The Adventures of Pinocchio
“Help, Pinocchio, dear little Pinocchio! Save me from death!”
At those cries of suffering, the Marionette, who after all had a very
kind heart, was moved to compassion. He turned toward the poor animal
and said to him:
“But if I help you, will you promise not to bother me again by running
after me?”
“I promise! I promise! Only hurry, for if you wait another second, I’ll
be dead and gone!”
Pinocchio hesitated still another minute. Then, remembering how his
father had often told him that a kind deed is never lost, he swam to
Alidoro and, catching hold of his tail, dragged him to the shore.
The poor Dog was so weak he could not stand. He had swallowed so much
salt water that he was swollen like a balloon. However, Pinocchio, not
wishing to trust him too much, threw himself once again into the sea. As
he swam away, he called out:
“Good-by, Alidoro, good luck and remember me to the family!”
“Good-by, little Pinocchio,” answered the Dog. “A thousand thanks for
having saved me from death. You did me a good turn, and, in this world,
what is given is always returned. If the chance comes, I shall be
there.”
Pinocchio went on swimming close to shore. At last he thought he had
reached a safe place. Glancing up and down the beach, he saw the opening
of a cave out of which rose a spiral of smoke.
“In that cave,” he said to himself, “there must be a fire. So much the
better. I’ll dry my clothes and warm myself, and then--well--”
His mind made up, Pinocchio swam to the rocks, but as he started to
climb, he felt something under him lifting him up higher and higher. He
tried to escape, but he was too late. To his great surprise, he found
himself in a huge net, amid a crowd of fish of all kinds and sizes, who
were fighting and struggling desperately to free themselves.
At the same time, he saw a Fisherman come out of the cave, a Fisherman
so ugly that Pinocchio thought he was a sea monster. In place of hair,
his head was covered by a thick bush of green grass. Green was the skin
of his body, green were his eyes, green was the long, long beard that
reached down to his feet. He looked like a giant lizard with legs and
arms.
When the Fisherman pulled the net out of the sea, he cried out joyfully:
“Blessed Providence! Once more I’ll have a fine meal of fish!”
“Thank Heaven, I’m not a fish!” said Pinocchio to himself, trying with
these words to find a little courage.
The Fisherman took the net and the fish to the cave, a dark, gloomy,
smoky place. In the middle of it, a pan full of oil sizzled over a
smoky fire, sending out a repelling odor of tallow that took away one’s
breath.
“Now, let’s see what kind of fish we have caught today,” said the Green
Fisherman. He put a hand as big as a spade into the net and pulled out a
handful of mullets.
“Fine mullets, these!” he said, after looking at them and smelling them
with pleasure. After that, he threw them into a large, empty tub.
Many times he repeated this performance. As he pulled each fish out of
the net, his mouth watered with the thought of the good dinner coming,
and he said:
“Fine fish, these bass!”
“Very tasty, these whitefish!”
“Delicious flounders, these!”
“What splendid crabs!”
“And these dear little anchovies, with their heads still on!”
As you can well imagine, the bass, the flounders, the whitefish, and
even the little anchovies all went together into the tub to keep the
mullets company. The last to come out of the net was Pinocchio.
As soon as the Fisherman pulled him out, his green eyes opened wide with
surprise, and he cried out in fear:
“What kind of fish is this? I don’t remember ever eating anything like
it.”
He looked at him closely and after turning him over and over, he said at
last:
“I understand. He must be a crab!”
Pinocchio, mortified at being taken for a crab, said resentfully:
“What nonsense! A crab indeed! I am no such thing. Beware how you deal
with me! I am a Marionette, I want you to know.”
“A Marionette?” asked the Fisherman. “I must admit that a Marionette
fish is, for me, an entirely new kind of fish. So much the better. I’ll
eat you with greater relish.”
“Eat me? But can’t you understand that I’m not a fish? Can’t you hear
that I speak and think as you do?”
“It’s true,” answered the Fisherman; “but since I see that you are a
fish, well able to talk and think as I do, I’ll treat you with all due
respect.”
“And that is--”
“That, as a sign of my particular esteem, I’ll leave to you the choice
of the manner in which you are to be cooked. Do you wish to be fried in
a pan, or do you prefer to be cooked with tomato sauce?”
“To tell you the truth,” answered Pinocchio, “if I must choose, I should
much rather go free so I may return home!”
“Are you fooling? Do you think that I want to lose the opportunity to
taste such a rare fish? A Marionette fish does not come very often to
these seas. Leave it to me. I’ll fry you in the pan with the others.
I know you’ll like it. It’s always a comfort to find oneself in good
company.”
The unlucky Marionette, hearing this, began to cry and wail and beg.
With tears streaming down his cheeks, he said:
“How much better it would have been for me to go to school! I did listen
to my playmates and now I am paying for it! Oh! Oh! Oh!”
And as he struggled and squirmed like an eel to escape from him, the
Green Fisherman took a stout cord and tied him hand and foot, and threw
him into the bottom of the tub with the others.
Then he pulled a wooden bowl full of flour out of a cupboard and started
to roll the fish into it, one by one. When they were white with it,
he threw them into the pan. The first to dance in the hot oil were the
mullets, the bass followed, then the whitefish, the flounders, and the
anchovies. Pinocchio’s turn came last. Seeing himself so near to death
(and such a horrible death!) he began to tremble so with fright that he
had no voice left with which to beg for his life.
The poor boy beseeched only with his eyes. But the Green Fisherman,
not even noticing that it was he, turned him over and over in the flour
until he looked like a Marionette made of chalk.
Then he took him by the head and . . .
CHAPTER 29
Pinocchio returns to the Fairy’s house and she promises him that, on the
morrow, he will cease to be a Marionette and become a boy. A wonderful
party of coffee-and-milk to celebrate the great event.
Mindful of what the Fisherman had said, Pinocchio knew that all hope
of being saved had gone. He closed his eyes and waited for the final
moment.
Suddenly, a large Dog, attracted by the odor of the boiling oil, came
running into the cave.
“Get out!” cried the Fisherman threateningly and still holding onto the
Marionette, who was all covered with flour.
But the poor Dog was very hungry, and whining and wagging his tail, he
tried to say:
“Give me a bite of the fish and I’ll go in peace.”
“Get out, I say!” repeated the Fisherman.
And he drew back his foot to give the Dog a kick.
Then the Dog, who, being really hungry, would take no refusal, turned
in a rage toward the Fisherman and bared his terrible fangs. And at that
moment, a pitiful little voice was heard saying: “Save me, Alidoro; if
you don’t, I fry!”
The Dog immediately recognized Pinocchio’s voice. Great was his surprise
to find that the voice came from the little flour-covered bundle that
the Fisherman held in his hand.
Then what did he do? With one great leap, he grasped that bundle in his
mouth and, holding it lightly between his teeth, ran through the door
and disappeared like a flash!
The Fisherman, angry at seeing his meal snatched from under his nose,
ran after the Dog, but a bad fit of coughing made him stop and turn
back.
Meanwhile, Alidoro, as soon as he had found the road which led to the
village, stopped and dropped Pinocchio softly to the ground.
“How much I do thank you!” said the Marionette.
“It is not necessary,” answered the Dog. “You saved me once, and what is
given is always returned. We are in this world to help one another.”
“But how did you get in that cave?”
“I was lying here on the sand more dead than alive, when an appetizing
odor of fried fish came to me. That odor tickled my hunger and I
followed it. Oh, if I had come a moment later!”
“Don’t speak about it,” wailed Pinocchio, still trembling with fright.
“Don’t say a word. If you had come a moment later, I would be fried,
eaten, and digested by this time. Brrrrrr! I shiver at the mere thought
of it.”
Alidoro laughingly held out his paw to the Marionette, who shook it
heartily, feeling that now he and the Dog were good friends. Then they
bid each other good-by and the Dog went home.
Pinocchio, left alone, walked toward a little hut near by, where an old
man sat at the door sunning himself, and asked:
“Tell me, good man, have you heard anything of a poor boy with a wounded
head, whose name was Eugene?”
“The boy was brought to this hut and now--”
“Now he is dead?” Pinocchio interrupted sorrowfully.
“No, he is now alive and he has already returned home.”
“Really? Really?” cried the Marionette, jumping around with joy. “Then
the wound was not serious?”
“But it might have been--and even mortal,” answered the old man, “for a
heavy book was thrown at his head.”
“And who threw it?”
“A schoolmate of his, a certain Pinocchio.”
“And who is this Pinocchio?” asked the Marionette, feigning ignorance.
“They say he is a mischief-maker, a tramp, a street urchin--”
“Calumnies! All calumnies!”
“Do you know this Pinocchio?”
“By sight!” answered the Marionette.
“And what do you think of him?” asked the old man.
“I think he’s a very good boy, fond of study, obedient, kind to his
Father, and to his whole family--”
As he was telling all these enormous lies about himself, Pinocchio
touched his nose and found it twice as long as it should be. Scared out
of his wits, he cried out:
“Don’t listen to me, good man! All the wonderful things I have said are
not true at all. I know Pinocchio well and he is indeed a very wicked
fellow, lazy and disobedient, who instead of going to school, runs away
with his playmates to have a good time.”
At this speech, his nose returned to its natural size.
“Why are you so pale?” the old man asked suddenly.
“Let me tell you. Without knowing it, I rubbed myself against a newly
painted wall,” he lied, ashamed to say that he had been made ready for
the frying pan.
“What have you done with your coat and your hat and your breeches?”
“I met thieves and they robbed me. Tell me, my good man, have you not,
perhaps, a little suit to give me, so that I may go home?”
“My boy, as for clothes, I have only a bag in which I keep hops. If you
want it, take it. There it is.”
Pinocchio did not wait for him to repeat his words. He took the bag,
which happened to be empty, and after cutting a big hole at the top and
two at the sides, he slipped into it as if it were a shirt. Lightly clad
as he was, he started out toward the village.
Along the way he felt very uneasy. In fact he was so unhappy that he
went along taking two steps forward and one back, and as he went he said
to himself:
“How shall I ever face my good little Fairy? What will she say when she
sees me? Will she forgive this last trick of mine? I am sure she won’t.
Oh, no, she won’t. And I deserve it, as usual! For I am a rascal, fine
on promises which I never keep!”
He came to the village late at night. It was so dark he could see
nothing and it was raining pitchforks.
Pinocchio went straight to the Fairy’s house, firmly resolved to knock
at the door.
When he found himself there, he lost courage and ran back a few steps.
A second time he came to the door and again he ran back. A third time