...the organ grinder will accelerate his rhythm into arabesques of delight to match the vendor's cries: "Mimosa! mimosa!" to the tune of Brahm's "Lullaby."... "Couteaux! couteaux à aiguiser!" to the tune from Madame Butterfly... "Pommes de terre! pommes de terre!" to the tune from Ravel's Boléro.

..."Bouteilles! bouteilles!" to the tune from Tristan and Isolde.

She laughed.

...tomorrow the city would ferment with new disasters, the paper vendors would raise their voices to the pitch of hysteria, the crowds would gather to discuss the news, the trains would carry away the cowards...

...the cowards...

...floating down the river...

...with the barge that had been intended not only to house a single love but as a refuge for faith...

...she was sinking a faith...

...instead of solidifying the floating kingdom with its cargo of eternal values…

("An individually perfect world," said Rango, "is destroyed by reality, war, revolutions.")

"Rango, wake up wake up wake up, there's a leak!"

He was slow in awakening, his dreams of greatness and magnificence were heavy on his body like royal garments, but the face he opened to the dawn was the face of innocence, as every man presents innocence to the new day. Djuna read on it what she had refused to see, the other face of Rango the child lodged in a big man's body by a merry freak.

It had been a game: "Djuna, you stand there and watch while I am the king and savior. You will admire me when I give the cue." She will now laugh and say: "But actually, you know, I prefer a hobo who plays the guitar."

She will laugh when he refuses to see Zora's madness, because it was like her refusal to see his madness, his impersonations, his fictions, his illusions...

In the face of death the barge was smaller, Rango did not loom so immense, Zora had shrunk...

In the face of death they were playing games, Zora absurdly overdressed in the trappings of tragedy, muddying, aborting, confusing, delighted with the purple colors of catastrophe as children delight in fire engines. When their absence of wisdom and courage tormented her, she would avenge herself by descending into their realm and adding to the difficulties. She had once told Rango that her father would have to live in the south of France for his health and that they would have to separate. Being helpless, they had believed she would let this happen, since they were accustomed to bowing to the inevitable. Rango had jumped and leaped with pain. Zora had said to him, not without mixing it with a delicate shading of poison: "This must happen sooner or later... Djuna will leave you."

Then she had gone to see Zora, Zora awkwardly, laboriously moving her small and flabby hands, Zora appearing helpless while Djuna knew she was the strongest of the three because she had learned to exploit her weakness. She told Djuna that Rango had not eaten that day. He was just pacing around, and he had been so cruel to Zora. He had said to her: "If Djuna goes to the south of France, I'll send you home to your relatives."