Tunnel beneath Boryna’s house

The Tunnel beneath Boryna’s house is known chiefly through accusation and investigation, not through a direct account of its construction or discovery. It becomes a point of pressure when officials investigating the fire at Podlesie also turn their attention to the tunneling beneath Boryna’s home. The episode makes the house’s boundary a contested matter: a suspected breach draws in state officials, while the villagers retain control over what they will tell them.

The Reported Tunnel

The evidence identifies no builder, precise route, dimensions, or confirmed purpose for the tunnel. During the inquiry, an agitated gendarme accuses Bylica of failing to guard the house and allowing thieves to dig beneath it. This is an official’s charge, not a narrated confirmation of who dug the tunnel or what they intended. The distinction matters: the tunnel is presented as a matter under investigation, while the account leaves its origins unresolved.

The Official Inquiry

The tunnel is investigated alongside the fire at Podlesie. After the officials’ questioning in the fields about the fire yields nothing, they go to Boryna’s home to draw up a statement about the tunneling. They record details and question the inhabitants, extending the inquiry from a suspected intrusion into the house to the testimony of the surrounding community.

Hanka does not prevent the investigation. When the officials are expected to return and make notes, she tells Michał the blacksmith that he can tell them everything. Her response contrasts with the villagers’ uniform account of the Podlesie fire: in that inquiry, no one reveals what the community is keeping to itself. The two strands show that official access to a place or a statement does not necessarily mean access to what its inhabitants know.

Bylica’s Defiance

The gendarme’s accusation provokes Bylica, who rejects the implication that he is responsible for guarding the house. He insists that officials serve the people, that the people pay them, and that they should obey the Voyt’s orders and keep their hands off the farmers. His anger turns the tunnel inquiry into a confrontation over who has the right to command and accuse villagers. The officials continue their work despite his protest, but his outburst gives the investigation a public dimension: the suspected breach beneath a private home becomes entangled with the community’s resistance to being treated as subordinate.

What the Tunnel Leaves Unsettled

The account ends without identifying the tunnel’s makers or reporting a final finding about it. Officials complete their questioning and leave; the narrative supplies no physical description of the passage or resolution of the suspicion. Its force therefore comes less from a solved mystery than from the reactions gathered around it: an accusation against Bylica, Hanka’s readiness to speak, and a dispute over the authority of those conducting the inquiry. The tunnel remains an uncertain object at the edge of the record, while the conflict it brings into view is explicit.