The Pinocchio Megapack: 4 Classic Puppet Tales

by Carlo Collodi

  The King took from the hand of his adjutant a silver medal hung from a light-blue ribbon and pinned it on Bersaglierino’s breast, who was so pale with emotion that he looked as if he would faint, then clasped the soldier’s right hand in both of his and said:

  “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo! You have done your duty as an Italian soldier. Treasure this medal which your country gives you by the hand of your King. Wear it always proudly on your breast. Every one should know that you deserve it and that they should follow your example.… You are crying? But it is with happiness, is it not?”

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  “And now that you have recovered, what will you do?”

  “I shall go back to my profession. I am a journalist.”

  “And…will you be able?”

  “I hope so. I was very severely wounded, but…”

  “You cured him, Major Cutemup?”

  “I myself, your Majesty; he was one of the worst cases. The left arm carried away by a shell splinter, wounded on the temple, and threatened with damage to his eye, wounded in his third upper rib and another wound in the groin with lesion in the intestines. An abdominal operation was performed, his arm was amputated and there was a suture in the occipital region.… The poor fellow has certainly had his share.”

  “You can see that by looking at his glorious uniform; it is indeed a document.”

  The uniform in question trembled and the plumed hat shook.

  “Yes…truly…but…”

  “Would you deny it?”

  “No, your Majesty, I wanted to say that that uniform shouldn’t be there just now. It is a glorious object, but in a hospital ward it may have infectious germs.… I had given orders to…but…and if your Majesty will permit, I will give orders to remove it at once.”

  He had scarcely finished speaking when the coat, trousers, and hat suddenly fell to the ground with such a curious noise that Cutemup could not help running up to see what had happened. Imagine how he looked when he found himself face to face with Pinocchio, cold with terror. He tried to hide him with the glorious garments in order to carry him off, bundled up in them, but the King turned and asked:

  “What’s happened?”

  “Your Majesty, I don’t know how to explain it.… Under these clothes was hidden a wretch who…”

  “Ah! I saw. I know him. Pinocchio is one of my old and dear acquaintances. I am glad to see him among my soldiers, in semi-military garb. Leave to Bersaglierino this uniform that is dear to him. It will be a glorious souvenir for his family. Good-by, brave soldier; remember your King. I called to you in the hour of need; if to-morrow you have need of me, remember that I shall never forget those who have served me on the battle-field.”

  And the good King, the loving father, the model soldier, turned to leave, followed by his suite.

  Before he had crossed the threshold Pinocchio had sprung to his feet, flung him two kisses with the tips of his fingers, and began to dance like mad with happiness. His wooden leg made a horrible noise. Fatina, fearing Cutemup’s anger, begged him to behave.

  “What? What? If Cutemup scolds me, woe to him. Did you hear? The King is an old acquaintance of mine. If he gets offended with me, I’ll take out my paper and pen and inkstand and I will write: ‘Dear King, you are the best and kindest man in the world, but do me the favor to cut off the head, or some other organ, from the major who amputated my leg without permission. In this world an eye for an eye, a head for a leg. Many kisses from your Pinocchio.’”

  CHAPTER VII

  How Pinocchio Came Face to Face with Our Alpine Troops

  If you had come across him unexpectedly in his new costume I assure you you would not have recognized him. On his head was a woolen helmet from which emerged only his eyes and the point of his nose; on his back was a short coat of goatskin which swelled him out like a German stuffed with beer and sausage; his legs were lost in a pair of big boots with lots of nails. Around his waist was a huge belt of leather from which hung a number of small rope ends, and in his hand he carried a splendid stick with an iron point. Captain Teschisso was a gentleman and wanted his new orderly to be magnificently equipped. That odd creature of a mountaineer amused himself thoroughly with the rascal Pinocchio. It didn’t seem real to see him struggling to conquer the mountain peaks and ready to fight those dogs of Austrians who were up there and with whom he had so many accounts to settle. They had arrived one morning at Fort——(censor). Teschisso had been greeted like one raised from the dead. Finally the soldiers had thrown their arms about his neck and kissed and hugged him. They all seemed like one family, and for a fact they did all resemble one another a little: tall, with extraordinary beards, with muscular legs straight as a column and hands that seemed made to give vigorous blows.

  “Where is my company?”

  “On——[oh, that censor!], at nine thousand feet altitude.”

  “All well?”

  “’Most all.”

  “And the Boches, where are they?”

  “Bah! We’ve got them on the run.”

  “Send my things up to me with the first supply division; I’m off now at once.”

  “Nine feet of snow and a biting wind.”

  “Heavens! If I were sure of finding that dog who cut my beard I would go to hell itself.”

  “I am thinking less of you than of your little orderly.”

  “Ha! That youngster has a wooden leg and is as hardy as a goat.”

  Pinocchio, to show off, whirled his leg around and with a shy glance convinced himself that in a wink of the eye he had won the respect of the little garrison.

  “Listen, Captain, if you give me something to eat I’ll go ahead; if you don’t, here’s where I stay.”

  “Indeed!”

  “How indeed! Did you understand that I am hungry?”

  “And I have nothing more to give you to eat.”

  “And I stop here.”

  “You’ll get caught in a blizzard and buried in snow and will be frozen hard like Neapolitan ice-cream.”

  “But…I’m hungry.”

  “You have eaten two rations of bread, a box of conserved beef, nearly half a pound of chocolate…”

  “Is it my fault if the air of these mountains makes me as hungry as a wolf? You should have told me before we left. Now I know why you are always saying that you would like to eat so many Austrians. But if you think I can get used to the same diet you are much mistaken.”

  “Are you coming or aren’t you?”

  “Is it much farther?”

  “Do you see that cloud up there?”

  “I defy any one not to see it.”

  “When that is passed there is a crack in the mountain called Spaccata; we must cross that and we are there—at least if they haven’t gone on ahead.”

  “In the clouds? Really in the clouds?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Listen, Captain, do I really seem to you as much of a fool as that?”

  “Just now, yes.”

  “Thanks, but you can go in the clouds by yourself; I’ll turn back and bid you farewell.”

  He tried to make one of his usual pirouettes to turn around, but the snow slipped under his feet and he fell, sitting down, and, sliding on the white surface, was precipitated down the slope of the mountain with terrifying speed.

  “Help! Help!”

  “Stick your staff in! Stick your staff in!” yelled Teschisso, who already believed him lost.

  He had need to yell. Pinocchio was flying along like a little steamer under forced draught and couldn’t hear anything, I assure you. Suddenly he stopped as if he were nailed to the snow. That was to be expected, you say, with that air of superior beings you assume every now and then. I know—but I can tell you Pinocchio didn’t expect it, nor even Tesc
hisso, who was leaping down to help his little friend.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Do you feel ill?”

  “No, not exactly ill, but I suffered terribly from—lack of courage.”

  “Why don’t you get up?”

  “I’m afraid of sliding off again.”

  “Let me help you.”

  Captain Teschisso took hold of the rope Pinocchio had tied around his waist and pulled one end of it through his leather belt, fastened the other end round his body, and, after planting his feet firmly, said: “Take hold of the rope and pull yourself up. You are quite safe; the mountain will crumble before I fall.”

  Pinocchio did his best to get on his feet, but couldn’t succeed. His hinder parts adhered to the crust of the snow as if some magician had glued them firmly. Teschisso, who had little patience and thought that Pinocchio was feigning in order not to have to climb the mountain, gave such a vigorous pull on the rope tied to the boy’s belt that he jerked him up, swung him through the air for several feet, and flung him face downward on a heap of snow as downy as a feather-bed. A piece of gray cloth left behind showed the spot where Pinocchio had been miraculously halted in his precipitous descent. Teschisso glanced at it and couldn’t keep back one of his loud, honest mountain laughs. Pinocchio, believing he was being swung around for fun, sprang to his feet, so furious that the captain’s hilarity grew even stronger and louder.

  “Heavens! And you can thank Heaven that you are still in the land of the living. Look there and feel the back of your trousers. Hah, hah, hah! Don’t you understand yet what has happened to you? You were caught in a wolf-trap which the Austrians put there to catch some of us, and instead you were the one, which isn’t the same thing at all.”

  Notwithstanding the laughter of the captain, Pinocchio’s anger evaporated in a second. His eyes were fixed on the scraps of his trousers that still hung on the teeth of the trap and his hands were rubbing the frozen surface left uncovered. He longed to cry, and felt so ridiculous that he was almost on the point of flinging himself again down the snowy slope.

  “Come on, come on! There’s no time to lose. There is a long road to go and the clouds are hanging lower. There’s no sense in your staying there like a macaw, weeping for the seat of your breeches. When we arrive up there I’ll have the company’s tailor mend them for you. You’ve got to march, and no more nonsense. Forward, march!”

  “Captain, it’s impossible.”

  “Heavens alive! How impossible?”

  “I am not presentable.”

  “Why?”

  “If we find the enemy and the Austrians see me with my trousers in such a state, they will say that the Italian army…”

  “Fool! The Italian army never turns its rear to the enemy, and you won’t, either.”

  “But…”

  “If you are afraid of taking cold in your spine that’s another matter. If that’s the case let’s see what can be done.”

  Captain Teschisso turned Pinocchio over, took a copy of a newspaper out of his pocket, folded it over four times, and stuck it into the hole of the trousers. And he did it so well that the “Latest News” with the headlines seemed to be framed in the ragged edges of the cloth.

  “There you are. Are you satisfied?”

  To tell the truth, he would have preferred to consider a little before answering, but the captain didn’t give him the time. He started off with a quick stride, pulling the rope after him which he had fastened to his belt, as if bringing a calf to the butcher.

  I do not know if you, my children, have ever been up in the high mountains. You must know that after you reach a certain altitude, whether because the air becomes rarefied or because of the silence that surrounds you, you seem to be living another life in another world. Your breath grows shorter; it seems as if you could not draw a long one, while the lungs are so full of oxygen that the heart beats more rapidly; then fatigue is followed by a condition of strange torpor. Nevertheless, you continue to climb without effort, as if the legs moved automatically. If you speak, the voice reaches the ears faintly as if it came from a distance. Sometimes you have a certain discomfort called mountain-sickness, which makes the temples throb and brings with it such a languor that the traveler is forced to give up his ascent. Pinocchio, who for some time had been experiencing all these sensations peculiar to the high mountains, found himself suddenly hidden in a fog so thick that he couldn’t see a hand’s-breath before his nose.

  Not seeing Teschisso any more, and not feeling his numbed legs move, and feeling himself dragged upward and upward through the darkness as if by some prodigious force, he really imagined himself to have entered a new world, and was seized by such a terror that he began to scream as if his throat were being cut. But, seeing that his voice didn’t carry far and that Teschisso was not affected by it, he thought it easier to let himself be dragged along and to spare his breath for a better cause.

  “I’d like to know where that creature is dragging me,” he began to grumble in a low voice like a somnambulist in the dark to give himself courage. “I’d like to know where he is taking me. I am almost beginning to believe that I am really in the clouds, but I’d like to know what need there is to climb ’way up here to fight when there is plenty of room down below. Anyway, I don’t believe that we’ll find a single Austrian up here in the clouds; it’s just a fancy of the captain, who must be a trifle crazy. Once I heard a country priest say that the Heavenly Father lives in the clouds to let the water down when the peasants need it to water their cabbages and turnips, and to keep the sun lighted to warm those who have no clothes. It looks to me as if He had let the Alpine troops take His place.

  “Hum! Let’s see how this is going to come out. All I care about is to fill my stomach when we arrive, because I am hungry and can’t stand it any longer. I’ve been eating snow for an hour now, but I don’t get any nourishment from that. I am beginning to think I was better off where I was before. If Bersaglierino hadn’t been injured I’d still be with him and his fine regiment. At least down there I could hear some noise…patapin! patapum…pum! Here there’s nothing but snow and ice, not a living person to be seen. I should just like to know with whom we can fight. In any case, if the Austrians are up there it seems to me it’ll be hard to get close enough to bother them.… But it’s easy to see that the air up there isn’t for me; I can scarcely go on, but if I slip I’d have to fall all the way, as I did this morning. If I hadn’t been so frightened I should almost have enjoyed it. I went along like a trolley-car, and such speed! But I left my trousers on the way. A nice sight I’ll be when I’m introduced to the company with the newspaper on…the rear front! And, to tell the truth, it doesn’t keep me very warm. I feel a little cold in my back. I don’t know whether it really comes from that, but I feel it, almost—if I didn’t feel so well—as if I were going to be sick.”

  Teschisso noticed the dead weight on the rope he was pulling and absent-mindedly quickened his pace, so terrifyingly horizontal. If the boy had fainted it wouldn’t be an easy matter to carry him to safety in such weather. Although he knew the rocks inch by inch, it was not easy to find the way in the whiteness of the snow nor to judge how much more of the road there still remained to cover, on account of the fog which hid the landscape. He was reproaching himself for not having listened to the advice of his comrades at the fort, who had advised him to delay his climb, when he heard a strange metallic noise which grew stronger each moment.

  “No so bad. Here we are!”

  He took a few steps more, then, pulling from his pocket a horn whistle, he blew several short, shrill blasts. He was answered by a dozen voices, one deep one calling:

  “Who goes there?”

  “Friends.”

  “Pasquale.”

  “Pinerolo.”

  “I’m well. Who are you?”


  “Captain Teschisso.”

  “Bah! Don’t believe it.”

  “Here, you dog! I tell you it is I.”

  “Captain Teschisso is killed. Too bad. I saw him fall down in the valley.”

  “Oh, did you, Sergeant Minestron?”

  “I’ll be dogged if it isn’t he; it really is he!”

  From the fog emerged several Alpine figures; they came nearer, growing more distinct, and then there was a yell of delight.

  “It is he in flesh and blood. Hurrah!”

  “Hurrah for our captain!”

  “Thank God that he is really alive.”

  “Lieutenant, Lieutenant, come here…a surprise!”

  “Captain, how many surprises?”

  “Let me get my breath; you are suffocating me with your hugs. Where are they?”

  “The Austrians?”

  “Heavens! Whom do you suppose I’m talking about? I came up here for the express purpose of getting even with them!”

  “They are a long distance away, Captain. We must transport our artillery up to Mount X [censor]; there we’ll go for them.”

  “And have you got the filovia [aerial railway] in working order for that purpose?”

  “Yes, indeed! They have been working on it for three days.”

  “And the company?”

  “They are intrenched in the hut on Mount X with the battalion.”

  “It will take four good hours to get there.”

  “Even more, Captain.”

  “And how will I manage to tow along this lump of a Pinocchio who is half dead with mountain-sickness?”

  “Pinocchio?”

  “Where is he?”

  “Pull the rope and take him off my back; he has tired me out.”