work and Independence

Bartek’s work history does not suggest a man willing to submit indefinitely to another person’s pace. He tells Antek that he had worked with Mateusz at the manor’s new building, but left when Mateusz rushed him. The timing mattered too: spring had arrived, the sun smelled good, and Bartek chose to stop working and set out with people travelling on pilgrimage. He intended to go to Kalwaria for indulgences and to see something of the world, but never reached it. His story makes departure less an escape into a grand destination than a choice to follow opportunity and curiosity as they arise.

The journey brought him into another practical role. In a village where a farmer was putting up a cottage without knowing how to build it well, Bartek stayed after being asked to help. In less than two months, he had made the house fine as a manor. The episode shows the same competence implied by his command of an axe at the sawmill, but also his mobility: skill gives him a way to make a living beyond a single workplace. The farmer then wanted to arrange a marriage between Bartek and a neighboring widow who had five morgen. Bartek relates the proposed match as another turn in the journey, without saying that he accepted it.

Counsel to Antek

At the sawmill, Bartek overhears Antek threaten Mateusz, promising to hurt him. Bartek responds that Mateusz is paid to harangue the workers, treating the provocation as part of the workplace rather than as a reason for a fight. When Antek objects that even a dog’s barking can anger him, Bartek warns that taking everything to heart will wear him down. He has noticed Antek working too feverishly, and Antek answers that he is cold. The exchange links the threat to the physical strain of the job without making Bartek either an accuser or an ally in the quarrel.

Bartek’s further advice is deliberately measured: work should be done slowly and orderly, because it will not disappear if a worker does not strain himself for the miller or anyone else. He compares Mateusz to a watchdog on guard, whose barking need not be answered with anger. The comparison gives his counsel a light, teasing edge, but its purpose is serious: he urges Antek to separate Mateusz’s noise from the work itself and avoid letting resentment dictate his actions. When Antek changes the subject by asking where Bartek had been in the summer, Bartek answers readily, turning the conversation from conflict toward travel and the life he has chosen.

Character and Narrative Function

Bartek’s stories and advice share a consistent practical independence. He can work expertly with wood, leave when a supervisor’s haste becomes intolerable, travel without reaching his intended destination, and settle temporarily into a building job when someone needs his skill. None of these details makes him indifferent to labor; rather, he refuses to treat work as an end that must command every hour. His reminder that work will not fly away contrasts with the pressure of the sawmill, where Mateusz calls for speed because the saws must keep moving.

In the scene with Antek, Bartek offers a counterpoint to anger without claiming authority over either man. His description of Mateusz as a watchdog reduces the quarrel’s apparent gravity, while his warning about overwork recognizes Antek’s strain. The narrative also lets Bartek explain himself in his own conversational, unhurried manner: the account of the pilgrimage, the cottage, and the widow gives substance to the independence he recommends. He is not shown resolving the conflict, but his presence makes another response to hardship visible—skill, movement, humor, and a refusal to hurry simply because someone else demands it.