The Peasants · Chapter
IV explained
A bright September Sunday in Lipka: Kuba teaches Vitek prayers while watching livestock, then brings partridges to the priest.
What happens
A bright September Sunday in Lipka: Kuba teaches Vitek prayers while watching livestock, then brings partridges to the priest. Later, the tavern scene unfolds with drinking, gossip, and conflict—Franek avoids Magda's marriage pleas, the blacksmith rants about land redistribution, Yagustynka is thrown out, and Kuba gets drunk, ending in debt to Yankel.
Themes in this chapter
Peasant Life and Labor
Daily routines of livestock care, prayer, and church attendance; the tavern as a social hub.
Social Class and Injustice
The blacksmith's rant about land inequality and the domination of landowners, priests, and officials.
Community and Conflict
Tavern interactions, arguments between Yagustynka and the blacksmith, and the communal drinking culture.
Characters to notice
- Kuba
Teaches Vitek prayers, brings partridges to the priest, gets drunk at the tavern and incurs debt to Yankel.
- Vitek
Learns prayers from Kuba, distracted by animals and apples.
- Yagustynka
Present at the tavern, argues with the blacksmith, is thrown out by him.
- Ambrose
Drunk at the tavern, sings and reels in the road.
- Yankel
Tavern keeper; deals with Kuba's debt and arranges a gun trade.
- Franek Bylitsa
At the tavern, avoids Magda's marriage pleas, brags about his influence at the mill.
Key passages
“Now attend to what I am telling you, these are holy words.”
Kuba instructs Vitek to pay attention because the prayers are sacred.
Kuba's role as a religious teacher to Vitek.
“What! a quarter of a litre, rum, one herring, tobacco, and another quarter besides: can they make up a rouble? How's that?”
Kuba is shocked that his purchases total a rouble, questioning the cost.
Kuba's drunken confusion and debt to Yankel.
“There is no nation on earth that lives as we do. Not one!—Why, every big landowner domineers over us; so does every priest; so does every official.”
The blacksmith declares that no other nation endures such oppression from landowners, priests, and officials.
The blacksmith's critique of social injustice.