244 Nietzsche
in Genoa in late November 1881 had given flight to Nietzsche's fantasies
of the south. When he later wrote about Carmen in his preliminary notes
for The Case of Wagter, this lascivious south as he imagined it, and per-
haps even expedenced it, was once again apparent: "The African gaiety,
the fatalistic cheerfulness, with an eye that gazes seductively, profoundly,
and awfully; the lascivious melancholy of the dance of the Moors; blink-
ing passion, sharp and sudden as a sword; and aromas wafting out of the
yellow afternoon of the sea that seize the heart with fear as though
recalling forgotten islands where it once tarried and where it should have
tarried forever" (13,24).
A few days after his arrival on the island, Nietzsche wrote to Peter
Gast: "So, I have arrived at my 'corner of the earth,' where, according to
Homer, happiness is said to dwell. Truly, I have never been in such good
spirits as in the past week, and my new fellow citizens are pampering and
spoiling me in the most charming way" (Β 6,189; April 8,1882).
He indulged in this pampering for four weeks; then the sirocco drove
him on to Rome, where he met Lou Salomé. This chapter of his life,
Nietzsche later claimed, after he had ridden out the storm, was more
excruciating than any sirocco could ever be (B 6,323; Feb. 1,1883).