Carlo Collodi – Pinocchio (страница 5)
Geppetto had only understood one thing of all this jumble of words – that Pinocchio was dying of hunger.
He took three pears out of his pocket, and said, giving them to him, ‘These three pears were for my breakfast, but I willingly give them to you. Eat them, and may they do you good!’
‘If you want me to eat them, kindly peel them for me.’
‘Peel them for you?’ cried Geppetto, astonished. ‘I would never have thought, my lad, that you were so refined and fastidious. That’s too bad! We should get used, from childhood, to eating everything, and liking it; for one never knows what might happen in this curious world.’
‘That’s all very well,’ retorted Pinocchio, ‘but I’ll never eat fruit that isn’t peeled. I can’t stand skins.’
So that patient, kind Geppetto took a knife and peeled the three pears, putting all the peelings on the corner of the table.
When Pinocchio had eaten the first pear in two mouthfuls, he was about to throw away the core, but Geppetto stopped him.
‘Don’t throw it away! There might be some use for it.’
‘Can you imagine I shall ever eat the core?’ cried Pinocchio, turning on him in a rage.
‘Who knows! This is a curious world,’ replied Geppetto, calmly.
So the three cores, instead of being thrown out of the window, were placed on the corner of the table together with the parings.
When he had eaten, or rather devoured the three pears, Pinocchio yawned, and then began to whimper, ‘I’m still hungry.’
‘But, my son, I have nothing more to give you.’
‘Nothing? Nothing at all?’
‘Only the peelings and cores you left.’
‘All right!’ said Pinocchio. ‘If there’s really nothing else, I might eat some peelings.’
And he began promptly. At first he made faces; but, one after another, he quickly ate all the peelings; and after them the cores. And when he had eaten everything, he clapped his stomach and said cheerfully, ‘Now I feel better!’
‘You see,’ said Geppetto, ‘I was right when I said you should not be so refined and fastidious about your food. My dear boy, we never know what might happen to us. This is a curious world.’
As soon as the marionette had satisfied his hunger, he began to cry and grumble because he wanted new feet.
But Geppetto, in order to punish him for all his naughtiness, let him cry and complain for half a day. Then he said, ‘Why should I make you new feet? So that you may escape from home again?’
‘I promise,’ said the marionette, sobbing, ‘that from now on I’ll be good.’
‘All children, when they want something, tell the same story,’ replied Geppetto.
‘I promise to go to school, and study, and do my best as a good boy should –’
‘All children, when they want something, say the same thing.’
‘But I’m not like other children! I’m better than all of them, and I always tell the truth. I promise you, daddy, that I shall learn a trade, and be the staff and comfort of your old age.’
Geppetto tried to look very severe; but his eyes were full of tears, and his heart was full of sadness when he saw his poor Pinocchio in such a dreadful state. He did not say another word, but, taking his tools and two little pieces of seasoned wood, he set to work as hard as he could.
In less than an hour the feet were ready – two well-shaped, nimble swift little feet that might have been carved by a great artist.
Then Geppetto said to Pinocchio, ‘Shut your eyes and go to sleep.’
Pinocchio shut his eyes, and pretended to be asleep. And while he did so Geppetto, with some glue melted in an eggshell, fastened the feet in place; and he did it so neatly that no one could even see where they were joined together. As soon as Pinocchio discovered he had his feet again, he jumped down from the table where he was lying and began to gambol and dance around the room, nearly mad with joy.
‘Now, to prove to you how grateful I am,’ said Pinocchio to his father, ‘I want to go to school at once.’
‘What a good boy!’
‘But if I’m going to school, I must have some clothes.’
Geppetto, who was poor and had not a farthing in his pocket, made Pinocchio a suit out of flowered paper, a pair of shoes out of bark from a tree, and a cap out of bread.
Pinocchio ran to look at himself in a basin of water; and he was so pleased with himself that he said, as he strutted about, ‘I look exactly like a gentleman!’
‘Yes, indeed,’ answered Geppetto, ‘but remember, it is not fine clothes that make a gentleman, but clean clothes.’
‘By the way, speaking of school,’ added Pinocchio, ‘there’s still something I must have – the most necessary of all.’
‘And that is …?’
‘I have no primer.’
‘That’s right. But how shall I get one?’
‘That’s easy! Go to the bookseller and buy one.’
‘And the money?’
‘I haven’t any.’
‘Neither have I,’ added the good old man, sadly.
Pinocchio, although he was usually very cheerful, became sad, too; for poverty, when it is real poverty, destroys all joy, even in children.
‘Wait,’ Geppetto cried suddenly and, jumping up, he put on his old coat, full of holes and patches, and ran out of the shop.
In a little while he was back again, with a primer in his hand for Pinocchio. But the poor man was in his shirt-sleeves, and it was snowing outside.
‘Where is your coat, Daddy?’
‘I have sold it.’
‘Why did you sell it?’
‘Because it made me too warm.’
Pinocchio understood this answer instantly; and he was so overcome by the feelings of his good heart, that he threw his arms around Geppetto’s neck and kissed him again and again.
When it stopped snowing, Pinocchio started for school with his fine new primer under his arm. On the way, he never stopped imagining all sorts of fine plans, and he built a thousand castles in the air, each one more beautiful than the other.
He began by saying to himself, ‘At school today I shall learn to read in no time; tomorrow I shall learn to write, and the day after tomorrow I shall learn all the figures. Then I shall be clever enough to earn lots of money; and with the very first money I get I shall buy my father the nicest, new, cloth coat. But why cloth? It shall be made of gold and silver, with diamond buttons. That poor man really deserves it; for, that I should be a learned man, he sold his coat to buy me a book – in this cold weather, too! Only fathers can make such sacrifices.’
While he was saying this more and more excitedly, he thought he heard music in the distance that sounded like fife and drum:
He stopped and listened. The sounds came from the end of the street that crossed the one which led to school, at the end of the little village near the sea.
‘What can the music be? What a pity I have to go to school! Otherwise …’ He hesitated, deciding whether to go to school or listen to the fifes.
‘Today I shall listen to the fifes, and tomorrow I shall go to school,’ this naughty boy said finally, shrugging his shoulders.
No sooner said than done. He ran, and the farther he ran the more distinctly he heard the tune of the fifes and the beating of the big drum:
At last he came to a little square full of people who were gathered around a great building of boards and cloth, painted in all colours of the rainbow.
‘What is that big building?’ Pinocchio asked a boy who seemed to live there.
‘Read the poster – it is all written there – and then you’ll know.’