My Antonia

On a March evening during Jim’s sophomore year, he watches a star that reminds him of “the lamp engraved upon the title-page of old Latin texts” (263). Jim realizes the impact of his childhood experiences as he reflects on Virgil’s phrase, “Optima dies . . . prima fugit,” translated as “the best days are the first to flee” (263).

Jim hears a knock at his door. At first, he does not recognize the well-dressed Lena. Lena tells him that she now owns a flourishing dressmaking business in Lincoln and plans to build a nice house for her mother. Knowing how studious Jim has become, she was not sure if he would be glad to see her. Jim sincerely congratulates her for doing so well, and Lena says that Ántonia always boasts that Jim will be richer than Mr. Harling one day. Lena informs him that Ántonia now works as a housekeeper at Mrs. Gardener’s hotel and has reconciled with the Harlings. When Jim asks if Ántonia is still dating Larry Donovan, Lena reports that she is engaged.

Lena mentions that she has seen Jim at the theater in Lincoln, and Jim invites her to attend a play with him. Lena says she must write Ántonia about Jim’s lodgings but tell her that she left him studying because Ántonia is always afraid that someone will run off with him.

Theatrical companies come to Lincoln late in the season for one-night performances following their long runs in Chicago and New York. Jim enjoys going to plays with Lena because “everything was wonderful to her, and everything was true” (271). As a business owner, Lena insists on paying for herself rather than permitting Jim, a college student, to pay for her. The pair is unfamiliar with Camille, the tragic play based on Alexandre Dumas’s 1848 novel. Despite a too-elderly actress portraying the role of Marguerite Gauthier, Jim and Lena are transported with emotion when they watch the play. He is glad that he did not attend with an indifferent Lincoln girl who would gossip about the junior dances during intermissions. Jim has never previously heard theater dialogue that was alive and brilliant, or seen champagne opened onstage. It is raining when they exit the theater, and Jim uses Mrs. Harling’s graduation present, the umbrella, to take Lena home. Emotionally moved by the portrayal of Marguerite’s death, Jim takes a walk alone into the rural part of town.

Jim wonders how the easy-going Lena is so successful in her dressmaking shop without being pushy. He learns that her stylishness and nice manner encourage customers to overlook her missed deadlines and higher costs. Jim enjoys Sunday breakfasts with Lena and finds it amusing to hear her utter the “formal phrases” (281) that she picked up at Mrs. Thomas’s dressmaking business. Even after Ántonia mastered English, she sounded foreign and impulsive.

Whenever Jim stays later in the evening at Lena’s place, Ordinsky, the Polish violin teacher who lives across hall, mutters threateningly and watches Jim exit. Colonel Raleigh, an old widower from Kentucky, is Lena’s landlord and finds every opportunity to make repairs in her rooms. Ordinsky offers to put a stop to Raleigh’s advances if they make Lena uncomfortable.

One evening, the Pole knocks at Lena’s door because he needs his waistcoat fixed before he plays at a concert. He confronts Jim, concerned that the college student is trying to compromise Lena, but Jim asserts that he has no such intention: He and Lena are childhood friends. After that exchange, Ordinsky relaxes toward Jim and is grateful when Jim agrees to take his article attacking the town’s musical taste to the newspaper editor. By now, Jim, Ordinsky, and Raleigh are all in love with Lena.

Jim is drifting, no longer interested in his classes. When Gaston Cleric is offered a Harvard College instructorship, he urges Jim to follow him and complete his degree there. Cleric warns Jim that he will not work in Lincoln with Lena around because “She’s very pretty, and perfectly irresponsible” (289). Grandfather Burden agrees with Cleric’s plan. Jim tries to persuade himself that he is preventing Lena from marrying someone by staying in Lincoln. However, when he tells her that he is departing, Lena states that she never intends to marry. She remembers family life as hard work with no time for herself. Lena does not hinder Jim’s move from Lincoln, and Jim joins his instructor back East.