Alexina sprang clear of it and unable to keep her
feet sat down on the bouncing earth.
Then she remembered that it was a rigid convention among real Californians
to treat an earthquake as a joke, and began to laugh. There was nothing
hysterical in this perfunctory tribute to the lesser tradition and it
immediately restored her courage. Moreover, the curiosity she felt for all
phases of life, psychical and physical, and her naive delight in everything
that savored of experience, caused her to stare down upon the city now
tossing and heaving like the sea in a hurricane, with an almost impersonal
interest.
The houses seemed to clutch at their precarious foundations even while they
danced to the tune of various and appalling noises. Above the ascending
roar of the earthquake Alexina heard the crashing of steeples, the dome
of the City Hall, of brick buildings too hastily erected, of ten thousand
falling chimneys; of creaking and grinding timbers, and of the eucalyptus
trees behind her, whose leaves rustled with a shrill rising whisper that
seemed addressed to heaven; the neighing and pawing of horses in the
stables, the sharp terrified yelps of dogs; and through all a long
despairing wail. The mountains across the bay and behind the city were
whirling in a devil's dance and the scattered houses on their slopes looked
like drunken gnomes. The shot tower bowed low and solemnly but did not
fall.
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