The storm and fire at the Voyt’s barn bring a sudden, dangerous reversal to Lipce’s long drought: rain finally reaches the parched village, but lightning sets the Voyt’s barn ablaze as the storm passes. The episode joins weather, communal prayer, and practical mutual aid in one sequence. Relief arrives first as water from the sky; almost at once, that same storm creates a fire that the villagers can only contain, not extinguish.

Drought and the Need for Rain

As harvest approached, the heat intensified instead of easing. The grass burned away, leaving the cows hungry when they returned from pasture. Potato plants wilted and formed small, knotted growths; oats barely rose, barley yellowed, and rye dried before its time, its ears barren and white. The villagers watched each sunset hoping for a change in the sky, but the heat held and the clouds did not come. The hardship was not confined to the fields: fruit dropped unripe, wells dried, and the water in the pond sank. The sawmill could not work, and the mill stood closed and silent.

Prayer became a collective response to a crisis measured in crops, water, and interrupted work. The villagers gathered for a votive Mass and Exposition, bringing their pleas before images of the Lord’s Transfiguration. The account presents their devotion as fervent, but it does not make the storm a simple, immediate answer: the next day was more oppressive still. Birds grew listless; cows bellowed in the pastures; horses refused to come out; and people moved weakly through the orchards, afraid to look at their gardens. The prayer and the worsening heat together sharpen the suspense before the weather changes.

The Storm Breaks

Around noon, while the village seemed close to exhaustion in the heat, the sun suddenly dimmed as though dust had been thrown across it. A sound rang out high above, and swollen clouds gathered from every side, lowering like a flock of great-winged birds. The villagers fell silent and waited in fear. Thunder sounded in the distance, followed by a brisk gust that sent dust rolling along the roads. Lightning crowded the sky, and the first thunderbolt crashed nearby, drawing people out of their cottages.

The storm then overwhelmed the village. Darkness covered the sun; repeated lightning flashes cut through the shadows, thunder rolled, wind groaned among the trees, and rain fell so heavily that the view vanished. Hail struck from every side. The violence came in waves: after perhaps an hour, the storm paused briefly, only to resume with more thunder and rain. The downpour flattened crops and sent foaming water along the roads. It brought the rain for which Lipce had been waiting, but it did not restore the fields at once; the immediate scene is one of damage, fear, and uncertainty.

Vigil and the Lightning Strike

While the storm was still raging, villagers took familiar protective measures. Some lit vigil lamps and sang Beneath Thy Protection; others carried holy pictures outside and set them on the earth benches, hoping to guard against misfortune. The narrative places these acts alongside the storm’s physical force: people seek spiritual protection while watching lightning, wind, hail, and rising water threaten their homes and surroundings. The storm eventually began to subside, and finer rain replaced the downpour. The danger seemed nearly past when a final bolt came from the last cloud hanging over the village and struck the Voyt’s barn.

The strike turns the storm’s aftermath into a fire emergency. Flames sprang up and smoke billowed; the barn caught fire throughout, and the villagers understood that it could not be saved. Their effort shifted from rescuing the building to preventing the flames from spreading. Antek, Mateusz, and others worked to keep the fire from reaching the Kozioł family’s cottage and other nearby structures. Water and mud were abundant on the road, a stark contrast with the drought that had dried the wells and pond. Even so, sparks flew toward nearby outbuildings, and some roofs had already begun to smoke. The villagers managed to prevent a wider disaster, but the barn burned from top to bottom.

The Voyt’s Absence and the Aftermath

The Voyt was away at the commune, having left early, so the barn burned in his absence. His wife ran about lamenting as the villagers confronted the fire. Once the danger had passed and people began to disperse, Kozłowa approached her with hands on her hips and taunted her, attributing the disaster to wrongs done to her. The exchange does not explain those wrongs in this scene; it makes visible, instead, how quickly an emergency can become an occasion for an existing grievance to be voiced.

The storm therefore ends on two sharply different outcomes. Its rain answers the village’s immediate need for water, while its lightning destroys the Voyt’s barn and threatens neighboring buildings. Collective action limits the damage beyond the barn, but it cannot undo the loss. Across the novel, weather repeatedly sets the conditions of village life: rising pond water reaches roads and cottage walls during the cabbage harvest; winter winds scour snow and threaten roofs and fences; and heat leaves crops and streams parched. This storm gathers that recurring material pressure into a single event, where nature offers relief and danger together, and where the villagers’ response is measured by the buildings they manage to save.