Mitch suddenly asks Blanche how old she is. Blanche wonders why, and Mitch tells her that he has talked about her to his mother. Blanche wonders if Mitch won't be very lonely when he loses his mother. She explains that she knows what loneliness is because she once lost a person she loved. He was just a boy when they married, and he had a softness and tenderness which she did not fully understand. Then she found out that the boy she had married was also having an affair with an older man. She found out by coming into the room where they were. Pretending nothing had happened, the three of them went to a dance, where suddenly Blanche told her young husband that he disgusted her. He ran from her and immediately shot himself. Since that time, there has been no light in her life stronger than the kitchen candle.
Mitch responds that she needs somebody and that he does too. Thus as the polka tune which has been playing in Blanche's mind during her narration stops, she and Mitch embrace.
