O Pioneers!

The narrative flashes forward three months. Signa is worried that she can’t find Alexandra during a storm, so Ivar rides off to find her. Alexandra is in the cemetery visiting her father’s grave. Alexandra tells Ivar that the rain comforts her because she envisions it nurturing her dead loved ones. Ivar assures her that Emil is in heaven, even though he privately doesn’t believe this.

Alexandra wishes to be free of pain. She decides to visit Frank in prison, where he is serving a 10-year sentence after giving himself up to the police in Omaha. Alexandra feels empathy for Frank:

[She] 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 (103).

Alexandra never questioned Emil’s friendship with Marie because Marie was married, but now she realizes that she didn’t see Marie in her totality. After Emil’s funeral, she wrote a letter to Carl informing him about what had happened.