prompt:
Chapter: When Frank Shabata got home that night, he found Emil's mare in
his stable. Such an impertinence amazed him. Like everybody else,
Frank had had an exciting day. Since noon he had been drinking too
much, and he was in a bad temper. He talked bitterly to himself
while he put his own horse away, and as he went up the path and
saw that the house was dark he felt an added sense of injury. He
approached quietly and listened on the doorstep. Hearing nothing,
he opened the kitchen door and went softly from one room to another.
Then he went through the house again, upstairs and down, with no
better result. He sat down on the bottom step of the box stairway
and tried to get his wits together. In that unnatural quiet there
was no sound but his own heavy breathing. Suddenly an owl began
to hoot out in the fields. Frank lifted his head. An idea flashed
into his mind, and his sense of injury and outrage grew. He went
into his bedroom and took his murderous 405 Winchester from the
closet.

When Frank took up his gun and walked out of the house, he had not
the faintest purpose of doing anything with it. He did not believe
that he had any real grievance. But it gratified him to feel like
a desperate man. He had got into the habit of seeing himself always
in desperate straits. His unhappy temperament was like a cage; he
could never get out of it; and he felt that other people, his wife
in particular, must have put him there. It had never more than
dimly occurred to Frank that he made his own unhappiness. Though
he took up his gun with dark projects in his mind, he would have
been paralyzed with fright had he known that there was the slightest
probability of his ever carrying any of them out.

Frank went slowly down to the orchard gate, stopped and stood for
a moment lost in thought. He retraced his steps and looked through
the barn and the hayloft. Then he went out to the road, where he
took the foot-path along the outside of the orchard hedge. The
hedge was twice as tall as Frank himself, and so dense that one
could see through it only by peering closely between the leaves.
He could see the empty path a long way in the moonlight. His mind
traveled ahead to the stile, which he always thought of as haunted
by Emil Bergson. But why had he left his horse?

At the wheatfield corner, where the orchard hedge ended and the
path led across the pasture to the Bergsons', Frank stopped. In
the warm, breathless night air he heard a murmuring sound, perfectly
inarticulate, as low as the sound of water coming from a spring,
where there is no fall, and where there are no stones to fret it.
Frank strained his ears. It ceased. He held his breath and began
to tremble. Resting the butt of his gun on the ground, he parted
the mulberry leaves softly with his fingers and peered through
the hedge at the dark figures on the grass, in the shadow of the
mulberry tree. It seemed to him that they must feel his eyes,
that they must hear him breathing. But they did not. Frank, who
had always wanted to see things blacker than they were, for once
wanted to believe less than he saw. The woman lying in the shadow
might so easily be one of the Bergsons' farm-girls.... Again
the murmur, like water welling out of the ground. This time he
heard it more distinctly, and his blood was quicker than his brain.
He began to act, just as a man who falls into the fire begins to
act. The gun sprang to his shoulder, he sighted mechanically and
fired three times without stopping, stopped without knowing why.
Either he shut his eyes or he had vertigo. He did not see anything
while he was firing. He thought he heard a cry simultaneous with
the second report, but he was not sure. He peered again through
the hedge, at the two dark figures under the tree. They had fallen
a little apart from each other, and were perfectly still--No,
not quite; in a white patch of light, where the moon shone through
the branches, a man's hand was plucking spasmodically at the grass.

Suddenly the woman stirred and uttered a cry, then another, and
another. She was living! She was dragging herself toward the
hedge! Frank dropped his gun and ran back along the path, shaking,
stumbling, gasping. He had never imagined such horror. The
cries followed him. They grew fainter and thicker, as if she were
choking. He dropped on his knees beside the hedge and crouched
like a rabbit, listening; fainter, fainter; a sound like a whine;
again--a moan--another--silence. Frank scrambled to his feet and
ran on, groaning and praying. From habit he went toward the house,
where he was used to being soothed when he had worked himself into
a frenzy, but at the sight of the black, open door, he started back.
He knew that he had murdered somebody, that a woman was bleeding
and moaning in the orchard, but he had not realized before that
it was his wife. The gate stared him in the face. He threw his
hands over his head. Which way to turn? He lifted his tormented
face and looked at the sky. "Holy Mother of God, not to suffer!
She was a good girl--not to suffer!"

Frank had been wont to see himself in dramatic situations; but
now, when he stood by the windmill, in the bright space between the
barn and the house, facing his own black doorway, he did not see
himself at all. He stood like the hare when the dogs are approaching
from all sides. And he ran like a hare, back and forth about that
moonlit space, before he could make up his mind to go into the
dark stable for a horse. The thought of going into a doorway was
terrible to him. He caught Emil's horse by the bit and led it out.
He could not have buckled a bridle on his own. After two or three
attempts, he lifted himself into the saddle and started for Hanover.
If he could catch the one o'clock train, he had money enough to
get as far as Omaha.

While he was thinking dully of this in some less sensitized part
of his brain, his acuter faculties were going over and over the
cries he had heard in the orchard. Terror was the only thing that
kept him from going back to her, terror that she might still be
she, that she might still be suffering. A woman, mutilated and
bleeding in his orchard--it was because it was a woman that he
was so afraid. It was inconceivable that he should have hurt a
woman. He would rather be eaten by wild beasts than see her move
on the ground as she had moved in the orchard. Why had she been
so careless? She knew he was like a crazy man when he was angry.
She had more than once taken that gun away from him and held it,
when he was angry with other people. Once it had gone off while
they were struggling over it. She was never afraid. But, when
she knew him, why hadn't she been more careful? Didn't she have
all summer before her to love Emil Bergson in, without taking such
chances? Probably she had met the Smirka boy, too, down there in
the orchard. He didn't care. She could have met all the men on the
Divide there, and welcome, if only she hadn't brought this horror
on him.

There was a wrench in Frank's mind. He did not honestly believe that
of her. He knew that he was doing her wrong. He stopped his horse
to admit this to himself the more directly, to think it out the more
clearly. He knew that he was to blame. For three years he had been
trying to break her spirit. She had a way of making the best of
things that seemed to him a sentimental affectation. He wanted his
wife to resent that he was wasting his best years among these stupid
and unappreciative people; but she had seemed to find the people
quite good enough. If he ever got rich he meant to buy her pretty
clothes and take her to California in a Pullman car, and treat her
like a lady; but in the mean time he wanted her to feel that life was
as ugly and as unjust as he felt it. He had tried to make her life
ugly. He had refused to share any of the little pleasures she was so
plucky about making for herself. She could be gay about the least
thing in the world; but she must be gay! When she first came to him,
her faith in him, her adoration--Frank struck the mare with his fist.
Why had Marie made him do this thing; why had she brought this upon
him? He was overwhelmed by sickening misfortune. All at once he
heard her cries again--he had forgotten for a moment. "Maria," he
sobbed aloud, "Maria!"

When Frank was halfway to Hanover, the motion of his horse brought
on a violent attack of nausea. After it had passed, he rode on
again, but he could think of nothing except his physical weakness
and his desire to be comforted by his wife. He wanted to get into
his own bed. Had his wife been at home, he would have turned and
gone back to her meekly enough.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Frank gets home that night and finds Emil's horse in the stable. He goes through the house, but finds no one. Becoming more and more angry, he gets his shotgun, a Winchester 405. As he leaves the house, the narrator notes, he has no intention of using his weapon at all. He doesn't really believe he has any reason to do so. He only wants to feel "like a desperate man" . Frank stops before going into the orchard, and then decides to go back to the road, where a dense hedge conceals the orchard. As he goes there, he wonders to himself why Emil would have left his horse in the stable. At the corner where the hedge ends and the wheat field begins, Frank stops again. He hears some noise, a murmuring noise, like "water coming from a spring" . He parts the leaves of the hedge and peers through. There, he sees Emil lying in the grass with a woman, whom, for a second, he thinks might be one of Alexandra's farm girls. But it's only a second. He hears a second murmuring, more distinct than the first, and he acts mechanically. He grabs his shotgun and fires three times without stopping. The two fall away from each other, and Emil lies completely still, except for spasms in his hand. But Marie is still alive, crying and trying to crawl toward the hedge. Frank drops his gun and runs, hearing the cries fade, as it sounds like Marie begins to choke. He drops to his knees, and hears a moan from behind the hedge. Groaning and praying himself, he runs into the house, where he's used to being comforted when he's angry or in a "frenzy" . That's when he realizes that he's killed someone, that a woman is bleeding to death in the orchard, and... that the woman is his wife. Frank often gets himself worked up by imagining himself in desperate situations. But this is the real deal. He runs about, unable to figure out what to do. Finally, he untethers Emil's horse, saddles it, and decides to ride to Hanover, where he hopes to catch the night train to Omaha. As he rides, he can't forget Marie's cries. He's terrified most of having to go back, that she might still be alive, mutilated and suffering. How could she let this happen? he thinks. He remembers the times when he got worked up into a frenzy and grabbed his shotgun, and she struggled to take it away from him. Once it fired in the process. Why did she have to take this chance with Emil? he thinks. He imagines her taking other men down into the orchard. But that would have been fine, he tells himself, as long as this had never happened. Frank stops his horse. She's not to blame, he thinks. He's the one who's been trying to break her, he wanted his wife to be as bitter as he is. He refused to share in any of the pleasures she made for herself. Why had she made him do this? he thinks furiously. Then he remembers her cries, and he sobs, "Maria!" Halfway to Hanover, Frank stops to vomit. All he wants is to be able to go back home, to his own bed, and be comforted by his wife.


prompt:
Chapter: When old Ivar climbed down from his loft at four o'clock the next
morning, he came upon Emil's mare, jaded and lather-stained, her
bridle broken, chewing the scattered tufts of hay outside the stable
door. The old man was thrown into a fright at once. He put the
mare in her stall, threw her a measure of oats, and then set out
as fast as his bow-legs could carry him on the path to the nearest
neighbor.

"Something is wrong with that boy. Some misfortune has come upon
us. He would never have used her so, in his right senses. It is
not his way to abuse his mare," the old man kept muttering, as he
scuttled through the short, wet pasture grass on his bare feet.

While Ivar was hurrying across the fields, the first long rays of
the sun were reaching down between the orchard boughs to those two
dew-drenched figures. The story of what had happened was written
plainly on the orchard grass, and on the white mulberries that had
fallen in the night and were covered with dark stain. For Emil the
chapter had been short. He was shot in the heart, and had rolled
over on his back and died. His face was turned up to the sky and
his brows were drawn in a frown, as if he had realized that something
had befallen him. But for Marie Shabata it had not been so easy.
One ball had torn through her right lung, another had shattered
the carotid artery. She must have started up and gone toward the
hedge, leaving a trail of blood. There she had fallen and bled.
From that spot there was another trail, heavier than the first,
where she must have dragged herself back to Emil's body. Once
there, she seemed not to have struggled any more. She had lifted
her head to her lover's breast, taken his hand in both her own,
and bled quietly to death. She was lying on her right side in an
easy and natural position, her cheek on Emil's shoulder. On her
face there was a look of ineffable content. Her lips were parted
a little; her eyes were lightly closed, as if in a day-dream or a
light slumber. After she lay down there, she seemed not to have
moved an eyelash. The hand she held was covered with dark stains,
where she had kissed it.

But the stained, slippery grass, the darkened mulberries, told only
half the story. Above Marie and Emil, two white butterflies from
Frank's alfalfa-field were fluttering in and out among the interlacing
shadows; diving and soaring, now close together, now far apart;
and in the long grass by the fence the last wild roses of the year
opened their pink hearts to die.

When Ivar reached the path by the hedge, he saw Shabata's rifle
lying in the way. He turned and peered through the branches,
falling upon his knees as if his legs had been mowed from under
him. "Merciful God!" he groaned.

Alexandra, too, had risen early that morning, because of her anxiety
about Emil. She was in Emil's room upstairs when, from the window,
she saw Ivar coming along the path that led from the Shabatas'.
He was running like a spent man, tottering and lurching from side
to side. Ivar never drank, and Alexandra thought at once that one
of his spells had come upon him, and that he must be in a very bad
way indeed. She ran downstairs and hurried out to meet him, to
hide his infirmity from the eyes of her household. The old man
fell in the road at her feet and caught her hand, over which he
bowed his shaggy head. "Mistress, mistress," he sobbed, "it has
fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon
us!"

PART V. Alexandra

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: When Ivar wakes up the next morning, he discovers Emil's horse, exhausted and with her bridle broken. He realizes something must have happened to Emil, because he would never have treated his horse like that. Ivar hurries across the fields to check with the neighbors. Meanwhile, the narrator describes the scene of violence. Emil died instantly, with a bullet to the heart. His face froze into a frown. Marie, on the other hand, was shot twice, once through the lung and another time in her carotid artery. A trail of blood shows that she first dragged herself to the hedge, and another, heavier trail of blood shows that she then managed to pull herself back to Emil's body. She took his hand in hers and bled to death, a look of happiness on her face. When Ivar passes by the hedge, he sees Frank's rifle. He looks through the branches and sees their bodies, groaning "Merciful God!" Alexandra wakes up early because she is anxious about Emil and his departure. She goes into Emil's room and sees Ivar running crazily back home. She assumes he's just having one of his "spells," so she goes down to intercept him and keep everyone from seeing him this way. When he sees her, he cries out, "it has fallen! Sin and death for the young ones! God have mercy upon us!" .


prompt:
Chapter: Ivar was sitting at a cobbler's bench in the barn, mending harness
by the light of a lantern and repeating to himself the 101st Psalm.
It was only five o'clock of a mid-October day, but a storm had
come up in the afternoon, bringing black clouds, a cold wind and
torrents of rain. The old man wore his buffalo-skin coat, and
occasionally stopped to warm his fingers at the lantern. Suddenly
a woman burst into the shed, as if she had been blown in, accompanied by
a shower of rain-drops. It was Signa, wrapped in a man's overcoat
and wearing a pair of boots over her shoes. In time of trouble
Signa had come back to stay with her mistress, for she was the only
one of the maids from whom Alexandra would accept much personal
service. It was three months now since the news of the terrible
thing that had happened in Frank Shabata's orchard had first run
like a fire over the Divide. Signa and Nelse were staying on with
Alexandra until winter.

"Ivar," Signa exclaimed as she wiped the rain from her face, "do
you know where she is?"

The old man put down his cobbler's knife. "Who, the mistress?"

"Yes. She went away about three o'clock. I happened to look out
of the window and saw her going across the fields in her thin dress
and sun-hat. And now this storm has come on. I thought she was
going to Mrs. Hiller's, and I telephoned as soon as the thunder
stopped, but she had not been there. I'm afraid she is out somewhere
and will get her death of cold."

Ivar put on his cap and took up the lantern. "JA, JA, we will see.
I will hitch the boy's mare to the cart and go."

Signa followed him across the wagon-shed to the horses' stable.
She was shivering with cold and excitement. "Where do you suppose
she can be, Ivar?"

The old man lifted a set of single harness carefully from its peg.
"How should I know?"

"But you think she is at the graveyard, don't you?" Signa persisted.
"So do I. Oh, I wish she would be more like herself! I can't
believe it's Alexandra Bergson come to this, with no head about
anything. I have to tell her when to eat and when to go to bed."

"Patience, patience, sister," muttered Ivar as he settled the bit
in the horse's mouth. "When the eyes of the flesh are shut, the
eyes of the spirit are open. She will have a message from those
who are gone, and that will bring her peace. Until then we must
bear with her. You and I are the only ones who have weight with
her. She trusts us."

"How awful it's been these last three months." Signa held the
lantern so that he could see to buckle the straps. "It don't seem
right that we must all be so miserable. Why do we all have to be
punished? Seems to me like good times would never come again."

Ivar expressed himself in a deep sigh, but said nothing. He stooped
and took a sandburr from his toe.

"Ivar," Signa asked suddenly, "will you tell me why you go barefoot?
All the time I lived here in the house I wanted to ask you. Is it
for a penance, or what?"

"No, sister. It is for the indulgence of the body. From my youth
up I have had a strong, rebellious body, and have been subject to
every kind of temptation. Even in age my temptations are prolonged.
It was necessary to make some allowances; and the feet, as I
understand it, are free members. There is no divine prohibition
for them in the Ten Commandments. The hands, the tongue, the eyes,
the heart, all the bodily desires we are commanded to subdue; but
the feet are free members. I indulge them without harm to any
one, even to trampling in filth when my desires are low. They are
quickly cleaned again."

Signa did not laugh. She looked thoughtful as she followed Ivar out
to the wagon-shed and held the shafts up for him, while he backed
in the mare and buckled the hold-backs. "You have been a good
friend to the mistress, Ivar," she murmured.

"And you, God be with you," replied Ivar as he clambered into the
cart and put the lantern under the oilcloth lap-cover. "Now for
a ducking, my girl," he said to the mare, gathering up the reins.

As they emerged from the shed, a stream of water, running off the
thatch, struck the mare on the neck. She tossed her head indignantly,
then struck out bravely on the soft ground, slipping back again and
again as she climbed the hill to the main road. Between the rain
and the darkness Ivar could see very little, so he let Emil's mare
have the rein, keeping her head in the right direction. When the
ground was level, he turned her out of the dirt road upon the sod,
where she was able to trot without slipping.

Before Ivar reached the graveyard, three miles from the house,
the storm had spent itself, and the downpour had died into a soft,
dripping rain. The sky and the land were a dark smoke color, and
seemed to be coming together, like two waves. When Ivar stopped
at the gate and swung out his lantern, a white figure rose from
beside John Bergson's white stone.

The old man sprang to the ground and shuffled toward the gate
calling, "Mistress, mistress!"

Alexandra hurried to meet him and put her hand on his shoulder.
"TYST! Ivar. There's nothing to be worried about. I'm sorry if
I've scared you all. I didn't notice the storm till it was on me,
and I couldn't walk against it. I'm glad you've come. I am so
tired I didn't know how I'd ever get home."

Ivar swung the lantern up so that it shone in her face. "GUD!
You are enough to frighten us, mistress. You look like a drowned
woman. How could you do such a thing!"

Groaning and mumbling he led her out of the gate and helped her
into the cart, wrapping her in the dry blankets on which he had
been sitting.

Alexandra smiled at his solicitude. "Not much use in that, Ivar.
You will only shut the wet in. I don't feel so cold now; but I'm
heavy and numb. I'm glad you came."

Ivar turned the mare and urged her into a sliding trot. Her feet
sent back a continual spatter of mud.

Alexandra spoke to the old man as they jogged along through the
sullen gray twilight of the storm. "Ivar, I think it has done me
good to get cold clear through like this, once. I don't believe
I shall suffer so much any more. When you get so near the dead,
they seem more real than the living. Worldly thoughts leave one.
Ever since Emil died, I've suffered so when it rained. Now that
I've been out in it with him, I shan't dread it. After you once
get cold clear through, the feeling of the rain on you is sweet.
It seems to bring back feelings you had when you were a baby. It
carries you back into the dark, before you were born; you can't
see things, but they come to you, somehow, and you know them and
aren't afraid of them. Maybe it's like that with the dead. If
they feel anything at all, it's the old things, before they were
born, that comfort people like the feeling of their own bed does
when they are little."

"Mistress," said Ivar reproachfully, "those are bad thoughts. The
dead are in Paradise."

Then he hung his head, for he did not believe that Emil was in
Paradise.

When they got home, Signa had a fire burning in the sitting-room
stove. She undressed Alexandra and gave her a hot footbath, while
Ivar made ginger tea in the kitchen. When Alexandra was in bed,
wrapped in hot blankets, Ivar came in with his tea and saw that
she drank it. Signa asked permission to sleep on the slat lounge
outside her door. Alexandra endured their attentions patiently,
but she was glad when they put out the lamp and left her. As she
lay alone in the dark, it occurred to her for the first time that
perhaps she was actually tired of life. All the physical operations
of life seemed difficult and painful. She longed to be free from
her own body, which ached and was so heavy. And longing itself
was heavy: she yearned to be free of that.

As she lay with her eyes closed, she had again, more vividly than
for many years, the old illusion of her girlhood, of being lifted
and carried lightly by some one very strong. He was with her
a long while this time, and carried her very far, and in his arms
she felt free from pain. When he laid her down on her bed again,
she opened her eyes, and, for the first time in her life, she saw
him, saw him clearly, though the room was dark, and his face was
covered. He was standing in the doorway of her room. His white
cloak was thrown over his face, and his head was bent a little
forward. His shoulders seemed as strong as the foundations of the
world. His right arm, bared from the elbow, was dark and gleaming,
like bronze, and she knew at once that it was the arm of the
mightiest of all lovers. She knew at last for whom it was she had
waited, and where he would carry her. That, she told herself, was
very well. Then she went to sleep.

Alexandra wakened in the morning with nothing worse than a hard cold
and a stiff shoulder. She kept her bed for several days, and it
was during that time that she formed a resolution to go to Lincoln
to see Frank Shabata. Ever since she last saw him in the courtroom,
Frank's haggard face and wild eyes had haunted her. The trial had
lasted only three days. Frank had given himself up to the police
in Omaha and pleaded guilty of killing without malice and without
premeditation. The gun was, of course, against him, and the judge
had given him the full sentence,--ten years. He had now been in
the State Penitentiary for a month.

Frank was the only one, Alexandra told herself, for whom anything
could be done. He had been less in the wrong than any of them,
and he was paying the heaviest penalty. She often felt that she
herself had been more to blame than poor Frank. From the time the
Shabatas had first moved to the neighboring farm, she had omitted
no opportunity of throwing Marie and Emil together. Because she
knew Frank was surly about doing little things to help his wife,
she was always sending Emil over to spade or plant or carpenter
for Marie. She was glad to have Emil see as much as possible of an
intelligent, city-bred girl like their neighbor; she noticed that
it improved his manners. She knew that Emil was fond of Marie, but
it had never occurred to her that Emil's feeling might be different
from her own. She wondered at herself now, but she had never
thought of danger in that direction. If Marie had been unmarried,--oh,
yes! Then she would have kept her eyes open. But the mere fact that
she was Shabata's wife, for Alexandra, settled everything. That she was
beautiful, impulsive, barely two years older than Emil, these facts had
had no weight with Alexandra. Emil was a good boy, and only bad boys
ran after married women.

Now, Alexandra could in a measure realize that Marie was, after
all, Marie; not merely a "married woman." Sometimes, when Alexandra
thought of her, it was with an aching tenderness. The moment she
had reached them in the orchard that morning, everything was clear
to her. There was something about those two lying in the grass,
something in the way Marie had settled her cheek on Emil's shoulder,
that told her everything. She wondered then how they could have
helped loving each other; how she could have helped knowing that
they must. Emil's cold, frowning face, the girl's content--Alexandra
had felt awe of them, even in the first shock of her grief.

The idleness of those days in bed, the relaxation of body which
attended them, enabled Alexandra to think more calmly than she had
done since Emil's death. She and Frank, she told herself, were left
out of that group of friends who had been overwhelmed by disaster.
She must certainly see Frank Shabata. Even in the courtroom her
heart had grieved for him. He was in a strange country, he had no
kinsmen or friends, and in a moment he had ruined his life. Being
what he was, she felt, Frank could not have acted otherwise. She
could understand his behavior more easily than she could understand
Marie's. Yes, she must go to Lincoln to see Frank Shabata.

The day after Emil's funeral, Alexandra had written to Carl Linstrum;
a single page of notepaper, a bare statement of what had happened.
She was not a woman who could write much about such a thing, and
about her own feelings she could never write very freely. She knew
that Carl was away from post-offices, prospecting somewhere in the
interior. Before he started he had written her where he expected
to go, but her ideas about Alaska were vague. As the weeks went
by and she heard nothing from him, it seemed to Alexandra that
her heart grew hard against Carl. She began to wonder whether she
would not do better to finish her life alone. What was left of
life seemed unimportant.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Part V, titled "Alexandra," begins three months later. The news of Emil's and Marie's deaths has spread "like a fire" throughout the whole Divide . Signa, who has moved back in with Alexandra to help her out during the difficult period, rushes into the barn to speak with Ivar, who sits there mending a harness and reciting the 101st psalm. (Head on over to "Shout Outs.") A rainstorm is blowing outside. Frantic, Signa asks Ivar if he knows where Alexandra is. She saw her leaving the house in a thin dress and a sun hat, earlier, but now it's started to rain and she's afraid she's caught in it. As Ivar goes about hitching a horse to the wagon, Signa speculates excitedly about Alexandra's whereabouts. She figures she's headed to the graveyard. Ivar and Signa continue to talk about Alexandra. Signa talks about how hard it's been, having to tell her mistress when to eat and sleep, and she wonders why they're all being punished like this. Ivar assures her that Alexandra will find peace when she receives a spiritual message from those who have passed on. Signa asks Ivar why he always goes around barefoot. He tells her that the feet are "free members," unrestricted by God's law, and while he keeps the rest of his body away from temptation, he chooses to indulge his feet . If they get dirty, it's easy to clean them again. Signa thinks about what Ivar has said, and tells him what a good friend he's been to Alexandra all these years. Ivar gets in the wagon and heads out into the rain, on his way to the graveyard. When he arrives, Alexandra rises up from beside her father's grave. Alexandra hurries to meets him in the wagon, and assures him that she's fine, that she just got caught in the rainstorm. She joins Ivar in the wagon and they ride off. As they ride, Alexandra explains that she feels better after being out in the rain and getting wet down the bone. It makes her think of what it must be like to be an unborn baby, still in its mother's womb. She wonders whether dead people experience something similar, if they can feel anything at all. Ivar doesn't like that talk, and reminds her that the dead are safe in Paradise. He doesn't say it, but Ivar doesn't believe Emil is in paradise. When they get home, Signa undresses Alexandra and wraps her in warm blankets, while Ivar brings her some ginger tea. Alexandra waits patiently until they have finished taking care of her, and is glad to be alone again. As she lies alone in bed, she realizes that she might be tire of living. She longs to be free of her body, and longs to be free from longing. The fantasy returns to her, of being carried away by a strong man's arms. When he returns her to her bed, she awakens. She notices his right arm is visible, gleaming like bronze. All of sudden, she is aware that he is "the mightiest of lovers" . At that moment, the narrator writes, Alexandra knows whom she's been waiting for and where he will take her. Alexandra is in bed with a cold for the next few days. In that time, she resolves to visit Frank Shabata at the state penitentiary in Lincoln. Frank has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Alexandra figures that Frank is the only one who can really be helped. She thinks he's paying the biggest price, even though he is the least to blame of them all. Alexandra sees herself as more to blame than Frank; she took every opportunity to send Emil over to do odd things around the house at the Shabatas'. She knew Emil liked Marie, but she never thought that he would feel any different than she did about Marie. While she's lying in bed, Alexandra also recalls the day when she saw Emil and Marie lying together in the grass, Marie with a look of calm and content, Emil with his frown. She still feels an "aching tenderness" for Marie, and a sense of "awe" for both of them . She gets it that they couldn't help but love one another. She remembers Frank in court, too. She had felt bad for him, knowing that he was in a foreign country, with no friends and family, and that his life was now over. She feels he couldn't have acted otherwise, being the kind of person that he is. She has an easier time understanding Frank's actions, for instance, than those of Marie. Before the chapter closes, the narrator steps back in to give us some more backstory. Alexandra wrote a letter to Carl Linstrum after Emil's funeral, explaining in factual terms what had happened. She knew that he was likely far away from any post offices, while prospecting in Alaska. Still, as the weeks go by with no reply, it seems to Alexandra that she grows colder and colder toward Carl. Maybe, she thinks, it would be better if she spent the rest of her days alone.


prompt:
Chapter: Late in the afternoon of a brilliant October day, Alexandra Bergson,
dressed in a black suit and traveling-hat, alighted at the Burlington
depot in Lincoln. She drove to the Lindell Hotel, where she had
stayed two years ago when she came up for Emil's Commencement. In
spite of her usual air of sureness and self-possession, Alexandra
felt ill at ease in hotels, and she was glad, when she went to the
clerk's desk to register, that there were not many people in the
lobby. She had her supper early, wearing her hat and black jacket
down to the dining-room and carrying her handbag. After supper
she went out for a walk.

It was growing dark when she reached the university campus. She
did not go into the grounds, but walked slowly up and down the
stone walk outside the long iron fence, looking through at the young
men who were running from one building to another, at the lights
shining from the armory and the library. A squad of cadets were
going through their drill behind the armory, and the commands of
their young officer rang out at regular intervals, so sharp and
quick that Alexandra could not understand them. Two stalwart girls
came down the library steps and out through one of the iron gates.
As they passed her, Alexandra was pleased to hear them speaking
Bohemian to each other. Every few moments a boy would come running
down the flagged walk and dash out into the street as if he were
rushing to announce some wonder to the world. Alexandra felt a
great tenderness for them all. She wished one of them would stop
and speak to her. She wished she could ask them whether they had
known Emil.

As she lingered by the south gate she actually did encounter one
of the boys. He had on his drill cap and was swinging his books
at the end of a long strap. It was dark by this time; he did not
see her and ran against her. He snatched off his cap and stood
bareheaded and panting. "I'm awfully sorry," he said in a bright,
clear voice, with a rising inflection, as if he expected her to
say something.

"Oh, it was my fault!" said Alexandra eagerly. "Are you an old
student here, may I ask?"

"No, ma'am. I'm a Freshie, just off the farm. Cherry County.
Were you hunting somebody?"

"No, thank you. That is--" Alexandra wanted to detain him. "That
is, I would like to find some of my brother's friends. He graduated
two years ago."

"Then you'd have to try the Seniors, wouldn't you? Let's see; I
don't know any of them yet, but there'll be sure to be some of them
around the library. That red building, right there," he pointed.

"Thank you, I'll try there," said Alexandra lingeringly.

"Oh, that's all right! Good-night." The lad clapped his cap on
his head and ran straight down Eleventh Street. Alexandra looked
after him wistfully.

She walked back to her hotel unreasonably comforted. "What a nice
voice that boy had, and how polite he was. I know Emil was always
like that to women." And again, after she had undressed and was
standing in her nightgown, brushing her long, heavy hair by the
electric light, she remembered him and said to herself, "I don't
think I ever heard a nicer voice than that boy had. I hope he
will get on well here. Cherry County; that's where the hay is so
fine, and the coyotes can scratch down to water."

At nine o'clock the next morning Alexandra presented herself
at the warden's office in the State Penitentiary. The warden was
a German, a ruddy, cheerful-looking man who had formerly been a
harness-maker. Alexandra had a letter to him from the German banker
in Hanover. As he glanced at the letter, Mr. Schwartz put away
his pipe.

"That big Bohemian, is it? Sure, he's gettin' along fine," said
Mr. Schwartz cheerfully.

"I am glad to hear that. I was afraid he might be quarrelsome and
get himself into more trouble. Mr. Schwartz, if you have time, I
would like to tell you a little about Frank Shabata, and why I am
interested in him."

The warden listened genially while she told him briefly something
of Frank's history and character, but he did not seem to find
anything unusual in her account.

"Sure, I'll keep an eye on him. We'll take care of him all right,"
he said, rising. "You can talk to him here, while I go to see to
things in the kitchen. I'll have him sent in. He ought to be done
washing out his cell by this time. We have to keep 'em clean, you
know."

The warden paused at the door, speaking back over his shoulder to
a pale young man in convicts' clothes who was seated at a desk in
the corner, writing in a big ledger.

"Bertie, when 1037 is brought in, you just step out and give this
lady a chance to talk."

The young man bowed his head and bent over his ledger again.

When Mr. Schwartz disappeared, Alexandra thrust her black-edged
handkerchief nervously into her handbag. Coming out on the streetcar
she had not had the least dread of meeting Frank. But since she
had been here the sounds and smells in the corridor, the look of the
men in convicts' clothes who passed the glass door of the warden's
office, affected her unpleasantly.

The warden's clock ticked, the young convict's pen scratched
busily in the big book, and his sharp shoulders were shaken every
few seconds by a loose cough which he tried to smother. It was easy
to see that he was a sick man. Alexandra looked at him timidly,
but he did not once raise his eyes. He wore a white shirt under
his striped jacket, a high collar, and a necktie, very carefully
tied. His hands were thin and white and well cared for, and he had
a seal ring on his little finger. When he heard steps approaching
in the corridor, he rose, blotted his book, put his pen in the rack,
and left the room without raising his eyes. Through the door he
opened a guard came in, bringing Frank Shabata.

"You the lady that wanted to talk to 1037? Here he is. Be on your
good behavior, now. He can set down, lady," seeing that Alexandra
remained standing. "Push that white button when you're through
with him, and I'll come."

The guard went out and Alexandra and Frank were left alone.

Alexandra tried not to see his hideous clothes. She tried to look
straight into his face, which she could scarcely believe was his.
It was already bleached to a chalky gray. His lips were colorless,
his fine teeth looked yellowish. He glanced at Alexandra sullenly,
blinked as if he had come from a dark place, and one eyebrow twitched
continually. She felt at once that this interview was a terrible
ordeal to him. His shaved head, showing the conformation of his
skull, gave him a criminal look which he had not had during the
trial.

Alexandra held out her hand. "Frank," she said, her eyes filling
suddenly, "I hope you'll let me be friendly with you. I understand
how you did it. I don't feel hard toward you. They were more to
blame than you."

Frank jerked a dirty blue handkerchief from his trousers pocket.
He had begun to cry. He turned away from Alexandra. "I never
did mean to do not'ing to dat woman," he muttered. "I never mean
to do not'ing to dat boy. I ain't had not'ing ag'in' dat boy. I
always like dat boy fine. An' then I find him--" He stopped. The
feeling went out of his face and eyes. He dropped into a chair
and sat looking stolidly at the floor, his hands hanging loosely
between his knees, the handkerchief lying across his striped leg.
He seemed to have stirred up in his mind a disgust that had paralyzed
his faculties.

"I haven't come up here to blame you, Frank. I think they were
more to blame than you." Alexandra, too, felt benumbed.

Frank looked up suddenly and stared out of the office window. "I
guess dat place all go to hell what I work so hard on," he said
with a slow, bitter smile. "I not care a damn." He stopped and
rubbed the palm of his hand over the light bristles on his head
with annoyance. "I no can t'ink without my hair," he complained.
"I forget English. We not talk here, except swear."

Alexandra was bewildered. Frank seemed to have undergone a change
of personality. There was scarcely anything by which she could
recognize her handsome Bohemian neighbor. He seemed, somehow, not
altogether human. She did not know what to say to him.

"You do not feel hard to me, Frank?" she asked at last.

Frank clenched his fist and broke out in excitement. "I not feel
hard at no woman. I tell you I not that kind-a man. I never hit
my wife. No, never I hurt her when she devil me something awful!"
He struck his fist down on the warden's desk so hard that he
afterward stroked it absently. A pale pink crept over his neck and
face. "Two, t'ree years I know dat woman don' care no more 'bout
me, Alexandra Bergson. I know she after some other man. I know
her, oo-oo! An' I ain't never hurt her. I never would-a done
dat, if I ain't had dat gun along. I don' know what in hell make
me take dat gun. She always say I ain't no man to carry gun. If
she been in dat house, where she ought-a been--But das a foolish
talk."

Frank rubbed his head and stopped suddenly, as he had stopped
before. Alexandra felt that there was something strange in the way
he chilled off, as if something came up in him that extinguished
his power of feeling or thinking.

"Yes, Frank," she said kindly. "I know you never meant to hurt
Marie."

Frank smiled at her queerly. His eyes filled slowly with tears.
"You know, I most forgit dat woman's name. She ain't got no name
for me no more. I never hate my wife, but dat woman what make me
do dat--Honest to God, but I hate her! I no man to fight. I
don' want to kill no boy and no woman. I not care how many men
she take under dat tree. I no care for not'ing but dat fine boy
I kill, Alexandra Bergson. I guess I go crazy sure 'nough."

Alexandra remembered the little yellow cane she had found in Frank's
clothes-closet. She thought of how he had come to this country a
gay young fellow, so attractive that the prettiest Bohemian girl
in Omaha had run away with him. It seemed unreasonable that life
should have landed him in such a place as this. She blamed Marie
bitterly. And why, with her happy, affectionate nature, should
she have brought destruction and sorrow to all who had loved her,
even to poor old Joe Tovesky, the uncle who used to carry her about
so proudly when she was a little girl? That was the strangest thing
of all. Was there, then, something wrong in being warm-hearted
and impulsive like that? Alexandra hated to think so. But there
was Emil, in the Norwegian graveyard at home, and here was Frank
Shabata. Alexandra rose and took him by the hand.

"Frank Shabata, I am never going to stop trying until I get you
pardoned. I'll never give the Governor any peace. I know I can
get you out of this place."

Frank looked at her distrustfully, but he gathered confidence from
her face. "Alexandra," he said earnestly, "if I git out-a here,
I not trouble dis country no more. I go back where I come from;
see my mother."

Alexandra tried to withdraw her hand, but Frank held on to it
nervously. He put out his finger and absently touched a button
on her black jacket. "Alexandra," he said in a low tone, looking
steadily at the button, "you ain' t'ink I use dat girl awful bad
before--"

"No, Frank. We won't talk about that," Alexandra said, pressing
his hand. "I can't help Emil now, so I'm going to do what I can
for you. You know I don't go away from home often, and I came up
here on purpose to tell you this."

The warden at the glass door looked in inquiringly. Alexandra
nodded, and he came in and touched the white button on his desk.
The guard appeared, and with a sinking heart Alexandra saw Frank
led away down the corridor. After a few words with Mr. Schwartz,
she left the prison and made her way to the street-car. She had
refused with horror the warden's cordial invitation to "go through
the institution." As the car lurched over its uneven roadbed, back
toward Lincoln, Alexandra thought of how she and Frank had been
wrecked by the same storm and of how, although she could come out
into the sunlight, she had not much more left in her life than
he. She remembered some lines from a poem she had liked in her
schooldays:--

   Henceforth the world will only be
   A wider prison-house to me,--

and sighed. A disgust of life weighed upon her heart; some such
feeling as had twice frozen Frank Shabata's features while they
talked together. She wished she were back on the Divide.

When Alexandra entered her hotel, the clerk held up one finger
and beckoned to her. As she approached his desk, he handed her a
telegram. Alexandra took the yellow envelope and looked at it in
perplexity, then stepped into the elevator without opening it. As
she walked down the corridor toward her room, she reflected that
she was, in a manner, immune from evil tidings. On reaching her
room she locked the door, and sitting down on a chair by the dresser,
opened the telegram. It was from Hanover, and it read:--

   Arrived Hanover last night. Shall wait here until you come.
   Please hurry. CARL LINSTRUM.

Alexandra put her head down on the dresser and burst into tears.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Alexandra arrives in Lincoln, where she's going to visit Frank Shabata in prison. She decides to go to the university campus, where she last was for Emil's commencement. As she watches the students going about their lives, she wishes some of them would stop to talk to her and tell her about Emil. In fact, one of them does stop to talk, when he accidentally runs into her. She asks him if he's an old student at the university. He tells her he's in his Freshman year. She explains that she's looking for her brother's friends, and he suggests that she look for some of the Seniors in the library. Alexandra goes back to her hotel feeling a little better, although she didn't find anyone who knew Emil. As she gets ready for bed, she thinks about the boy she met on the university campus, about how polite he was, just like Emil, and hopes that he does well in school. The next morning, Alexandra shows up at the penitentiary. She talks to the warden, a cheerful German man by the name of Mr. Schwarz. Alexandra tells the warden Frank's story, but he seems unfazed. He tells her that Frank is doing fine in prison. He sends for him to be brought to speak with Alexandra. When she's alone, and has a chance to take in her surroundings, Alexandra starts to feel nervous for the first time since arriving in Lincoln. A guard brings Frank in. Alexandra hardly recognizes him. His face looks grey, his lips have lost their color, and his once gleaming white teeth look yellow. Alexandra holds out her hand to shake his, assuring him that she has no hard feelings toward him. She tells him that they were more to blame than he was. Frank starts to cry. He tries to say that he never meant either of them any harm, but then he found them... Frank breaks off, as if paralyzed. To Alexandra, it seems like Frank has become a totally different person. He doesn't even seem human. When she talks, trying to assure him again that she doesn't blame him, he seems agitated. He complains that he can't think straight, that he's forgetting his English since coming to prison. Alexandra asks him again if he has any hard feelings toward her. He strikes the table, and starts to rant. He talks about how he never hit his wife, even when he knew all along that she didn't care about him anymore and was seeing another man. If he hadn't taken the gun with him that day, none of this would have happened. Then he breaks off his speech, just like before. Alexandra tells him that she knew he never meant to hurt Marie, and Frank starts to rave again. He tells her that he hates Marie for making him do what he did. As Frank talks, Alexandra remembers Frank's yellow cane. She remembers Marie's story about how Frank, the dashing young man, who got the prettiest girl in all of Omaha. She can't help but blame Marie. But then, she thinks, is there something wrong in being "warm-hearted and impulsive," like Marie was ? Alexandra stands up and offers Frank her hand, again. She tells him that she will not stop until she gets him pardoned by the governor. Franks hears this, and tells her that the first thing he'd do is leave the country and go back to see his mother. Then, without letting go of her hand, Frank starts to ask her whether she thinks he treated Marie badly all those years... Alexandra interrupts him. She's not there to talk about that, she says. Since she can't help Emil anymore, she's resolved to help him. Alexandra leaves the prison. In the streetcar, she thinks how she and Frank have both been destroyed by what's happened. Even though she's free, life for her has also become a prison. She remembers two lines from a poem she used to like as a girl ("The Prisoner of Chillon," by Lord Byron--check out "Shout Outs" for more). She feels disgusted by life. When she gets back to the hotel, the clerk gives her a telegram. It's from Carl. He's arrived in Hanover and is waiting for her to get back. Reading the telegram in her hotel room, Alexandra bursts into tears.


prompt:
Chapter: The next afternoon Carl and Alexandra were walking across the fields
from Mrs. Hiller's. Alexandra had left Lincoln after midnight,
and Carl had met her at the Hanover station early in the morning.
After they reached home, Alexandra had gone over to Mrs. Hiller's
to leave a little present she had bought for her in the city. They
stayed at the old lady's door but a moment, and then came out to
spend the rest of the afternoon in the sunny fields.

Alexandra had taken off her black traveling suit and put on
a white dress; partly because she saw that her black clothes made
Carl uncomfortable and partly because she felt oppressed by them
herself. They seemed a little like the prison where she had worn
them yesterday, and to be out of place in the open fields. Carl
had changed very little. His cheeks were browner and fuller. He
looked less like a tired scholar than when he went away a year ago,
but no one, even now, would have taken him for a man of business.
His soft, lustrous black eyes, his whimsical smile, would be less
against him in the Klondike than on the Divide. There are always
dreamers on the frontier.

Carl and Alexandra had been talking since morning. Her letter had
never reached him. He had first learned of her misfortune from
a San Francisco paper, four weeks old, which he had picked up in
a saloon, and which contained a brief account of Frank Shabata's
trial. When he put down the paper, he had already made up his
mind that he could reach Alexandra as quickly as a letter could;
and ever since he had been on the way; day and night, by the fastest
boats and trains he could catch. His steamer had been held back
two days by rough weather.

As they came out of Mrs. Hiller's garden they took up their talk
again where they had left it.

"But could you come away like that, Carl, without arranging things?
Could you just walk off and leave your business?" Alexandra asked.

Carl laughed. "Prudent Alexandra! You see, my dear, I happen to
have an honest partner. I trust him with everything. In fact,
it's been his enterprise from the beginning, you know. I'm in it
only because he took me in. I'll have to go back in the spring.
Perhaps you will want to go with me then. We haven't turned up
millions yet, but we've got a start that's worth following. But
this winter I'd like to spend with you. You won't feel that we
ought to wait longer, on Emil's account, will you, Alexandra?"

Alexandra shook her head. "No, Carl; I don't feel that way about
it. And surely you needn't mind anything Lou and Oscar say now.
They are much angrier with me about Emil, now, than about you.
They say it was all my fault. That I ruined him by sending him to
college."

"No, I don't care a button for Lou or Oscar. The moment I knew
you were in trouble, the moment I thought you might need me, it all
looked different. You've always been a triumphant kind of person."
Carl hesitated, looking sidewise at her strong, full figure. "But
you do need me now, Alexandra?"

She put her hand on his arm. "I needed you terribly when it
happened, Carl. I cried for you at night. Then everything seemed
to get hard inside of me, and I thought perhaps I should never care
for you again. But when I got your telegram yesterday, then--then
it was just as it used to be. You are all I have in the world,
you know."

Carl pressed her hand in silence. They were passing the Shabatas'
empty house now, but they avoided the orchard path and took one
that led over by the pasture pond.

"Can you understand it, Carl?" Alexandra murmured. "I have had
nobody but Ivar and Signa to talk to. Do talk to me. Can you
understand it? Could you have believed that of Marie Tovesky? I
would have been cut to pieces, little by little, before I would
have betrayed her trust in me!"

Carl looked at the shining spot of water before them. "Maybe she
was cut to pieces, too, Alexandra. I am sure she tried hard; they
both did. That was why Emil went to Mexico, of course. And he was
going away again, you tell me, though he had only been home three
weeks. You remember that Sunday when I went with Emil up to
the French Church fair? I thought that day there was some kind
of feeling, something unusual, between them. I meant to talk to
you about it. But on my way back I met Lou and Oscar and got so
angry that I forgot everything else. You mustn't be hard on them,
Alexandra. Sit down here by the pond a minute. I want to tell
you something."

They sat down on the grass-tufted bank and Carl told her how he had
seen Emil and Marie out by the pond that morning, more than a year
ago, and how young and charming and full of grace they had seemed
to him. "It happens like that in the world sometimes, Alexandra,"
he added earnestly. "I've seen it before. There are women who
spread ruin around them through no fault of theirs, just by being
too beautiful, too full of life and love. They can't help it.
People come to them as people go to a warm fire in winter. I used
to feel that in her when she was a little girl. Do you remember
how all the Bohemians crowded round her in the store that day, when
she gave Emil her candy? You remember those yellow sparks in her
eyes?"

Alexandra sighed. "Yes. People couldn't help loving her. Poor
Frank does, even now, I think; though he's got himself in such
a tangle that for a long time his love has been bitterer than his
hate. But if you saw there was anything wrong, you ought to have
told me, Carl."

Carl took her hand and smiled patiently. "My dear, it was something
one felt in the air, as you feel the spring coming, or a storm in
summer. I didn't SEE anything. Simply, when I was with those two
young things, I felt my blood go quicker, I felt--how shall I say
it?--an acceleration of life. After I got away, it was all too
delicate, too intangible, to write about."

Alexandra looked at him mournfully. "I try to be more liberal
about such things than I used to be. I try to realize that we are
not all made alike. Only, why couldn't it have been Raoul Marcel,
or Jan Smirka? Why did it have to be my boy?"

"Because he was the best there was, I suppose. They were both the
best you had here."

The sun was dropping low in the west when the two friends rose and
took the path again. The straw-stacks were throwing long shadows,
the owls were flying home to the prairie-dog town. When they came
to the corner where the pastures joined, Alexandra's twelve young
colts were galloping in a drove over the brow of the hill.

"Carl," said Alexandra, "I should like to go up there with you in
the spring. I haven't been on the water since we crossed the ocean,
when I was a little girl. After we first came out here I used
to dream sometimes about the shipyard where father worked, and a
little sort of inlet, full of masts." Alexandra paused. After a
moment's thought she said, "But you would never ask me to go away
for good, would you?"

"Of course not, my dearest. I think I know how you feel about this
country as well as you do yourself." Carl took her hand in both
his own and pressed it tenderly.

"Yes, I still feel that way, though Emil is gone. When I was on
the train this morning, and we got near Hanover, I felt something
like I did when I drove back with Emil from the river that time,
in the dry year. I was glad to come back to it. I've lived here
a long time. There is great peace here, Carl, and freedom....
I thought when I came out of that prison, where poor Frank is,
that I should never feel free again. But I do, here." Alexandra
took a deep breath and looked off into the red west.

"You belong to the land," Carl murmured, "as you have always said.
Now more than ever."

"Yes, now more than ever. You remember what you once said about
the graveyard, and the old story writing itself over? Only it is
we who write it, with the best we have."

They paused on the last ridge of the pasture, overlooking the
house and the windmill and the stables that marked the site of John
Bergson's homestead. On every side the brown waves of the earth
rolled away to meet the sky.

"Lou and Oscar can't see those things," said Alexandra suddenly.
"Suppose I do will my land to their children, what difference will
that make? The land belongs to the future, Carl; that's the way
it seems to me. How many of the names on the county clerk's plat
will be there in fifty years? I might as well try to will the
sunset over there to my brother's children. We come and go, but
the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand
it are the people who own it--for a little while."

Carl looked at her wonderingly. She was still gazing into the west,
and in her face there was that exalted serenity that sometimes came
to her at moments of deep feeling. The level rays of the sinking
sun shone in her clear eyes.

"Why are you thinking of such things now, Alexandra?"

"I had a dream before I went to Lincoln--But I will tell you about
that afterward, after we are married. It will never come true,
now, in the way I thought it might." She took Carl's arm and they
walked toward the gate. "How many times we have walked this path
together, Carl. How many times we will walk it again! Does it seem
to you like coming back to your own place? Do you feel at peace
with the world here? I think we shall be very happy. I haven't
any fears. I think when friends marry, they are safe. We don't
suffer like--those young ones." Alexandra ended with a sigh.

They had reached the gate. Before Carl opened it, he drew Alexandra
to him and kissed her softly, on her lips and on her eyes.

She leaned heavily on his shoulder. "I am tired," she murmured.
"I have been very lonely, Carl."

They went into the house together, leaving the Divide behind them,
under the evening star. Fortunate country, that is one day to
receive hearts like Alexandra's into its bosom, to give them out
again in the yellow wheat, in the rustling corn, in the shining
eyes of youth!

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Alexandra is walking with Carl across the fields. After receiving his telegram in Lincoln, she left around midnight, arriving back inHanover in the early morning. Alexandra has taken off her black travelling suit and is wearing a white dress. Carl looks more or less the same, only a little more tanned. Still, he hardly looks like a businessman. "There will always be dreamers on the frontier," the narrator muses . It turns out Carl had never received her letter. He heard about Frank's trial when he read about it in a newspaper. Since then, he's been on his way to Hanover. Alexandra asks whether Carl could just up and leave his business. He reassures her that he trusts his partner to manage everything. He'll have to go back in the spring, and maybe she'll come with him this time. He's even started to make some money. He asks her whether she wants to wait longer, because of the recent events. She says it makes no difference to her; and Carl doesn't need to worry about Lou and Oscar, since they're angrier now about Emil, claiming that it's Alexandra's fault for sending him to college. Carl assures her that he's not worried. He knew that she needed him there, so he came for her. Alexandra tells him how much she needed him when Emil was killed, and then how she thought she should spend the rest of her days alone. When she got his telegram, everything changed. He's all she has in the world, now. When Alexandra tells Carl how shocked she is by Marie's betrayal of her trust, Carl suggests that it might have been harder for Marie than Alexandra thinks. He tells her how he noticed something strange between Marie and Emil when he went with Emil to the fair at the French church. He also tells her how he saw the two of them at the duck pond, early that one morning. Some women, he tells her, spread ruin just by being "too beautiful, too full of life and love" . She shouldn't be so hard on Marie. Alexandra says she tries, but she still doesn't understand why it had to be Emil, and not one of the other boys. Because he was the best, and she was the best, he tells her. Maybe they were too good for the world. They continue walking. Alexandra tells Carl that she wants to come with him to Alaska in the spring. But she's not sure she wants to leave for good. When she left the prison, she tells him, she felt like she'd never be free again. But she does feel free, there on the Divide. Carl tells her that she belongs to the land, just as she always has. Alexandra agrees. She asks Carl if he remembers something he said when they visited the graveyard, about the same human stories, repeating over and over. Well, Alexandra says, they are the ones who write the stories. Lou and Oscar don't understand, she continues. They're not the ones who own the land. They belong to the land. The ones who love and understand the land are the ones who get to own it for a while. Carl asks her why she's thinking about all this. She tells him that she had a dream before she went to visit Frank in Lincoln. She says she'll tell him all about it when they're married. She realizes now that the dream will never come true, at least not in the way she thought it could. Carl kisses her. She leans on his shoulder, telling him how tired and lonely she's been all this time. They go inside, leaving the Divide behind them.