Pinocchio

it did. A little old man appeared at a window with a night-cap on his head and called to him angrily:
“What do you want at such an hour?”
“Would you be kind enough to give me a little bread?”
“Wait there, I will be back directly,” said the little old man, thinking it was one of those rascally boys who amuse themselves at night by ringing the house-bells to rouse respectable people who are sleeping quietly.
After half a minute the window was again opened and the voice of the same little old man shouted to Pinocchio:
“Come underneath and hold out your cap.”
Pinocchio pulled off his cap; but, just as he held it out, an enormous basin of water was poured down on him, soaking him from head to foot as if he had been a pot of dried-up geraniums.
He returned home like a wet chicken, quite exhausted with fatigue and hunger; and, having no longer strength to stand, he sat down and rested his damp and muddy feet on a brazier full of burning embers.
And then he fell asleep, and whilst he slept his feet, which were wooden, took fire, and little by little they burnt away and became cinders.
Pinocchio continued to sleep and to snore as if his feet belonged to some one else. At last about daybreak he awoke because some one was knocking at the door.
“Who is there?” he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes.
“It is I!” answered a voice.
And Pinocchio recognized Geppetto`s voice.
CHAPTER VII
GEPPETTO GIVES HIS OWN BREAKFAST TO PINOCCHIO
Poor Pinocchio, whose eyes were still half shut from sleep, had not as yet discovered that his feet were burnt off. The moment, therefore, that he heard his father`s voice he slipped off his stool to run and open the door; but, after stumbling two or three times, he fell his whole length on the floor.
And the noise he made in falling was as if a sack of wooden ladles had been thrown from a fifth story.
“Open the door!” shouted Geppetto from the street.
“Dear papa, I cannot,” answered the puppet, crying and rolling about on the ground.
“Why can`t you?”
“Because my feet have been eaten.”
“And who has eaten your feet?”
“The cat,” said Pinocchio, seeing the cat, who was amusing herself by making some shavings dance with her forepaws.
“Open the door, I tell you!” repeated Geppetto. “If you don`t, when I get into the house you shall have the cat from me!”
“I cannot stand up, believe me. Oh, poor me! poor me! I shall have to walk on my knees for the rest of my life!”
Geppetto, believing that all this lamentation was only another of the puppet`s tricks, thought of a means of putting an end to it, and, climbing up the wall, he got in at the window.
He was very angry and at first he did nothing but scold; but when he saw his Pinocchio lying on the ground and really without feet he was quite overcome. He took him in his arms and began to kiss and caress him, and to say a thousand endearing things to him, and as the big tears ran down his cheeks he said, sobbing:
“My little Pinocchio! how did you manage to burn your feet?”
“I don`t know, papa, but it has been such a dreadful night that I shall remember it as long as I live. It thundered and lightened, and I was very hungry, and then the Talking-Cricket said to me: `It serves you right; you have been wicked and you deserve it,` and I said to him: `Take care, Cricket!` and he said: `You are a puppet and you have a wooden head,` and I threw the handle of a hammer at him, and he died, but the fault was his, for I didn`t wish to kill him, and the proof of it is that I put an earthenware saucer on a brazier of burning embers, but a chicken flew out and said: `Adieu until we meet again, and many compliments to all at home`: and I got still more hungry, for which reason that little old man in a night-cap, opening the window, said to me: `Come underneath and hold out your hat,` and poured a basinful of water on my head, because asking for a little bread isn`t a disgrace, is it? and I returned home at once, and because I was always very hungry I put my feet on the brazier to dry them, and then you returned, and I found they were burnt off, and I am always hungry, but I have no longer any feet! Oh! oh! oh! oh!” And poor Pinocchio began to cry and to roar so loudly that he was heard five miles off.
Geppetto, who from all this jumbled account had only understood one thing, which was that the puppet was dying of hunger, drew from his pocket three pears and, giving them to him, said:
“These three pears were intended for my breakfast, but I will give them to you willingly. Eat them, and I hope they will do you good.”
“If you wish me to eat them, be kind enough to peel them for me.”
“Peel them?” said Geppetto, astonished. “I should never have thought, my boy, that you were so dainty and fastidious. That is bad! In this world we should accustom ourselves from childhood to like and to eat everything, for there is no saying to what we may be brought. There are so many chances!”
“You are no doubt right,” interrupted Pinocchio, “but I will never eat fruit that has not been peeled. I cannot bear rind.”
So good Geppetto peeled the three pears and put the rind on a corner of the table.
Having eaten the first pear in two mouthfuls, Pinocchio was about to throw away the core, but Geppetto caught hold of his arm and said to him:
“Do not throw it away; in this world everything may be of use.”
“But core I am determined I will not eat,” shouted the puppet, turning upon him like a viper.
“Who knows! there are so many chances!” repeated Geppetto, without losing his temper.
And so the three cores, instead of being thrown out of the window, were placed on the corner of the table, together with the three rinds.
Having eaten, or rather having devoured the three pears, Pinocchio yawned tremendously, and then said in a fretful tone:
“I am as hungry as ever!”
“But, my boy, I have nothing more to give you!”
“Nothing, really nothing?”
“I have only the rind and the cores of the three pears.”
“One must have patience!” said Pinocchio; “if there is nothing else I will eat a rind.”
And he began to chew it. At first he made a wry face, but then one after another he quickly disposed of the rinds: and after the rinds even the cores, and when he had eaten up everything he clapped his hands on his sides in his satisfaction and said joyfully:
“Ah! now I feel comfortable.”
“You see, now,” observed Geppetto, “that I was right when I said to you that it did not do to accustom ourselves to be too particular or too dainty in our tastes. We can never know, my dear boy, what may happen to us. There are so many chances!”
CHAPTER VIII
GEPPETTO MAKES PINOCCHIO NEW FEET
No sooner had the puppet satisfied his hunger than he began to cry and to grumble because he wanted a pair of new feet.
But Geppetto, to punish him for his naughtiness, allowed him to cry and to despair for half the day. He then said to him:
“Why should I make you new feet? To enable you, perhaps, to escape again from home?”
“I promise you,” said the puppet, sobbing, “that for the future I will be good.”
“All boys,” replied Geppetto, “when they are bent upon obtaining something, say the same thing.”
“I promise you that I will go to school and that I will study and bring home a good report.”
“All boys, when they are bent on obtaining something, repeat the same story.”
“But I am not like other boys! I am better than all of them and I always speak the truth. I promise you, papa, that I will learn a trade and that I will be the consolation and the staff of your old age.”
Geppetto`s eyes filled with tears and his heart was sad at seeing his poor Pinocchio in such a pitiable state. He did not say another word, but, taking his tools and two small pieces of well-seasoned wood, he set to work with great diligence.
In less than an hour the feet were finished: two little feet-swift, well-knit and nervous. They might have been modelled by an artist of genius.
Geppetto then said to the puppet:
“Shut your eyes and go to sleep!”
And Pinocchio shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
And whilst he pretended to sleep, Geppetto, with a little glue which he had melted in an egg-shell, fastened his feet in their place, and it was so well done that not even a trace could be seen of where they were joined.
No sooner had the puppet discovered that he had feet than he jumped down from the table on which he was lying and began to spring and to cut a thousand capers about the room, as if he had gone mad with the greatness of his delight.
“To reward you for what you have done for me,” said Pinocchio to his father, “I will go to school at once.”
“Good boy.”
“But to go to school I shall want some clothes.”
Geppetto, who was poor and who had not so much as a penny in his pocket, then made him a little dress of flowered paper, a pair of shoes from the bark of a tree, and a cap of the crumb of bread.
Pinocchio ran immediately to look at himself in a crock of water, and he was so pleased with his appearance that he said, strutting about like a peacock:
“I look quite like a gentleman!”
“Yes, indeed,” answered Geppetto, “for bear in mind that it is not fine clothes that make the gentleman, but rather clean clothes.”
“By the bye,” added the puppet, “to go to school I am still in want-indeed, I am without the best thing, and the most important.”
“And what is it?”
“I have no spelling-book.”
“You are right: but what shall we do to get one?”
“It is quite easy. We have only to go to the bookseller`s and buy it.”
“And the money?”
“I have got none.”
“Neither have I,” added the good old man, very sadly.
And Pinocchio, although he was a very merry boy, became sad also, because poverty, when it is real poverty, is understood by everybody-even by boys.
“Well, patience!” exclaimed Geppetto, all at once rising to his feet, and putting on his old corduroy coat, all patched and darned, he ran out of the house.
He returned shortly, holding in his hand a spelling-book for Pinocchio, but the old coat was gone. The poor man was …