Jagna’s failed attempt to meet Antek

Jagna’s failed attempt to meet Antek turns a hoped-for secret rendezvous into an ordeal of waiting, self-restraint, and missed timing. The hayrick draws her with increasing force, but the household remains full of watchful eyes and unfinished work. When she later hears that Antek is looking for her, she rushes outside and searches the orchard, fences, and hayrick, only to find him gone. The episode makes desire palpable while showing how little privacy their circumstances allow.

The evening’s mounting tension

After the previous day’s exertions, the people in the house are drowsy and subdued. They speak quietly rather than making loud conversation, and even supper proceeds without appetite. Jagna moves busily among them, urging them to eat after they have already put down their spoons. Her restlessness repeatedly breaks the room’s languor: she laughs suddenly, joins the girls in animated conversation, then stops and hurries across the house before turning back in the hallway. The movement does not settle her; it registers an anxiety she cannot put aside.

The hayrick becomes the focus of that anxiety. Jagna longs to run outside, but she is afraid that someone will notice and conscious that the meeting would be sinful. She imagines Antek waiting nearby, perhaps watching the cottage windows, and feels responsible for the grief he might suffer if she does not come. Her imagined encounter does not release her from indecision. She considers going out only long enough to tell him she will not meet him, yet even this imagined refusal would require approaching the place she is trying to avoid.

Watchfulness at home

Jagna has already begun looking for her apron and moving toward the door when she stops herself. Her hesitation is not simply a change of mind: she scans the household for signs that her intentions have been detected. Jagustynka follows her movements with an alertness likened to watchful hounds, while Nastka gives her strange looks. The old man is also present. Jagna wonders whether they know something, then resolves not to go that day. The scene makes concealment an everyday physical problem: even a step toward the door may be observed.

After holding herself back, Jagna feels so exhausted that she scarcely knows what is happening around her. The barking of Łapa outside jolts her back to attention. As the barking grows more fierce, the old man looks through the window, and someone suggests that perhaps Antek could not wait. Jagna leaps up in alarm. But Antek is not at the doorway. Kłąb stands there, followed by several other men stamping snow from their feet and shaking themselves down at the threshold. Maciej Boryna greets the visitors, offers them seats and tobacco, and leaves Jagna’s expectation unanswered. The arrival of company replaces the private possibility she feared and desired with a public gathering in the house.

Antek’s approach and Jagna’s search

In a later passage, Antek tries to learn whether Maciej Boryna is at home. He asks as though indifferent, though he is trembling. He is told that the men are in council at the miller’s with the squire and others. Antek asks more quietly whether Jagna is home. People are still moving about as darkness falls, and he worries that the boy he has questioned will spread what he has learned. Rather than risk being seen, he heads home quickly, looks carefully around in front of the church, and turns onto the path behind the barns.

Witek runs to the cottage and reports what has happened. At first Jagna is occupied with evening work: Józka has disappeared again, there is plenty to do, and Jagna is not listening closely to Witek’s tales. The mention of Antek changes her attention at once. She tells Witek not to disclose the ten kopecks Antek gave him, gives him another coin, and asks whether Antek went home. Before Witek can answer, she darts onto the porch and calls for Pietrek. She looks fearfully toward the orchard and fences and checks behind the hayrick, but nobody is there. Antek has sought information and moved cautiously through the village; Jagna has heard of his presence only after he has gone past, and their efforts do not meet.

The meaning of the missed rendezvous

The episode’s suspense comes from the separation between what each character knows and when each learns it. Jagna first imagines Antek waiting outside while she remains trapped by fear of discovery; later, when information about his movements actually reaches her, she goes out, but too late to find him. Her sudden search gives her desire a visible, hurried form, while her return to household duties—scolding Józka and taking up her spinning—shows how quickly she must resume her ordinary role when the hoped-for meeting fails.

The setting sharpens that conflict. The hayrick and the path behind the barns offer possible routes toward privacy, but the cottage, church, orchard, and village traffic remain connected by watching eyes and passing people. Antek’s caution and Jagna’s divided attention reflect the same practical danger from opposite sides: neither can move freely without risking notice. The result is not a meeting but a sequence of approaches, guesses, and searches. Jagna’s failed attempt therefore marks both the intensity of her longing and the limits imposed on it by the household around her.