Djuna was moved by this, and then appalled. Rango did not know about Zora's coldness. Was this the secret of her destructiveness toward him?

She wished she did not have to become an intimate part of their lives together. She wished she could escape the clutch of Zora's dependence.

She was silent. Zora was beginning her usual long, monotonous recital of Rango's faults: It was Rango who had made her ill. It was Rango who had ruined her career. Rango was to blame for everything.

Zora blamed Rango, and Rango blamed the world. Both of them were equally blind in the knowledge of their own character and responsibilities. Djuna did not know yet, but sensed the cause of their downfall.

Djuna rebelled against Rango's blind subservience to Zora's helplessness, and yet she found herself in the same position: unable to avoid the slavery.

Zora never asked a favor. She demanded, and then proceeded to criticize how the orders were carried out, with a sense of her right to be served and no acknowledgment or lightest form of thankfulness.

Zora was now talking about her career as a dancer: "I was the first to present Guatemalan dances to Paris audiences. I was very successful, so much so that an agent came from New York and arranged a tour for me. I made money, I made many friends. But there was a woman in the show traveling with me who wanted to kill me."

"Oh, no, Zora."

"Yes, for no reason at all. She invited me to lunch with her every day and gave me tomatoes and eggs. They made me terribly ill. They were poisoned."

"Perhaps they weren't poisoned; perhaps eggs and tomatoes don't agree with you."

"She did it on purpose, I tell you. I was too much of a success."

(That's madness, thought Djuna. If only Rango would realize this, we could live in peace. If he would detach himself and admit: she is very ill, she is unbalanced. We could take care of her but not let her destroy our life together. But Rango sees everything as distortedly as she does. If only he would see. It would save us all.)

"Zora, what I can't understand was why, if you were so successful as a dancer, if you reached the heights there, and could travel, and do all you wanted...what happened? What caused the downfall in your life? Was it your health?"

Zora hesitated. Djuna was painfully tense, awaiting an answer to this question, feeling that if Zora answered it their three lives would be altered.

But Zora never answered direct questions.

Djuna regretted having used the word downfall. Downfall was the wrong word for Zora and Rango, since all their troubles were caused by an evil world, came from a hostile aggression from the world.

Zora sank into apathy. Would she deviate as Rango did, elude, answer so elliptically that the question would be lost in a maze of useless vagaries.