Segment 13 Summary

The relationship between the narrator and the lover continues; the narrator grows older, tired. She feels alone as if in a crowd but isolated. Together, they go to expensive restaurants and pursue a life of extravagance which is, compared to the sexual intercourse, pale and undesirable. On one occasion, he explains how his father amassed his wealth; when his explanation verges on defending his father's exploitative practices the narrator sees within the lover the first suggestion of imperfection. His talk of carnage and money devolves into an ad-man justification of his father's wealth; she is deeply hurt by his lie. The affair continues for a year and a half; she ages from fifteen and one half to seventeen; he ages from twenty-seven and one half to twenty-nine. The lover has difficulty expressing his feelings and only does so through parody. Often he weeps...