Chapter 13, Tapered at the Foot Summary

After Easter, Mama's decline begins. It is not true that Matzerath forced her to start eating seafood. Possessed by an undefined demon, she began, of her own accord, to eat huge quantities of fish. She eats sardines daily for breakfast, sprats for snack, flounder or codfish for lunch, and eels in jelly in the afternoon. If Matzerath refused to prepare fish for dinner, Mama would fetch a chunk of smoked eel from the store and gluttonously scrape the fat off the skin with her knife. She ate so much fish she would have to vomit at times during the day, but still craved more fish.

Matzerath says Mama must be pregnant. He protests that it doesn't matter whose child it is. One evening after drinking the oil from several cans of sardines, an ambulance takes...