Eternal Recurrence and The Cay Science 243fall down" (3,416f). Life was so full of "self-mockery" as to give him the
feeling "that it is all appearance and will-o'-the-wisp and a dance of
ghosts and nothing more" (3,417; GF§ 54), and yet he was enamored of
knowledge in this light-hearted January. Aphorism § 324, a virtually pro-
grammatic explication of the tide The Gay Science, declares: "No! Life has
not disappointed me! Quite the contrary; with each passing year I find it
truer, more desirable, and more mysterious—ever since the day when
the great liberator came to me, the idea that life could be an experiment
for the seeker of knowledge—and not a duty, not a disaster, not a decep-
tion!—As for knowledge itself: for others it may well be something dif-
ferent, for instance, a bed or the way to a bed, or a form of
entertainment, or leisure—for me it is a wodd of dangers and victories
in which heroic feelings also have their dance floors and playgrounds.—
'Life as a means to knowledge'—with this principle in our hearts, we can not
only live boldly, but even live joyously and laugh joyousfy' (3,552£; GS§ 324).
Nietzsche remained in Genoa until the end of March 1882. Spring
had begun, and the weather was balmy. Normally, he would have
returned to more northerly climes at this point, but instead he made the
odd choice of traveling to Messina, Sicily, on a moment's notice. He was
the only passenger on a freighter. This trip gave rise to a great deal of
speculation. Was he hoping for an unexpected encounter with Wagner,
who had moved into his vacation lodgings nearby? Was it the homo-
erotic colony on the outskirts of Messina that attracted him, in particu-
lar the photographer Wilhelm von Gloeden, who was then famous for
his pictures of naked young men cavorting in poses that recalled Greek
antiquity? Interpreters of Nietzsche who focus on his latent homosexu-
ality suspect that this was the case. Certainly, he associated the south
with emancipated sensuality and relaxation. He was happy to keep
dreaming the dream of the "blissful islands." In Zarathustra he sent
"sweeping-winged longing" out into "hotter souths than sculptors ever
dreamed of: to places where gods in their dances are ashamed of all
clothes" (4,247; Ζ Third Part, "On Old and New Tablets" § 2). The
enchanting experience of hearing Bizet's opera Carmen for the first time