Józka’s smallpox

Józka’s smallpox turns an illness feared as potentially fatal into a test of care, isolation, and recovery within the household. The narrative follows her from an early suspicion of the pox to a week of fever and spots, then to a slow convalescence in which homemade remedies and brief visits stand against long stretches of solitude. Her illness is not only a bodily crisis: it changes where she may go, who may see her, and how much of the household’s attention she can command.

Onset and Recognition

The first report comes after Józka returns from visiting the Płoszka household’s Kasia. When asked why she had gone there, Józka explains that everyone else was in the field and no one was available to fetch water for the sick girl. Hanka asks whether Kasia is ill, and Józka answers that it must be the pox: the girl is burning with fever. The episode introduces the illness through Józka’s attention to another person’s unmet need, before she herself becomes its patient.

Later, Józka’s own condition is described as having lasted a week. She lies swollen, feverish, and covered in spots on the far side of the cottage, and speaks as if she expects to die. Her plea to Hanka to give her piglet to Nastusia, in return for a prayer, makes her fear concrete: she is arranging a small gift and a spiritual response to the death she believes may be near. Too ill to move, she asks Witek to carry the piglet and make clear that it comes from her. The errand preserves a connection to Nastusia even while illness confines Józka indoors.

Confinement and Treatment

At first, the household carries Józka into the orchard each day because she begs to be taken outside beneath the trees. As her condition worsens, Jagustynka forbids these outings and insists that she must lie in a dark room, warning that sunlight could drive the spots inward. The account presents this as Jagustynka’s understanding of the illness, not as a medical explanation verified by the narration. The change is nevertheless decisive for Józka: a place she had been taken at her own request is closed to her, and she lies in darkness, moaning and complaining that children and friends are kept away.

Jagustynka, who is caring for her, enforces that separation forcefully, chasing visitors off with a stick. The scene gives care a restrictive form: Józka is protected according to Jagustynka’s judgment, but she also loses the company she asks for. When Witek brings the piglet and tells her that Nastusia will come the next day, Jagustynka is present with berries for the sick girl and prepares another treatment. She kneads a thick paste from pure buckwheat flour, fresh unsalted butter, and egg yolks, spreads it over Józka’s face and neck, and covers it with wet rags.

Józka submits patiently to the treatment but remains anxious about what the spots may leave behind. She asks whether her cheeks will be pockmarked. Jagustynka reassures her by pointing to Nastusia, whose marks, she says, disappeared without a trace. The exchange places Józka’s fear of lasting disfigurement beside the practical, familiar remedy: the illness threatens not just her immediate health but the appearance of her face, while Jagustynka answers with an example from another girl’s recovery.

Isolation and Brief Companionship

Józka’s confinement is punctuated by a sudden spell of alarm. She tosses on the bed and cries out for someone to chase away those who will trample her, ending in repeated cries of “Baa! Baa!” Then she lies so still that she seems asleep. Witek leaves, but looks in from time to time. The abrupt shift from agitation to stillness underscores how little control Józka has over her condition; the narrative records what the illness does to her body and speech without explaining the episode further.

As the days pass, company remains intermittent. Witek returns to his work with the cows, and friends sometimes stop for a quick chat. Rocho sits with Józka briefly, and Agata visits, repeating that she herself will surely die during the harvest at the Kłąb household, inside the house and in a farmerly fashion. The visitors do not erase Józka’s solitude: most of the time she is alone, with the vigilant dog Łapa, the stork that comes when called, and birds that fly down for crumbs. The narrative’s attention to these companions makes the quiet duration of sickness part of the episode, rather than reducing it to the dramatic moment of fever or fear.

Recovery and Significance

After the storm passes and the sun returns, Antek Boryna encounters Jagusia on the way back to his cottage. She glares at him and passes without speaking. Seeing Józka in the farmyard, he rebukes her for wandering about in the damp. The encounter places her recovery in the ordinary movement of village life: she is well enough to be outdoors again, but Antek still treats her as someone whose health requires caution.

Józka has recovered enough to spend whole days in the orchard. Her spots have cleared and dried without leaving a trace. Jagustynka continues applying the paste secretly because Hanka disapproves of spending so much butter and so many eggs on it. The detail complicates the apparent end of the crisis: Józka is improving, yet the treatment continues in private and competes with household concerns over valuable food. Her convalescence is gradual, and she remains alone for much of it, but the outcome reverses the fear that shaped her appeal for a prayer. The girl who thought she would die survives without visible marks, while the story preserves the vulnerability, enforced seclusion, improvised care, and sparse companionship through which she passes.