- The chapter opens with Alexandra's observations on Carl. He doesn't seemed to have changed as much as you would expect; his clothes are still a little odd, and he still seems withdrawn, sensitive and unhappy.
- Later on the same evening of his arrival, Carl and Alexandra are chatting out in the flower garden. He asks her how she's managed to be so successful.
- Alexandra tells him that the land did it all; it played its own "joke" on them by being poor, and then turned around and made her rich (2.4.4). All she had to do was borrow and save until she had bought up all this land. Eventually, she decided to build her house, but really, she says, she built it for Emil.
- Alexandra goes on to say how different Emil is from the rest of the family. In some ways, he's just like any American boy, who went to an American university. In other ways, though, he is like her father, very Swedish, very "violent in his feelings" (2.4.6).
- Carl asks whether Emil will stay and help her farm, and Alexandra proclaims that Emil will do whatever he wishes. He's been talking about law, or buying up his own land.
- And what about Lou and Oscar? Well, Alexandra tells him, they have their own land and they're doing well, though they don't approve of Alexandra's ways. They think she's too independent, she figures. But she's not likely to change, since she's been thinking for herself all these years.
- The conversation turns to the old country, before farming really took hold in the Divide.
- Carl admits that he prefers the "wild old beast," the country that gave everyone so much grief and which has been haunting him since he left (2.4.11).
- Alexandra agrees. She still remembers when the graveyard was just another part of the prairie, but now, as Carl says, the stories have started to repeat themselves again among the young people.
- Alexandra is reminded of young Marie Tovesky, who ran away from the convent school at 18 and married Frank Shabata. She's glad they moved to the Linstrums' old farm. Alexandra is happy to have her near. She admits that she envies young people, like Marie.
- Carl asks about Frank. Alexandra calls him "one of these wild fellows," who is jealous about everything, especially his wife. Marie is outgoing and everyone likes her, which makes life difficult for Frank.
- Alexandra says she tries to help by making Frank feel like he's really important. Carl finds it hard to believe that she's all that good at it. She admits that she only does it for Marie's sake.
- Alexandra only has good things to say about Marie; the girl can work all day and still have energy to go to a Bohemian wedding and dance all night. Alexandra never had that kind of fire.
- Carl wants to see his old place, after all. He's scared to see it, to see something that reminds him of himself. He tells Alexandra that he wouldn't have come at all if he didn't really want to see her.
- She asks him why he's so unhappy with himself.
- He breaks it down for her—he hates his job. There's no future in engraving. He planned the whole way to try and convince her that he's a big shot, but he can't help telling her the truth. He's a failure, he says. He's worked all these years but couldn't even buy a cornfield on the Divide.
- Alexandra doesn't agree. Carl has had his freedom, and Alexandra would have rather had that than all her land.
- Freedom, Carl says, often means not being needed, being an anonymous member of the masses, making money just to survive and pay a rent that's way too high. She would never want that.
- But their situation isn't all that much better, Alexandra replies. People out on the Divide become stagnant, "hard and heavy," and they lose the ability to think about higher things (2.4.24).
- She wishes that Emil could have some of the freedom that Carl has had, to go to the world beyond the cornfields. And, she adds, if that world out there didn't exist, she wouldn't see a point in going on.
- When Carl wonders aloud why it is that she feels that way, Alexandra tells the story of Carrie Jensen, the daughter of one of her farmhands, who got tired of the cornfields, grew unhappy, and tried to kill herself.
- Her parents sent her to Iowa to visit some family, and she returned more cheerful than ever before. Just seeing the world beyond Hanover gave her a sense that there was something to live for. Alexandra feels the same way.