Meanwhile Kate watched a boy buy a drink for one centavo and a piece of rope for three centavos, from the grey old man at the dark hole, which was a shop.
The car went on, the great lights glaring unnaturally upon the hedges of cactus and mesquite and palo blanco trees, and upon the great pools of water in the road. It was a slow progress.
CHAP: XX. MARRIAGE BY QUETZALCOATL.
Kate hid in her own house, numbed. She could not bear to talk to people. She could not bear even Juana’s bubbling discourse. The common threads that bound her to humanity seemed to have snapped. The little human things didn’t interest her any more. Her eyes seemed to have gone dark, and blind to individuals. They were all just individuals, like leaves in the dark, making a noise. And she was alone under the trees.
The egg-woman wanted six centavos for an egg.
“And I said to her—I said to her—we buy them at five centavos!” Juana went on.
“Yes!” said Kate. She didn’t care whether they were bought at five or fifty, or not bought at all.
She didn’t care, she didn’t care, she didn’t care. She didn’t even care about life any more. There was no escaping her own complete indifference. She felt indifferent to everything in the whole world, almost she felt indifferent to death.
“Niña! Niña! Here is the man with the sandals! Look! Look how nicely he has made them for you, Niña! Look what Mexican huaraches the Niña is going to wear!”
She tried them on. The man charged her too much. She looked at him with her remote, indifferent eyes. But she knew, in the world one must live, so she paid him less than he asked, though more than he really would have accepted.