The Peasants, [Vol. 2]: Winter

''The peasants, [vol. 2] : Winter by Władysław Stanisław Reymont is a novel written in the early 20th century. It portrays the rhythms, hardships, and passions of a Polish village through the season of winter, focusing on peasant life, social bonds and rifts, and the forces of nature. Central to this volume are Antek, his wife Hanka, his domineering father Boryna, and the alluring Jagna, whose presence intensifies family and village tensions. The opening of the novel immerses the reader in a fierce winter: gales scour the fields, snow buries the village, and daily life constricts under cold and scarcity. We meet Antek’s impoverished household—Hanka, their children, and the old man Bylica—estranged from Boryna and shunned by neighbors, forced to sell their beloved cow to Jewish dealers after painful bargaining. Antek, restless and humiliated, refuses local work, drinks at Yankel’s tavern, and is shaken by a brief sight of Boryna driving with Jagna; Hanka, anxious and practical, secures spinning from the organist’s wife and provisions for the family, then asks the miller for work for Antek, even as gossip hints at Antek’s obsession with Jagna. Village talk stirs about the manor’s logging and looming conflict over forest rights; Klemba offers plain support; and Antek finally takes grueling work at the new sawmill under Matthew, a rival whose authority and shared desire for Jagna deepen a simmering feud amid the relentless cold.