Irony. Now Rango was projecting himself out of this realm, and wanted action. No more time for the guitar which had ensorcelled her, no more time to visit the gypsies as he had once promised, no more time to sleep in the morning as she had been learning, or to acquire by osmosis his art of throwing off responsibilities, his self-indulgence, his recklessness...

As they sat in the café, he condemned his past life. He was full of contrition for the wasted hours, the wasted energy, the wasted years. He wanted a more austere life, action and fulfillment.

Suddenly Djuna looked down at her coffee and her eyes filled with stinging tears; the tears of irony burn the skin more fiercely. She wept because she had aroused in Rango the desire to serve a purpose which was not hers, to live now for others when already he lived for Zora, and had so little to give her of himself. She wept because they were so close in that earthy darkness, close in the magnetic pull between their skins, their hair, their bodies, and yet their dreams never touched at any point, their vision of life, their attitudes. She wept over the many dislocations of life, forbidding the absolute unity.

Rango did not understand.

In the realm of ideas he was always restless, impatient, and like some wild animal who feared to be corralled. He often described how the horses, the bulls, were corralled in his ranch. He delighted in the fierceness of the battle. For him to examine, to understand, to interpret was exactly like some corralling activity, of which he was suspicious.

But for the moment, she was breathing the odor of his hair. For the moment there was this current between their skin and flesh, these harmonizations of contrasting colors, weight, quality, odors. Everything about him was pungent and violent. They were as his friends said, like Othello and Desdemona.

Mañana he would be a party member.

When you lose your wings, thought Djuna, this is the way you live. You buy candles for the meeting of Rango's friends, but these candles do not give a light that will delight you, because you do not believe in what you are doing.

Sadness never added to her weight; it caught her in flight as she danced in spirals misplacing air pools like an arrow shot at a bird which did not bring it down but merely increased its flutterings.

She had every day a greater reluctance to descend into familiar daily life, because the hurt, the huntsman's bow, came from the earth, and therefore flight at a safe distance became more and more imperative.

Her mobility was now her only defense against new dangers. While you're in movement it is harder to be shot at, to be wounded even. She had adopted the basic structure of the nomads.

Rango had said: "Prepare the barge for a meeting tonight. It will be an ideal place. No superintendents to tell tales to the police. No neighbors."