Summary

Pages 20 – 33. The narrator and his wife arrive late to a dinner party relating to the narrator’s job. As everyone gathers, the narrator is embarrassed to notice that once again, his wife is not wearing a bra. Later, when conversation reveals that she is a vegetarian, several people offer reasons why vegetarianism is a bad thing. The topic is brought to a close when the wife again says she stopped eating meat because she had a dream, and the narrator lies, saying she was diagnosed with a digestive disease. Narration comments that the husband (who still remains unnamed) is starting to see his wife (also unnamed) as “utterly unknowable” (25).

On the way home from the party, the narrator is upset that his wife does not seem to display any remorse for, or awareness of, how badly she behaved. When she goes...