The Adventures of Pinocchio
of the Marionette, climbed up the side of the house and went in through
the window.
At first he was very angry, but on seeing Pinocchio stretched out on the
floor and really without feet, he felt very sad and sorrowful. Picking
him up from the floor, he fondled and caressed him, talking to him while
the tears ran down his cheeks:
“My little Pinocchio, my dear little Pinocchio! How did you burn your
feet?”
“I don’t know, Father, but believe me, the night has been a terrible one
and I shall remember it as long as I live. The thunder was so noisy and
the lightning so bright--and I was hungry. And then the Talking Cricket
said to me, ‘You deserve it; you were bad;’ and I said to him, ‘Careful,
Cricket;’ and he said to me, ‘You are a Marionette and you have a wooden
head;’ and I threw the hammer at him and killed him. It was his own
fault, for I didn’t want to kill him. And I put the pan on the coals,
but the Chick flew away and said, ‘I’ll see you again! Remember me to
the family.’ And my hunger grew, and I went out, and the old man with a
nightcap looked out of the window and threw water on me, and I came home
and put my feet on the stove to dry them because I was still hungry,
and I fell asleep and now my feet are gone but my hunger isn’t!
Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” And poor Pinocchio began to scream and cry so loudly that
he could be heard for miles around.
Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that jumbled talk, except
that the Marionette was hungry, felt sorry for him, and pulling three
pears out of his pocket, offered them to him, saying:
“These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly.
Eat them and stop weeping.”
“If you want me to eat them, please peel them for me.”
“Peel them?” asked Geppetto, very much surprised. “I should never have
thought, dear boy of mine, that you were so dainty and fussy about your
food. Bad, very bad! In this world, even as children, we must accustom
ourselves to eat of everything, for we never know what life may hold in
store for us!”
“You may be right,” answered Pinocchio, “but I will not eat the pears if
they are not peeled. I don’t like them.”
And good old Geppetto took out a knife, peeled the three pears, and put
the skins in a row on the table.
Pinocchio ate one pear in a twinkling and started to throw the core
away, but Geppetto held his arm.
“Oh, no, don’t throw it away! Everything in this world may be of some
use!”
“But the core I will not eat!” cried Pinocchio in an angry tone.
“Who knows?” repeated Geppetto calmly.
And later the three cores were placed on the table next to the skins.
Pinocchio had eaten the three pears, or rather devoured them. Then he
yawned deeply, and wailed:
“I’m still hungry.”
“But I have no more to give you.”
“Really, nothing--nothing?”
“I have only these three cores and these skins.”
“Very well, then,” said Pinocchio, “if there is nothing else I’ll eat
them.”
At first he made a wry face, but, one after another, the skins and the
cores disappeared.
“Ah! Now I feel fine!” he said after eating the last one.
“You see,” observed Geppetto, “that I was right when I told you that one
must not be too fussy and too dainty about food. My dear, we never know
what life may have in store for us!”
CHAPTER 8
Geppetto makes Pinocchio a new pair of feet, and sells his coat to buy
him an A-B-C book.
The Marionette, as soon as his hunger was appeased, started to grumble
and cry that he wanted a new pair of feet.
But Mastro Geppetto, in order to punish him for his mischief, let him
alone the whole morning. After dinner he said to him:
“Why should I make your feet over again? To see you run away from home
once more?”
“I promise you,” answered the Marionette, sobbing, “that from now on
I’ll be good--”
“Boys always promise that when they want something,” said Geppetto.
“I promise to go to school every day, to study, and to succeed--”
“Boys always sing that song when they want their own will.”
“But I am not like other boys! I am better than all of them and I always
tell the truth. I promise you, Father, that I’ll learn a trade, and I’ll
be the comfort and staff of your old age.”
Geppetto, though trying to look very stern, felt his eyes fill with
tears and his heart soften when he saw Pinocchio so unhappy. He said
no more, but taking his tools and two pieces of wood, he set to work
diligently.
In less than an hour the feet were finished, two slender, nimble little
feet, strong and quick, modeled as if by an artist’s hands.
“Close your eyes and sleep!” Geppetto then said to the Marionette.
Pinocchio closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep, while Geppetto
stuck on the two feet with a bit of glue melted in an eggshell, doing
his work so well that the joint could hardly be seen.
As soon as the Marionette felt his new feet, he gave one leap from the
table and started to skip and jump around, as if he had lost his head
from very joy.
“To show you how grateful I am to you, Father, I’ll go to school now.
But to go to school I need a suit of clothes.”
Geppetto did not have a penny in his pocket, so he made his son a little
suit of flowered paper, a pair of shoes from the bark of a tree, and a
tiny cap from a bit of dough.
Pinocchio ran to look at himself in a bowl of water, and he felt so
happy that he said proudly:
“Now I look like a gentleman.”
“Truly,” answered Geppetto. “But remember that fine clothes do not make
the man unless they be neat and clean.”
“Very true,” answered Pinocchio, “but, in order to go to school, I still
need something very important.”
“What is it?”
“An A-B-C book.”
“To be sure! But how shall we get it?”
“That’s easy. We’ll go to a bookstore and buy it.”
“And the money?”
“I have none.”
“Neither have I,” said the old man sadly.
Pinocchio, although a happy boy always, became sad and downcast at these
words. When poverty shows itself, even mischievous boys understand what
it means.
“What does it matter, after all?” cried Geppetto all at once, as he
jumped up from his chair. Putting on his old coat, full of darns and
patches, he ran out of the house without another word.
After a while he returned. In his hands he had the A-B-C book for his
son, but the old coat was gone. The poor fellow was in his shirt sleeves
and the day was cold.
“Where’s your coat, Father?”
“I have sold it.”
“Why did you sell your coat?”
“It was too warm.”
Pinocchio understood the answer in a twinkling, and, unable to restrain
his tears, he jumped on his father’s neck and kissed him over and over.
CHAPTER 9
Pinocchio sells his A-B-C book to pay his way into the Marionette
Theater.
See Pinocchio hurrying off to school with his new A-B-C book under
his arm! As he walked along, his brain was busy planning hundreds of
wonderful things, building hundreds of castles in the air. Talking to
himself, he said:
“In school today, I’ll learn to read, tomorrow to write, and the day
after tomorrow I’ll do arithmetic. Then, clever as I am, I can earn a
lot of money. With the very first pennies I make, I’ll buy Father a new
cloth coat. Cloth, did I say? No, it shall be of gold and silver with
diamond buttons. That poor man certainly deserves it; for, after all,
isn’t he in his shirt sleeves because he was good enough to buy a
book for me? On this cold day, too! Fathers are indeed good to their
children!”
As he talked to himself, he thought he heard sounds of pipes and drums
coming from a distance: pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi. . .zum, zum, zum, zum.
He stopped to listen. Those sounds came from a little street that led to
a small village along the shore.
“What can that noise be? What a nuisance that I have to go to school!
Otherwise. . .”
There he stopped, very much puzzled. He felt he had to make up his mind
for either one thing or another. Should he go to school, or should he
follow the pipes?
“Today I’ll follow the pipes, and tomorrow I’ll go to school. There’s
always plenty of time to go to school,” decided the little rascal at
last, shrugging his shoulders.
No sooner said than done. He started down the street, going like the
wind. On he ran, and louder grew the sounds of pipe and drum: pi-pi-pi,
pi-pi-pi, pi-pi-pi . . .zum, zum, zum, zum.
Suddenly, he found himself in a large square, full of people standing in
front of a little wooden building painted in brilliant colors.
“What is that house?” Pinocchio asked a little boy near him.
“Read the sign and you’ll know.”
“I’d like to read, but somehow I can’t today.”
“Oh, really? Then I’ll read it to you. Know, then, that written in
letters of fire I see the words: GREAT MARIONETTE THEATER.
“When did the show start?”
“It is starting now.”
“And how much does one pay to get in?”
“Four pennies.”
Pinocchio, who was wild with curiosity to know what was going on inside,
lost all his pride and said to the boy shamelessly:
“Will you give me four pennies until tomorrow?”
“I’d give them to you gladly,” answered the other, poking fun at him,
“but just now I can’t give them to you.”
“For the price of four pennies, I’ll sell you my coat.”
“If it rains, what shall I do with a coat of flowered paper? I could not
take it off again.”
“Do you want to buy my shoes?”
“They are only good enough to light a fire with.”
“What about my hat?”
“Fine bargain, indeed! A cap of dough! The mice might come and eat it
from my head!”
Pinocchio was almost in tears. He was just about to make one last offer,
but he lacked the courage to do so. He hesitated, he wondered, he could
not make up his mind. At last he said:
“Will you give me four pennies for the book?”
“I am a boy and I buy nothing from boys,” said the little fellow with
far more common sense than the Marionette.
“I’ll give you four pennies for your A-B-C book,” said a ragpicker who
stood by.
Then and there, the book changed hands. And to think that poor old
Geppetto sat at home in his shirt sleeves, shivering with cold, having
sold his coat to buy that little book for his son!
CHAPTER 10
The Marionettes recognize their brother Pinocchio, and greet him with
loud cheers; but the Director, Fire Eater, happens along and poor
Pinocchio almost loses his life.
Quick as a flash, Pinocchio disappeared into the Marionette Theater. And
then something happened which almost caused a riot.
The curtain was up and the performance had started.
Harlequin and Pulcinella were reciting on the stage and, as usual, they
were threatening each other with sticks and blows.
The theater was full of people, enjoying the spectacle and laughing till
they cried at the antics of the two Marionettes.
The play continued for a few minutes, and then suddenly, without any
warning, Harlequin stopped talking. Turning toward the audience, he
pointed to the rear of the orchestra, yelling wildly at the same time:
“Look, look! Am I asleep or awake? Or do I really see Pinocchio there?”
“Yes, yes! It is Pinocchio!” screamed Pulcinella.
“It is! It is!” shrieked Signora Rosaura, peeking in from the side of
the stage.
“It is Pinocchio! It is Pinocchio!” yelled all the Marionettes, pouring
out of the wings. “It is Pinocchio. It is our brother Pinocchio! Hurrah
for Pinocchio!”
“Pinocchio, come up to me!” shouted Harlequin. “Come to the arms of your
wooden brothers!”
At such a loving invitation, Pinocchio, with one leap from the back of
the orchestra, found himself in the front rows. With another leap,
he was on the orchestra leader’s head. With a third, he landed on the
stage.
It is impossible to describe the shrieks of joy, the warm embraces, the
knocks, and the friendly greetings with which that strange company of
dramatic actors and actresses received Pinocchio.