How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
In all the years they had lived together it had never happened till now that she had shamed him before others. (1.3.3.14)
Living on the prairies has changed things in Beret and Per Hansa's marriage. For starters, Beret is no longer afraid of shaming him in front of other people, probably because she harbors such a deep frustration with him for forcing her to move to this awful place.
Quote #2
During the days that followed, words were few and distant between Per Hansa and his wife. (1.4.11.46)
Beret and Per Hansa fight a lot more on the prairies than they did in Norway. But in the end, Hansa refuses to let anything come between him and the kingdom he wants to build for himself. In times of conflict, he and Beret just stop talking to one another.
Quote #3
Per Hansa sat in his hut, ate, drank, puffed at his pipe, and followed his wife with his eyes in vague alarm. (1.6.5.6)
Hansa gets frustrated with Beret a lot. But he also worries about her. He knows that something has snapped in her mind since moving to the prairies, and he doesn't have any clue how to talk to her about it.
Quote #4
…Useless even to dream of such a thing! Here was poor Beret, pottering helplessly about—he must think only of her. (1.6.5.11)
There are times when Per Hansa is willing to think only about Beret's happiness, but these are few and far between.
Quote #5
She had accepted the hand of Per Hansa because she must—although no law had compelled her; she and he were with child by him out of wedlock. (1.6.8.8)
The fact is that Beret and Per Hansa married out of necessity as much as love. In other words, Beret became pregnant before she and Per Hansa got married: bow chicka bow bow. So now she's convinced that her sin of having sex before marriage is destined to haunt her for the rest of her life.
Quote #6
She had bound herself inseparably to this man; now she was but a hindrance to him, like chains around his feet. (1.6.9.7)
Beret gets frustrated with Per Hansa a lot. But she also feels guilty for holding him back all the time. She knows that all he wants is to work his land and prove himself to the world. But she knows she'll never be happy living the kind of life he wants.
Quote #7
Per Hansa stood for a long time looking at his wife, hardly daring to believe what he saw. She slept peacefully; a small bundle lay beside her, from which peeped out a tiny, red, wrinkled face. (1.6.12.1)
Per Hansa has some moments of real tenderness with Beret. The unfortunate thing is that Beret is either asleep or absent for many of these moments, so Per Hansa tends to experience them alone.
Quote #8
And that Sunday afternoon he had married the couple! (2.3.2.6)
Tönseten is wracked with guilt over the fact that he performed a marriage ceremony on the Norwegian settlement, even though he's not a proper minister. He plans on confessing his sin to the new minister and hopes he won't have to burn in hell for what he's done.
Quote #9
You see, this fellow, Johannes Mörstad, and his wife, they couldn't wait any longer—they should have been married long before, for that matter. And so they pounced upon me! (2.3.2.56)
Tönseten tries to blame the young couple he married for forcing him into sin. But little does he know that the new minister doesn't really care who performed the marriage ceremonies in the past. The fact is that it's better for people to be married by a non-minister than to live in sin and not marry at all, according to this man.
Quote #10
There shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. (2.3.4.45)
The minister listens patiently to Per Hansa's description of life with Beret. At the end of the day, he sides with per Hansa and says it's the wife's duty to go wherever her husband's ambition takes them. This is a pretty biased view of the situation, but one that would have been pretty common in Rölvaag's time.