Laughter
Leaving Small’s Hotel, Chapter 50:
Bob shouted, “There! That ought to make the bastards happy,” and he began to laugh Baldy’s disturbing laugh, in the same mad, rasping way, and then the microphone was switched off, leaving what would have been a permanent silence if all the inmates of Small’s Hotel hadn’t burst out laughing.
I’ll repeat the chapter’s epigraphs:
In some ways these people (I am one) cannot exist without the oxygen of laughter.
Dawn Powell, diary entryThe ability to burst out laughing is proof of a fine character. I mistrust those who avoid laughter and refuse its overtures. They are afraid to shake the tree, mindful of the fruits and birds, afraid that someone might notice that nothing comes off their branches.
Jean Cocteau, “On Laughter”
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