Jul
4
2005
The Fourth Night
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ON THIS DAY seven years ago I set off to hike up a volcano on the Italian island of Stromboli. Stromboli burps up a respectable geyser of fire-rocks as often as every few minutes, and since I thought myself a great Romantic at the time, I felt obliged by my destiny—a rare heroic one, of course—to climb it. For the excursion I packed a bottle of red village-wine and a copy of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The plan was to pass the night atop the volcano in solitude, murmuring Nietzsche between swigs to the exploding backdrop. The signs I passed on the way up—“Warning, Explosive Volcano, Hike Only with an Authorized Guide” … “No Staying Overnight”—only served to pad my 21-year-old convictions that I was of Byronic blood, a veritable walking volcano destined for fire and flight.
