- Alexandra finally decides it's time to take Carl over to his old homestead, and pay a visit to Marie Shabata.
- As they're on their way over, Alexandra says how nice it's been to have a friend living at his old place again.
- Carl hopes it isn't the same as having him there. This surprises Alexandra, who denies that it's been the same, and asks whether he would like her to have been even lonelier all these years.
- Carl continues to flirt a little, saying that he's glad the path between their two homesteads has been worn down by friends with "more pressing errands" than Marie has had (2.6.5).
- Abruptly, he asks her whether she's disappointed by his return.
- Alexandra says it's better than she could have imagined, since she feared all along that he would have become so much more sophisticated than her and the other people still on the Divide.
- Carl struggles to tell Alexandra something, saying he finds it easy to be frank with her about everything except herself. Finally, he manages to tell her how much she "astonishes" him (2.6.9). He asks whether she knows when people admire her.
- She blushes. She knows that she has "pleased" him, but that's about as much as he can get out of her (2.6.10).
- Carl isn't buying it, but he gives up for now.
- They arrive at the Shabatas' place, but Marie's nowhere to be seen. As Carl remembers watering the orchard, Alexandra catches sight of Marie.
- Marie hugs Alexandra and invites them in.
- Alexandra asks Marie to take Carl around the orchard, instead.
- The three of them sit beneath a mulberry tree. Carl sits at a distance and admires the two women, sitting there in the shade and patches of sunlight. He notices Marie's eyes, which are brown with bits of yellow, the color of honey.
- Suddenly, Marie jumps up and exclaims that she wants to show them something. She comes back with a branch laden with apricots. She asks Alexandra whether these come from the "circus trees."
- Alexandra tells the story. When Carl and Alexandra were young, they went with Lou and Oscar to see a circus that was passing through town. They didn't have enough money to go to the circus, though, so they headed back into town. In the streets, there was a man selling apricots, and they had enough money between them to buy some. After they ate them, they planted the seeds, but by the time Carl left the Divide, the trees still hadn't borne fruit.
- Marie tells Carl that she remembers him from her childhood, always buying paint and pencils at the drug store. He once drew her pictures of little birds and flowers, and she kept it for a long time.
- Carl remembers the toy her Uncle Joe bought her, a music box with a Turkish lady reclining on an ottoman, smoking a hookah.
- As they're leaving the house, they run into Frank Shabata, a handsome "strapping fellow" (2.6.34). He hardly greets Alexandra and Carl before he begins to complain about his neighbor's pigs stomping all over his wheat. When Alexandra suggests he goes and repairs the fence himself, since old Mrs. Hiller, their neighbor, only has her lame son to help, he's definitely not into the idea.
- Alexandra and Carl leave the Shabatas' and walk off together.
- Later, in the house, Frank continues to make a fuss about their neighbors. When Marie mentions that Mrs. Hiller cried last time she told her about the pigs, Frank accuses her of siding with them.
- Marie goes out to get Frank some coffee, and when she comes back, he's asleep. She watches him sleep until it's time to make dinner.
- As she goes into the kitchen, she feels sorry for Frank. She knows her neighbors only put up with him and his rage for her sake.