Dominikowa—Jagna

Dominikowa and Jagna’s relationship joins material dependence to personal care, but it is not insulated from conflict. Dominikowa’s decision to leave her property to her daughter sets her against her sons and draws the village’s attention to the family; later, when Dominikowa is badly scalded, Jagna stays beside her and helps tend her. In these episodes, the bond is shown both through contested land and through the immediate work of caring for an injured parent.

Inheritance and Household Conflict

Dominikowa’s plan to transfer her property to Jagna emerges amid an already fractured household. A village woman reports that Dominikowa has gone into town with Jagna and Piotr, the Voyt, to see the Notary and sign everything over to her daughter. The proposed transfer is comprehensive: when asked whether it means everything for Jagna and nothing for the boys, the woman confirms that Dominikowa is acting out of anger at her sons for demanding their portions. The arrangement therefore expresses not just preference for Jagna but a rupture over how family property should be divided.

The dispute is situated in a village economy where cash is scarce and obligations accumulate. Before the fair, households debate what livestock or grain they might sell and how to pay taxes, commune contributions, debts, and servants. Even farmers with fifteen morgen have to calculate what they can afford; poorer families face more severe choices. Against that background, a parent’s decision about who receives land and other property has practical force: it determines which children may secure a foothold, and which may be left outside the household’s material provision. The passage does not describe the contents or legal outcome of Dominikowa’s transfer, but it makes clear that the proposed division has become a source of open resentment.

The account also says that Piotr, the Voyt, defends Dominikowa and had acted as guardian to the children after Dominik’s death. That history gives his presence at the Notary’s office a family as well as a public dimension. Yet village talk quickly turns his protection of Dominikowa into a subject of sexual gossip. The speaker alleges that he attends only to Jagna and claims to have caught them together in an orchard. This is reported accusation, not an independently narrated confirmation of an affair; its significance here is that the women’s property dispute is discussed alongside insinuations about their relations with men. Jagna’s inheritance is thus exposed to public judgment even before the reported signing is shown to have taken effect.

Jagna’s Response to Family News

When Hanka Borynowa announces that Antek is coming home, Jagna is not directly told. She nonetheless pieces the news together from half-spoken words and Hanka’s behavior. The news makes her elated and stirs a quiet hope; she sets off for her mother’s house, ignoring everything else. This movement offers a glimpse of Jagna’s connection to Dominikowa in the midst of the household’s competing demands. She goes to her mother at a moment of heightened feeling, though the scene does not explain whether she means to confide in her, seek counsel, or simply be near her.

Jagna arrives in the middle of a fierce dispute involving Szymek. The timing places her return to her mother’s home inside a household already strained by conflict between Dominikowa and her sons. Rather than presenting the home as a refuge separate from the inheritance quarrel, the scene shows Jagna entering its unsettled daily life. Her excitement about Antek’s return and the family argument occupy the same space, bringing her private hopes into contact with the tensions surrounding her mother’s property and household.

Care After the Scalding

The relationship takes a sharply physical form when Dominikowa is injured. She has been carried to bed, and the room fills with people. Jagna is at a loss as her mother howls in pain: boiling water has scalded Dominikowa’s face, neck, and hands, and singed her hair and eyes so badly that she can barely see. The narration stays with the immediate severity of the injury rather than turning the moment into a general statement about filial duty. Jagna faces a practical crisis in front of her, with her mother’s pain making care urgent.

Ambrozy dresses the scalded areas with fresh, unsalted butter, covers them with leaves and soured milk, and wraps them in damp cloths. He directs Jagusia to pour cold water over Dominikowa at intervals, then hurries to church as the Angelus bell rings. The treatment is carried out amid the ordinary rhythms of the village: it is time for High Mass, carts and people pass along the road, and curious visitors keep looking in. Jagna closes the door against the onlookers, allowing only one woman to remain with her. That act limits the crowd’s access to her mother and makes the sickroom, for a time, a space organized around care rather than public curiosity.

Jagna herself comes out with a bucket to fetch water from the pond. The detail is small but decisive: alongside the remedies prepared by Ambrozy, the continuing work of looking after Dominikowa falls on her. At the pond, Mateusz approaches Jagna, but the evidence of their encounter does not establish what happens next or alter the immediate fact that she has been carrying out the care her mother needs. The episode gives their relationship its clearest action: a daughter moves between the injured woman inside and the water required to tend her.

A Bond Under Pressure

Dominikowa’s relationship with Jagna is therefore marked by unequal treatment within the family and by direct responsibility in a moment of vulnerability. The proposed transfer favors Jagna over her brothers and provokes their anger; village commentary adds suspicion to a decision already charged with family resentment. Later, Jagna’s presence at Dominikowa’s bedside gives the bond a different emphasis. Property makes the relationship a matter of inheritance and public dispute, while the scalding makes it an immediate, bodily obligation.

The contrast does not resolve their relationship into either simple favoritism or uncomplicated tenderness. The evidence shows Dominikowa choosing Jagna as the intended recipient of everything, but it does not disclose the terms of a final transfer or the full reasons for her choice. It shows Jagna seeking her mother’s home when she hears of Antek’s return and caring for Dominikowa when she is injured, but it does not give a complete account of their private conversations. What it does establish is a bond tested in two registers: the long-term struggle over who will inherit, and the urgent household labor of protecting a mother in pain.