When God Laughs, and Other Stories

MP3 Audio CD. When God Laughs, and Other Stories

WHEN GOD LAUGHS (with compliments to Harry Cowell)

“The gods, the gods are stronger; time
Falls down before them, all men's knees
Bow, all men's prayers and sorrows climb
Like incense toward them; yea, for these
Are gods, Felise.”

Carquinez had relaxed finally. He stole a glance at the rattling
windows, looked upward at the beamed roof, and listened for a moment
to the savage roar of the south-easter as it caught the bungalow in
its bellowing jaws. Then he held his glass between him and the fire and
laughed for joy through the golden wine.

“It is beautiful,” he said. “It is sweetly sweet. It is a woman's wine,
and it was made for gray-robed saints to drink.”

“We grow it on our own warm hills,” I said, with pardonable California
pride. “You rode up yesterday through the vines from which it was made.”

It was worth while to get Carquinez to loosen up. Nor was he ever really
himself until he felt the mellow warmth of the vine singing in his
blood. He was an artist, it is true, always an artist; but somehow,
sober, the high pitch and lilt went out of his thought-processes and he
was prone to be as deadly dull as a British Sunday--not dull as other
men are dull, but dull when measured by the sprightly wight that Monte
Carquinez was when he was really himself.

From all this it must not be inferred that Carquinez, who is my dear
friend and dearer comrade, was a sot. Far from it. He rarely erred. As
I have said, he was an artist. He knew when he had enough, and enough,
with him, was equilibrium--the equilibrium that is yours and mine when
we are sober.