The hissing steam hung in the air over Etna for days, but the people of Catania had seen it before. The great mountain belched sulphurous odors time and time again, sometimes accompanied by the roaring of explosions within, and the Catanians had come to terms with it. The volcanic soil that survived the ancient eruptions was so fertile that the plains around Catania, Mascalucia, Misterbianco, Trecastagni, Paterno, and other villages that lay south of the volcano were home to sprawling hectares of farmland. No one alive in the town had known the kind of destructive eruptions that were talked about in folk tales, so why leave?
Even the tremors of the earth that had been persistent but subtle were slowing down.
One night, the hissing and the clouds of steam and smoke suddenly went quiet. Ev
