Jagna–Dominikowa

Jagna and Dominikowa’s relationship is shaped by an uneasy balance between maternal care and maternal direction. Dominikowa tries to secure her daughter’s future through marriage, property, and village respectability; Jagna, who says that she will accept her mother’s decision, seldom asserts a competing plan. Their closeness is real, but it does not give Jagna much control over the choices that will determine her life.

A choice placed in her mother’s hands

When marriage to Boryna is discussed, Jagna does not make a firm declaration of her own preference. Asked what she thinks, she answers that it is all the same to her and that she will go if her mother says she must. She presents staying with Dominikowa as equally acceptable, asking whether she is not already fine at home. Her response is quiet rather than openly defiant: the decision appears to belong to her mother, while Jagna’s own wishes remain indistinct.

The narration gives this passivity a more complicated texture than simple obedience. Jagna is not short of young men interested in her, and she recognizes that Boryna’s money is not the only reason a man might attract her. She thinks that Antek, or others, might have offered her similar gifts if they had Boryna’s means. Yet the thought does not become a choice among suitors. Her mind returns to the notion that, if Dominikowa orders it, she will marry Boryna, and that deciding what is best is her mother’s business.

Marriage as security and standing

Dominikowa’s case for the match is practical and social. She acknowledges that Boryna is old, but emphasizes that he is still strong, decent, and unlike other men in his respect for Jagna. In her account, marriage would make Jagna mistress of a substantial household and a woman of standing in the village. She also imagines a property arrangement: if Boryna settles something on Jagna, Dominikowa hopes to have the portion placed beside their own land, near the rye on the hillside; perhaps, she suggests, he might transfer six morgen.

Those possibilities are not presented as completed arrangements. They are hopes and calculations through which Dominikowa tries to make the marriage materially advantageous. Her attention to land reflects the importance of property in shaping the daughter’s prospects, while her worry about village gossip adds a question of reputation to the calculation. She considers whether the family should slaughter a pig for the occasion, then hesitates and falls silent, continuing to reckon what else might be needed. The scene shows care expressed through provision, but also the practical pressure under which that care operates.

That pressure belongs to a wider rural economy in which ready money is scarce. Before the fair on St Kordula’s Day, households in Lipce argue over what they can sell and what they must buy for winter; taxes, commune contributions, debts, and servants’ wages crowd into the same calculations. The text does not say that these obligations alone determine Dominikowa’s decision, but it places her interest in a land settlement within a community where property and resources are consequential, hard-won concerns.

Tenderness, reproach, and protection

The relationship is not only a negotiation over marriage. After Mateusz leaves, Dominikowa scolds Jagna about his conduct and recalls an earlier spring encounter. Jagna, alarmed and hurt, hides her face in the quilt, cries, and insists that she did not invite him. She describes herself as easily overwhelmed when someone fixes her with a look or clasps her, as if her will drains away. Her account presents her distress and confusion, not a clear invitation to the advances she recounts.

Dominikowa’s initial reproach wounds Jagna, but it does not last as rejection. When she hears her daughter’s protest, the older woman softens, wipes Jagna’s face and eyes, strokes her head, and tries to soothe her. The gestures make their intimacy visible: Dominikowa can judge and admonish, yet she also responds to Jagna’s tears with physical comfort. Her concern then turns directly to the marriage preparations. She tells Jagna to dress nicely because there will be many people and Boryna will notice her; Jagna rises at once and begins to dress.

This sequence joins emotional repair to maternal direction. Dominikowa comforts Jagna, but the comfort carries her toward the course already being arranged. Jagna does not answer with a newly formed preference; she asks whether the time has come. The scene therefore holds affection and authority together rather than resolving them into either uncomplicated tenderness or simple coercion.

Consent within family and village custom

During the negotiations, Dominikowa says that she will not keep Jagna prisoner and asks whether she will drink. Jagna hesitates, turns her reddening face toward the window, and finally drinks a little, covering her face with her apron before spilling the rest on the floor. The gesture communicates reluctance and embarrassment alongside assent; it does not read as an enthusiastic declaration. When Dominikowa is pressed to name the proposed man, she says that the brokers have not yet identified him, observing the custom that the family should not know in advance.

Once the suitor is named as Boryna, the Voyt praises him as strong and promises that Jagna would be mistress of a house, urging her not to be bashful. Dominikowa remains the central family interlocutor, while Jagna’s response is mediated by the ritual of the drink and the surrounding talk. The match is thus negotiated in public and communal terms, even as its consequences fall most directly on Jagna. Her earlier willingness to let her mother decide and her later, hesitant participation reveal how little space she has to articulate a separate choice within this process.

A bond that protects and limits

Dominikowa’s conduct cannot be reduced either to selfless protection or to calculated control. She wants Jagna to be respected, hopes marriage will establish her as mistress of a household, and considers how land might remain close to the family. She also worries about gossip and responds tenderly when Jagna cries. These motives coexist: practical security and maternal affection are expressed through the same effort to arrange her daughter’s future.

Jagna, in turn, appears attached to the familiarity of her mother’s home, where she says she can do as she likes and hears no ill word. Yet she does not treat property, settlements, or marriage as matters she can manage independently. She is willing to accept Boryna because Dominikowa directs her toward him, while her thoughts drift among the men who might have offered comparable gifts. The relationship’s defining tension lies there: Dominikowa’s care gives Jagna a form of shelter and advocacy, but its practical expression is to decide the path Jagna will take. The daughter’s quiet compliance does not erase her uncertainty, and the mother’s tenderness does not remove the limits imposed on her choice.