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Text n° 4
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Book two (chapter XII)

The scene takes place in Black Hawk. Antonia has left the Harlings because she refused to obey Mr Harling who wanted her to stop going to the dances because it would dishonor the family. She set her mind to work for Wick Cutter, a married man with a bad reputation.
Antonia has changed. She now cares about her appearance, wearing gloves, high heels, hats and pretty dresses. Jim is bored in the evenings. He has nothing to do. He therefore goes secretely to the firemen’s hall dances where he meets the hired girls. All the young men want to dance with Antonia and Lena. Antonia often attends the dances with Larry Donovan, a train conductor. One night, Jim walks Antonia home and asks to kiss her. Antonia is surprised when he kisses her more aggressively than she expects and is angry at him. She tells him that she does not want him to turn out like the other town boys because she has high hopes of him doing something great in his life. Antonia is proud of his success at school and will not allow him to through his success away. She also seems a little jealous at the fact that Lena allows Jim to kiss her aggressively. Antonia and Lena are present in Jim’s dreams. He dreams of Antonia when they were children, playing in the country. He also has a dream with Lena kissing him that is constantly repeating. Jim does not have that dream with Antonia.

I. Jim and Antonia: a powerful relationship.

Jim is in Awe of (est rempli du plus grand respect) of Antonia and he sees her as the embodiment of perfection. She is “lovely to see” (l.25), she has a “warm, sweet face, her kind arms, and the true heart in her..” (l.54). He admires her way of dancing which is perfect: “her eyes shining, and her lips always a little parted when she danced. That constant dark color in her cheeks never changed.” (l.25) The use of the frequency adverbs