The Adventures of Pinocchio
go.’ Then they said, ‘Let us stop at the Inn of the Red Lobster for
dinner and after midnight we’ll set out again.’ We ate and went to
sleep. When I awoke they were gone and I started out in the darkness all
alone. On the road I met two Assassins dressed in black coal sacks,
who said to me, ‘Your money or your life!’ and I said, ‘I haven’t any
money’; for, you see, I had put the money under my tongue. One of them
tried to put his hand in my mouth and I bit it off and spat it out; but
it wasn’t a hand, it was a cat’s paw. And they ran after me and I ran
and ran, till at last they caught me and tied my neck with a rope and
hanged me to a tree, saying, ‘Tomorrow we’ll come back for you and
you’ll be dead and your mouth will be open, and then we’ll take the gold
pieces that you have hidden under your tongue.’”
“Where are the gold pieces now?” the Fairy asked.
“I lost them,” answered Pinocchio, but he told a lie, for he had them in
his pocket.
As he spoke, his nose, long though it was, became at least two inches
longer.
“And where did you lose them?”
“In the wood near by.”
At this second lie, his nose grew a few more inches.
“If you lost them in the near-by wood,” said the Fairy, “we’ll look for
them and find them, for everything that is lost there is always found.”
“Ah, now I remember,” replied the Marionette, becoming more and more
confused. “I did not lose the gold pieces, but I swallowed them when I
drank the medicine.”
At this third lie, his nose became longer than ever, so long that he
could not even turn around. If he turned to the right, he knocked it
against the bed or into the windowpanes; if he turned to the left, he
struck the walls or the door; if he raised it a bit, he almost put the
Fairy’s eyes out.
The Fairy sat looking at him and laughing.
“Why do you laugh?” the Marionette asked her, worried now at the sight
of his growing nose.
“I am laughing at your lies.”
“How do you know I am lying?”
“Lies, my boy, are known in a moment. There are two kinds of lies, lies
with short legs and lies with long noses. Yours, just now, happen to
have long noses.”
Pinocchio, not knowing where to hide his shame, tried to escape from the
room, but his nose had become so long that he could not get it out of
the door.
CHAPTER 18
Pinocchio finds the Fox and the Cat again, and goes with them to sow the
gold pieces in the Field of Wonders.
Crying as if his heart would break, the Marionette mourned for hours
over the length of his nose. No matter how he tried, it would not go
through the door. The Fairy showed no pity toward him, as she was trying
to teach him a good lesson, so that he would stop telling lies, the
worst habit any boy may acquire. But when she saw him, pale with fright
and with his eyes half out of his head from terror, she began to feel
sorry for him and clapped her hands together. A thousand woodpeckers
flew in through the window and settled themselves on Pinocchio’s nose.
They pecked and pecked so hard at that enormous nose that in a few
moments, it was the same size as before.
“How good you are, my Fairy,” said Pinocchio, drying his eyes, “and how
much I love you!”
“I love you, too,” answered the Fairy, “and if you wish to stay with me,
you may be my little brother and I’ll be your good little sister.”
“I should like to stay--but what about my poor father?”
“I have thought of everything. Your father has been sent for and before
night he will be here.”
“Really?” cried Pinocchio joyfully. “Then, my good Fairy, if you are
willing, I should like to go to meet him. I cannot wait to kiss that
dear old man, who has suffered so much for my sake.”
“Surely; go ahead, but be careful not to lose your way. Take the wood
path and you’ll surely meet him.”
Pinocchio set out, and as soon as he found himself in the wood, he
ran like a hare. When he reached the giant oak tree he stopped, for he
thought he heard a rustle in the brush. He was right. There stood the
Fox and the Cat, the two traveling companions with whom he had eaten at
the Inn of the Red Lobster.
“Here comes our dear Pinocchio!” cried the Fox, hugging and kissing him.
“How did you happen here?”
“How did you happen here?” repeated the Cat.
“It is a long story,” said the Marionette. “Let me tell it to you. The
other night, when you left me alone at the Inn, I met the Assassins on
the road--”
“The Assassins? Oh, my poor friend! And what did they want?”
“They wanted my gold pieces.”
“Rascals!” said the Fox.
“The worst sort of rascals!” added the Cat.
“But I began to run,” continued the Marionette, “and they after me,
until they overtook me and hanged me to the limb of that oak.”
Pinocchio pointed to the giant oak near by.
“Could anything be worse?” said the Fox.
“What an awful world to live in! Where shall we find a safe place for
gentlemen like ourselves?”
As the Fox talked thus, Pinocchio noticed that the Cat carried his right
paw in a sling.
“What happened to your paw?” he asked.
The Cat tried to answer, but he became so terribly twisted in his speech
that the Fox had to help him out.
“My friend is too modest to answer. I’ll answer for him. About an hour
ago, we met an old wolf on the road. He was half starved and begged for
help. Having nothing to give him, what do you think my friend did out
of the kindness of his heart? With his teeth, he bit off the paw of
his front foot and threw it at that poor beast, so that he might have
something to eat.”
As he spoke, the Fox wiped off a tear.
Pinocchio, almost in tears himself, whispered in the Cat’s ear:
“If all the cats were like you, how lucky the mice would be!”
“And what are you doing here?” the Fox asked the Marionette.
“I am waiting for my father, who will be here at any moment now.”
“And your gold pieces?”
“I still have them in my pocket, except one which I spent at the Inn of
the Red Lobster.”
“To think that those four gold pieces might become two thousand
tomorrow. Why don’t you listen to me? Why don’t you sow them in the
Field of Wonders?”
“Today it is impossible. I’ll go with you some other time.”
“Another day will be too late,” said the Fox.
“Why?”
“Because that field has been bought by a very rich man, and today is the
last day that it will be open to the public.”
“How far is this Field of Wonders?”
“Only two miles away. Will you come with us? We’ll be there in half an
hour. You can sow the money, and, after a few minutes, you will gather
your two thousand coins and return home rich. Are you coming?”
Pinocchio hesitated a moment before answering, for he remembered the
good Fairy, old Geppetto, and the advice of the Talking Cricket. Then
he ended by doing what all boys do, when they have no heart and little
brain. He shrugged his shoulders and said to the Fox and the Cat:
“Let us go! I am with you.”
And they went.
They walked and walked for a half a day at least and at last they came
to the town called the City of Simple Simons. As soon as they entered
the town, Pinocchio noticed that all the streets were filled with
hairless dogs, yawning from hunger; with sheared sheep, trembling with
cold; with combless chickens, begging for a grain of wheat; with large
butterflies, unable to use their wings because they had sold all their
lovely colors; with tailless peacocks, ashamed to show themselves; and
with bedraggled pheasants, scuttling away hurriedly, grieving for their
bright feathers of gold and silver, lost to them forever.
Through this crowd of paupers and beggars, a beautiful coach passed now
and again. Within it sat either a Fox, a Hawk, or a Vulture.
“Where is the Field of Wonders?” asked Pinocchio, growing tired of
waiting.
“Be patient. It is only a few more steps away.”
They passed through the city and, just outside the walls, they stepped
into a lonely field, which looked more or less like any other field.
“Here we are,” said the Fox to the Marionette. “Dig a hole here and put
the gold pieces into it.”
The Marionette obeyed. He dug the hole, put the four gold pieces into
it, and covered them up very carefully. “Now,” said the Fox, “go to that
near-by brook, bring back a pail full of water, and sprinkle it over the
spot.”
Pinocchio followed the directions closely, but, as he had no pail, he
pulled off his shoe, filled it with water, and sprinkled the earth which
covered the gold. Then he asked:
“Anything else?”
“Nothing else,” answered the Fox. “Now we can go. Return here within
twenty minutes and you will find the vine grown and the branches filled
with gold pieces.”
Pinocchio, beside himself with joy, thanked the Fox and the Cat many
times and promised them each a beautiful gift.
“We don’t want any of your gifts,” answered the two rogues. “It is
enough for us that we have helped you to become rich with little or no
trouble. For this we are as happy as kings.”
They said good-by to Pinocchio and, wishing him good luck, went on their
way.
CHAPTER 19
Pinocchio is robbed of his gold pieces and, in punishment, is sentenced
to four months in prison.
If the Marionette had been told to wait a day instead of twenty minutes,
the time could not have seemed longer to him. He walked impatiently to
and fro and finally turned his nose toward the Field of Wonders.
And as he walked with hurried steps, his heart beat with an excited tic,
tac, tic, tac, just as if it were a wall clock, and his busy brain kept
thinking:
“What if, instead of a thousand, I should find two thousand? Or if,
instead of two thousand, I should find five thousand--or one hundred
thousand? I’ll build myself a beautiful palace, with a thousand stables
filled with a thousand wooden horses to play with, a cellar overflowing
with lemonade and ice cream soda, and a library of candies and fruits,
cakes and cookies.”
Thus amusing himself with fancies, he came to the field. There he
stopped to see if, by any chance, a vine filled with gold coins was
in sight. But he saw nothing! He took a few steps forward, and still
nothing! He stepped into the field. He went up to the place where he had
dug the hole and buried the gold pieces. Again nothing! Pinocchio became
very thoughtful and, forgetting his good manners altogether, he pulled a
hand out of his pocket and gave his head a thorough scratching.
As he did so, he heard a hearty burst of laughter close to his head. He
turned sharply, and there, just above him on the branch of a tree, sat a
large Parrot, busily preening his feathers.
“What are you laughing at?” Pinocchio asked peevishly.
“I am laughing because, in preening my feathers, I tickled myself under
the wings.”
The Marionette did not answer. He walked to the brook, filled his shoe
with water, and once more sprinkled the ground which covered the gold
pieces.
Another burst of laughter, even more impertinent than the first, was
heard in the quiet field.
“Well,” cried the Marionette, angrily this time, “may I know, Mr.
Parrot, what amuses you so?”
“I am laughing at those simpletons who believe everything they hear and
who allow themselves to be caught so easily in the traps set for them.”
“Do you, perhaps, mean me?”
“I certainly do mean you, poor Pinocchio--you who are such a little
silly as to believe that gold can be sown in a field just like beans
or squash. I, too, believed that once and today I am very sorry for it.
Today (but too late!) I have reached the conclusion that, in order to
come by money honestly, one must work and know how to earn it with hand
or brain.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” said the Marionette, who was
beginning to tremble with fear.
“Too bad! I’ll explain myself better,” said the Parrot. “While you were
away in the city the Fox and the Cat returned here in a great hurry.