What specific details about Jan and Katrina's past as hired help reveal their core aspirations for autonomy, and how does this context make Jan's current lament about having children more complex than simple impatience?

From the book

that he would not have minded it, but she even complained because he would not go out to work now, as in former days. When she came with such things he always turned a deaf ear. As if he did not know that the Empress of Portugallia would soon send him so much money that he need never again put on his working clothes! He felt it would be an insult to _her_ to give in to Katrina on this point. One afternoon, toward the end of August, as Jan was sitting upon the flat stone in front of the hut, smoking his pipe, he glimpsed some bright frocks in the woods close by, and heard the ring…

d with a snow-white cover, on which were arranged dainty flowered cups and saucers belonging to the mistress of Falla. Katrina lay on the bed and two of the women, who had come to lend a hand, stood pressed against the wall so that he should have a free and unobstructed view of all the preparations. Directly in front of the table stood the midwife, with a bundle on her arm. Jan could not help thinking that for once in his life he appeared to be the centre of attraction. Katrina glanced up at him appealingly, as if wanting to ask whether he was pleased with her. The other women, too,…

as no one left to vaccinate but Glory Goldie of Ruffluck. Katrina was in despair because of her child's bad behaviour. She did not know what to do about it, when Jan suddenly emerged from the shadow of the door and took the child in his arms. Then Katrina got up to let him take her place at the table. "You just try it once!" she said scornfully, "and let's see whether you'll do any better." For Katrina did not regard the little toil-worn servant from Falla whom she had married as in any sense her superior. Before sitting down, Jan slipped off his jacket. He must have rolled up his…

o more of his thought than he wanted to reveal. And now, as he listened to Glory Goldie, his face was quite impassive. Just the same Katrina knew what he, who was like a father to the whole parish, was thinking. "Why should an old man who has a wife and daughter living be obliged to live with strangers? Lisa is a good woman, but she can never have the patience with Jan that his own folks had." That was what he thought. And he was right about it, too! Katrina suddenly looked down at her hands. After all, perhaps she was deceiving herself in laying the blame on them. The real reason for…

f, you!" he said, "That's the sort of thing you might do, but not I. You must know that I can see through your tricks. One day last winter you--" But just when Jan was on the point of saying something that could only have ended in an irreparable break between himself and his employer, the old housewife tipped him by the coat sleeve. "Look out, Jan!" said she. Jan did so. Then he saw Katrina coming toward the house with a letter in her hand. That was surely the letter from Glory Goldie which they had been longing for every day since her departure. Katrina, knowing how happy Jan would…