∗a girl's brightness against the Nebraska dark, memory's long reach homeward

I first heard of Ántonia on what seemed to me an interminable journey ac…

He was more inscribed than an Egyptian obelisk.

All the years that have passed have not dimmed my memory of that first g…

The new country lay open before me: there were no fences in those days, …

∗Cather's narrator recalls a transformative childhood journey westward, finding in Ántonia an emblem of pioneer resilience and immigrant dignity.

A man remembers the immigrant girl who shaped his youth on the Nebraska frontier.