- Part V, titled "Alexandra," begins three months later. The news of Emil's and Marie's deaths has spread "like a fire" throughout the whole Divide (5.1.1).
- Signa, who has moved back in with Alexandra to help her out during the difficult period, rushes into the barn to speak with Ivar, who sits there mending a harness and reciting the 101st psalm. (Head on over to "Shout Outs.") A rainstorm is blowing outside.
- Frantic, Signa asks Ivar if he knows where Alexandra is. She saw her leaving the house in a thin dress and a sun hat, earlier, but now it's started to rain and she's afraid she's caught in it.
- As Ivar goes about hitching a horse to the wagon, Signa speculates excitedly about Alexandra's whereabouts. She figures she's headed to the graveyard.
- Ivar and Signa continue to talk about Alexandra. Signa talks about how hard it's been, having to tell her mistress when to eat and sleep, and she wonders why they're all being punished like this. Ivar assures her that Alexandra will find peace when she receives a spiritual message from those who have passed on.
- Signa asks Ivar why he always goes around barefoot. He tells her that the feet are "free members," unrestricted by God's law, and while he keeps the rest of his body away from temptation, he chooses to indulge his feet (5.1.13). If they get dirty, it's easy to clean them again.
- Signa thinks about what Ivar has said, and tells him what a good friend he's been to Alexandra all these years.
- Ivar gets in the wagon and heads out into the rain, on his way to the graveyard. When he arrives, Alexandra rises up from beside her father's grave.
- Alexandra hurries to meets him in the wagon, and assures him that she's fine, that she just got caught in the rainstorm. She joins Ivar in the wagon and they ride off.
- As they ride, Alexandra explains that she feels better after being out in the rain and getting wet down the bone. It makes her think of what it must be like to be an unborn baby, still in its mother's womb. She wonders whether dead people experience something similar, if they can feel anything at all.
- Ivar doesn't like that talk, and reminds her that the dead are safe in Paradise. He doesn't say it, but Ivar doesn't believe Emil is in paradise.
- When they get home, Signa undresses Alexandra and wraps her in warm blankets, while Ivar brings her some ginger tea. Alexandra waits patiently until they have finished taking care of her, and is glad to be alone again.
- As she lies alone in bed, she realizes that she might be tire of living. She longs to be free of her body, and longs to be free from longing.
- The fantasy returns to her, of being carried away by a strong man's arms. When he returns her to her bed, she awakens. She notices his right arm is visible, gleaming like bronze. All of sudden, she is aware that he is "the mightiest of lovers" (5.1.28).
- At that moment, the narrator writes, Alexandra knows whom she's been waiting for and where he will take her.
- Alexandra is in bed with a cold for the next few days. In that time, she resolves to visit Frank Shabata at the state penitentiary in Lincoln. Frank has been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Alexandra figures that Frank is the only one who can really be helped. She thinks he's paying the biggest price, even though he is the least to blame of them all.
- Alexandra sees herself as more to blame than Frank; she took every opportunity to send Emil over to do odd things around the house at the Shabatas'. She knew Emil liked Marie, but she never thought that he would feel any different than she did about Marie.
- While she's lying in bed, Alexandra also recalls the day when she saw Emil and Marie lying together in the grass, Marie with a look of calm and content, Emil with his frown. She still feels an "aching tenderness" for Marie, and a sense of "awe" for both of them (5.1.31). She gets it that they couldn't help but love one another.
- She remembers Frank in court, too. She had felt bad for him, knowing that he was in a foreign country, with no friends and family, and that his life was now over. She feels he couldn't have acted otherwise, being the kind of person that he is. She has an easier time understanding Frank's actions, for instance, than those of Marie.
- Before the chapter closes, the narrator steps back in to give us some more backstory. Alexandra wrote a letter to Carl Linstrum after Emil's funeral, explaining in factual terms what had happened. She knew that he was likely far away from any post offices, while prospecting in Alaska.
- Still, as the weeks go by with no reply, it seems to Alexandra that she grows colder and colder toward Carl. Maybe, she thinks, it would be better if she spent the rest of her days alone.