Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday in Lipce is both a religious observance and a day shaped by household obligations and public scrutiny. The week before Easter, pussy willow branches serve as local substitutes for palm leaves and are blessed at church; the custom assigns women the task of carrying them for blessing. The novel makes this ritual tangible through two domestic scenes: Hanka’s prayer at dawn and Jagna’s preparations for church. In both, the sacred calendar arrives not apart from ordinary life but amid pregnancy, farm work, clothing, and the prospect of being seen by the community.

The observance and its branches

A note on the custom explains that decorative pussy willow was adopted in place of palm leaves and blessed on Palm Sunday, a week before Easter. It also specifies that only women could take the branches to be blessed. That rule places women visibly at the threshold between home and church: the willow is prepared in the household, then carried into a public religious rite. The observance is therefore not simply a date in the calendar; it is enacted through a particular object and a gendered form of participation.

Jagna’s branches are red willow shoots with silvery catkins. They have been standing in a jug since the previous day, but have wilted because she forgot to add water. On Palm Sunday she carefully tries to revive them. The scene gives the customary object a vulnerable, practical presence: the branches are not an abstract emblem, but something that can droop, need tending, and be made ready for church. Their preparation unfolds alongside the other work of the household, rather than suspending it.

Hanka at the threshold of the day

The day after the winter scene in which the whole of Lipce is busy on Christmas Eve, the narrative identifies the next day as Palm Sunday. Hanka looks out from Boryna’s farmhouse before the sun is high, wearing a woollen skirt and a shawl against the sharp frost. She goes to the fences and looks down the black road, which is still empty. The dead tips of the trees catch the dry sunrise, while remnants of night remain beneath the fences.

Hanka returns to the porch and kneels to pray, doing so with difficulty because she is barely a week from giving birth. The moment gives the observance a private bodily measure: while the village day is beginning, her pregnancy constrains the simple act of kneeling. Her gaze wanders over the outside world as she prays, joining devotional attention to watchfulness. The empty road offers no arrival or interruption in this scene; Palm Sunday begins for her in waiting, cold, and prayer.

Jagna’s preparations and reluctance

Jagna, too, is preparing for church with the palms. She hums as she moves about, then tends the wilted red willow. A household demand interrupts her: Witek the Stork-Keeper calls through the door to say that her cow is hungry and needs feeding. Jagna answers sharply that no one is to touch her cow. The exchange brings the farm’s immediate needs directly into the religious morning; even the branches set aside for church do not keep livestock and household authority out of view.

She then takes clothes from a chest, lays them across the bed, and considers what to wear. Her mood changes as she imagines the women at church examining each ribbon and criticizing her. She questions the point of dressing up and for whom she would do it, then rejects the garments with distaste. Instead, she sits by the window and combs her thick fair hair, looking out at the village. The choice exposes a tension within the observance: church offers a shared sacred occasion, but also a setting where appearance is publicly assessed and gossip can make participation uncomfortable.

Outside, the morning is changing. Frost melts from the roofs, birds call in the garden, and the cries of geese carry from the pond. Jagna sees women passing on the far side of the water, shielded by trees; their red woollen skirts appear as reflections in the pond. Geese cross the reflected sky, while swallows skim low and livestock call from the village. The scene sets her apart at the window even as it shows the movement toward church: other women are already on the way, while she remains caught between preparing to join them and resenting the scrutiny she expects.

Ritual, community, and private circumstance

Other communal rites in the novel make clear how religious ceremony can gather people into a shared public order. At a wedding, for example, a blessing with holy water precedes farewells and a procession on foot to church; the women embrace Jagna and weep together. In a separate wedding custom, women lead the veiled bride from the storeroom while the assembled villagers sing. These episodes are not Palm Sunday scenes, but they provide a contrast: the community’s rituals can make collective feeling visible, while Jagna’s Palm Sunday preparations emphasize the private unease that may accompany public participation.

Palm Sunday’s significance in these scenes rests on that double movement. The willow branches connect domestic care to church ritual, and the approaching Easter gives the day its place in the annual religious calendar. Yet the observance is experienced differently by the two women: Hanka kneels in prayer while nearing childbirth, whereas Jagna prepares an object for blessing and weighs the cost of appearing before other women. The same sacred day gathers bodily vulnerability, farm responsibilities, customary practice, and village judgment without making them identical or resolving their tensions.