Pietrowa, the village chief’s wife

Pietrowa, the village chief’s wife, is a sharply voiced local authority whose brief appearances connect official news with the village’s campaign against Jaguś. She brings Hanka a letter from the chancellery, then urges her to drive Jaguś out, making domestic conflict part of a wider act of social exclusion.

Identity and Role

The narrative identifies Pietrowa through her marriage to the village chief rather than through an independent account of her background. Her husband is away at the powiat when she arrives at the farmyard with an official letter delivered by a messenger from the chancellery. She tells Hanka that the message may concern Grzela’s death, though the report reaches her in uncertain form: the messenger had said only that the letter recorded that Grzela had died or something similar.

The Letter and Its Uncertainty

Pietrowa brings the letter to Hanka, who fears it may concern Antek. The document’s contents are not disclosed in the scene; instead, the exchange leaves both the news and its implications unsettled. Pietrowa’s account places her between the village household and official channels, passing on information she has received without claiming to know precisely what it means.

Intervention Against Jaguś

After an anguished exclamation, Pietrowa rushes from the house, then turns back to press Hanka to expel Jaguś immediately. She predicts that Jaguś will displace Hanka in her own home and insists that Hanka show her neither mercy nor compassion. Addressing Jaguś directly, Pietrowa threatens to keep seeking her expulsion from the village and invokes soldiers as the place where she belongs. Her words transform suspicion into an explicit call for banishment.

Narrative Significance

Pietrowa’s intervention shows how hostility toward Jaguś is enforced not only through formal authority or male action but also through women’s participation in domestic and communal judgment. She speaks as a defender of Hanka, yet her protection takes the form of urging another woman to cast Jaguś out. The scene ends in silence: Dominikowa weeps, Magda rocks her baby, Hanka gazes into the fire, and Jaguś’s defiant expression gives way to visible distress. Pietrowa’s words have helped make expulsion imaginable while exposing its immediate emotional cost.