Chapter 3
One evening, a week after Signa's wedding, Emil was kneeling
before a box in the sitting-room, packing his books. From time to
time he rose and wandered about the house, picking up stray volumes
and bringing them listlessly back to his box. He was packing
without enthusiasm. He was not very sanguine about his future.
Alexandra sat sewing by the table. She had helped him pack his
trunk in the afternoon. As Emil came and went by her chair with his
books, he thought to himself that it had not been so hard to leave
his sister since he first went away to school. He was going
directly to Omaha, to read law in the office of a Swedish lawyer
until October, when he would enter the law school at Ann Arbor.
They had planned that Alexandra was to come to Michigan—a long
journey
