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It is a difficult question to answer. Let us see the various aspects of the problem. Our first impression is that Raju is responsible for the break-up of Rosie’s marriage with Marco. Had Rosie never met Raju, there was perhaps no possibility of such a break-up. Secondly, had Raju not given Rosie shelter when she came to his house after quarrelling with her husband, most probably Rosie could have gone back to her husband. Above all, the break-up is not emotional or passionate. Even when Rosie is living with Raju, she is not able to forget her husband. Hence it is natural for us to conclude that Raju’s seducing talks and allurements are responsible for the break-up of Rosie’s marriage with Marco.
However, the above is not a complete and correct statement. Marco’s neglect of Rosie is much more responsible for the matrimonial debacle. Rosie suffers at the hands of her husband. The husband was interested in sculptured figures on walls and stones in caves but not in his wife who as dancer was the living embodiment of those images. She had interest too: she looked for ideas in the Ramayana and Mahabharata and remarked to her husband enthusiastically: “I have so many ideas I’d like to try just as you are trying......” He would brush it aside with, “I doubt if you can. It’s more difficult than you imagine,” and yet this was he who insisted on marrying a graduate wife. But Raju the ignoramus, wished he could keep pace with her idiom and learn. He claimed when she indicated the lotus with her fingers, “I could almost hear the ripple of water around it while to Marco it was all a monkey-trick.”
Marco is an eccentric. He is stern, self-centred and self-righteous. He thinks, his rights over his property, that is, Rosie are unlimited, for he has acquired his wife body and soul. Dancing to him, as to many orthodox men and women, is another name for prostitution. Hence it is his harshness to Rosie, his asking the porter to remove Rosie’s luggage from his compartment and asking her to go wherever she likes to go are equally responsible for the break-up of the marriage between Marco and Rosie Had Marco adjusted himself a little more honestly and boldly and had he changed his outlook, there would not have been any break-up. Hence Marco is more responsible for the break-up than Raju.
It would be wrong again not to assign any responsibility for this break-up to Rosie. She is a romantic soul. She is love-hungry. She wants to live a life of a refined artist. She is attracted by Raju because of the temperamental similarities between herself and Raju. Raju is also a romantic. She is not able to know Raju who is a kind of loafer. Instead of nipping his advances in the bud, she likes to hear flattering and seducing remarks from him, e.g., ‘who would decorate a rainbow?’ Her reluctance gave him another opportunity to whisper, ‘because life is so blank without your presence.’ Later she allows herself to be seduced by his bold and flattering compliments and goes to his house to live in.
Thus any one person or factor is not responsible for the break-up of Rosie-Marco marriage. There are all the above-mentioned factors responsible for this dissolution. Partly Raju, partly Marco and partly Rosie are responsible for the tragic and unhealthy break-up of the marriage between Rosie and Marco.