Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary

In Chapter 13, the narrator begins treating Aurora's so-called "Moor paintings," for which he served as model, concentrating on the 'early' period, between his birth in 1957 and the year of Ina's death in 1977. (The 'great' or 'high' paintings, her most profound and lasting body of work, would be executed between 1977 and 1981; and the 'dark Moors' only after the narrator's departure from Elephanta, culminating in her unfinished, unsigned masterpiece, The Moor's Last Sigh.

Modeling for his mother afforded Moor an opportunity to observe her closely: her absorption in her work and oblivion to her surroundings. He muses about why she showed him greater affection than she did her daughters, and expresses true appreciation for her attempts at helping him accept the unique conditions of his life. Aurora talked while she painted, so Moor learned about his father's many infidelities, causing him to wonder...