Summary

Jack wakes to Evelyn asking him to “come with” (484). They go outside and paint with canvases; Evelyn is grateful for the gifts of the world. She explains how people wanted paintings like the ones of forests because they could not imagine the endless grass of the prairie. Artists, therefore, started embellishing. People back then had difficulty navigating the prairie, and she says this is similar to marriage. “Immensity plus monotony. That’s marriage in a nutshell” (488).

Evelyn explains how Ruth is punishing Lawrence. He wanted to marry her older sister. Ruth’s father wanted the oldest sister to marry first, so Lawrence acted honorably and proposed to Ruth, the older sister. Evelyn tells Jack, “Those explorers…were looking for the one thing that didn’t grow, and so they didn’t notice all the...