At first Zora had said: "I'm so glad to know Rango is not drinking, that he is with you instead of at the café."

But after awhile she developed new fears. Rango said: "Poor Zora, she is so afraid at night. The other evening someone knocked at her door for a long time and just stood there waiting. She was so frightened that the man would come in and rape her that she piled all the furniture in front of the door and did not sleep all night."

Rango spent every other night at the barge, and then only twice a week as Zora's complaints increased, and then one night a week.

And on that one night Zora came and knocked on the door.

She was in pain, she said. Rango rushed out and took her home. She was convulsed with pains. The doctor was called, and could not find the cause. Only at dawn did she confess: she had heard that cleaning fluid was good for the stomach, so she had drunk a glass of it.

Rango left Djuna to watch over Zora for a while he went to buy the medicines which the doctor advised.

Djuna tended Zora, and Zora smiled at her innocently. Could Zora be so unaware of the consequences of her acts?

Whenever they were alone together they fell naturally into a sincere relationship. Djuna's compassion would once more be aroused and Zora would nestle into it securely. At these moments Djuna believed a relationship was being constructed to which Zora would be loyal, one of mutual giving. It was only later that Djuna would discover what Zora had achieved with her behavior, and that would always be, in the end, something to harm and stifle the relationship between Rango and Djuna.

But it was all so subtly done that Djuna could never detect it.

When Zora talked about Rango, it seemed at first a natural harmless sick woman's complaining; it seemed not as if she wanted to harm Rango in Djuna's eyes, but as if she wanted Djuna's sympathy for her difficult life with Rango. It was only later when alone that Djuna became aware of how much dissension and doubt Zora had managed to insert in her monotonous lamentations against Rango.

Djuna would prepare herself for these talks which hurt her by thinking: "She is talking about another Rango, not the one I know. The Rango I love is different. This is the Rango that was born of his life with Zora. She is responsible for what he was with her."

This night, calmed by Djuna's ministrations, Zora began to talk: "You love Rango in such a different way than I do. I never loved Rango physically. I never loved any man physically. I don't know what it is to respond to a man... You know, sometimes when I get these crying spells, I think to myself: maybe it's because I can't melt physically. I don't feel anything, and so crying is a relief, I cry instead..."