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.