'The village was called Paricutin. Now that is the name of the new volcano,' I finished my story, 'and if you ever go to Mexico, my dear Doktor, drive out to this Paricutin. The roads are terrible, but it's worth while, especially at night; glowing stones fly fifteen hundred feet into the air, and there is a rumbling like the rumbling of an avalanche, and just before it begins smoke always billows up from the crater like a giant cauliflower, but black and red, red underneath where it catches the light from the flames below. Not so long ago the eruptions succeeded one another at pretty short intervals—six minutes, ten minutes, three minutes, each eruption throwing up a cascade of glowing stones, most of which were extinguished before they struck the ground. It's a first-class firework, believe me. Especially the lava. From the middle of a dark heap of dead slag, on which the moon shines without detracting from its blackness, the lava shoots out bright crimson, in spurts, like blood from a black bull. It must be very thin and runny, this lava, it sweeps down over the hillside almost as quick as lightning, gradually losing its brightness, until the next eruption comes glowing like a blast furnace, gleaming like the sun, lighting up the night with the deadly heat to which all life is due, with the molten heart of our planet. That's a sight you must see. I remember that our souls were filled with a jubilation that could only find an outlet in dancing, in the wildest of all dances, an outpouring of horror and delight, such as the incomprehensible people who cut the warm heart out of the living breast might have understood.'
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