as soon as he gets home, geppetto fashions the marionetteand calls it pinocchio. the first pranks of the marionettelittle as geppetto's house was, it was neat andcomfortable. it was a small room on the ground floor, with a tiny window under the stairway. the furniture could nothave been much simpler: a very old chair, a rickety oldbed, and a tumble-down table. a fireplace full of burninglogs was painted on the wall opposite the door. over thefire, there was painted a pot full of something which keptboiling happily away and sending up clouds of what lookedlike real steam.
as soon as he reached home, geppetto took his toolsand began to cut and shape the wood into a marionette.
"what shall i call him?" he said to himself. "i thinki'll call him pinocchio. this name will make his fortune.
i knew a whole family of pinocchi once--pinocchio thefather, pinocchia the mother, and pinocchi the children--and they were all lucky. the richest of them begged forhis living."after choosing the name for his marionette, geppettoset seriously to work to make the hair, the forehead, theeyes. fancy his surprise when he noticed that these eyesmoved and then stared fixedly at him. geppetto, seeingthis, felt insulted and said in a grieved tone:
"ugly wooden eyes, why do you stare so?"there was no answer.
after the eyes, geppetto made the nose, which beganto stretch as soon as finished. it stretched and stretchedand stretched till it became so long, it seemed endless.
poor geppetto kept cutting it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the longer grew that impertinent nose. indespair he let it alone.
next he made the mouth.
no sooner was it finished than it began to laugh andpoke fun at him.
"stop laughing!" said geppetto angrily; but he mightas well have spoken to the wall.
"stop laughing, i say!" he roared in a voice of thunder.
the mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue.
not wishing to start an argument, geppetto madebelieve he saw nothing and went on with his work.
after the mouth, he made the chin, then the neck, theshoulders, the stomach, the arms, and the hands.
as he was about to put the last touches on the fingertips, geppetto felt his wig being pulled off. he glancedup and what did he see? his yellow wig was in the marionette'shand. "pinocchio, give me my wig!"but instead of giving it back, pinocchio put it on hisown head, which was half swallowed up in it.
at that unexpected trick, geppetto became very sadand downcast, more so than he had ever been before.
"pinocchio, you wicked boy!" he cried out. "you arenot yet finished, and you start out by being impudent toyour poor old father. very bad, my son, very bad!"and he wiped away a tear.
the legs and feet still had to be made. as soon as theywere done, geppetto felt a sharp kick on the tip of his nose.
"i deserve it!" he said to himself. "i should have thoughtof this before i made him. now it's too late!"he took hold of the marionette under the arms and puthim on the floor to teach him to walk.
pinocchio's legs were so stiff that he could not movethem, and geppetto held his hand and showed him how toput out one foot after the other.
when his legs were limbered up, pinocchio startedwalking by himself and ran all around the room. he cameto the open door, and with one leap he was out into thestreet. away he flew!
poor geppetto ran after him but was unable to catchhim, for pinocchio ran in leaps and bounds, his twowooden feet, as they beat on the stones of the street,making as much noise as twenty peasants in wooden shoes.
"catch him! catch him!" geppetto kept shouting.
but the people in the street, seeing a wooden marionetterunning like the wind, stood still to stare and to laughuntil they cried.
at last, by sheer luck, a carabineer[2] happenedalong, who, hearing all that noise, thought that it mightbe a runaway colt, and stood bravely in the middle of the street, with legs wide apart, firmly resolved to stop it andprevent any trouble.
[2] a military policemanpinocchio saw the carabineer from afar and tried hisbest to escape between the legs of the big fellow, butwithout success.
the carabineer grabbed him by the nose (it was anextremely long one and seemed made on purpose for thatvery thing) and returned him to mastro geppetto.
the little old man wanted to pull pinocchio's ears.
think how he felt when, upon searching for them, hediscovered that he had forgotten to make them!
all he could do was to seize pinocchio by the back ofthe neck and take him home. as he was doing so, he shookhim two or three times and said to him angrily:
"we're going home now. when we get home,then we'll settle this matter!"pinocchio, on hearing this, threw himself on the groundand refused to take another step. one person after anothergathered around the two.
some said one thing, some another.
"poor marionette," called out a man. "i am notsurprised he doesn't want to go home. geppetto, no doubt,will beat him unmercifully, he is so mean and cruel!""geppetto looks like a good man," added another, "butwith boys he's a real tyrant. if we leave that poormarionette in his hands he may tear him to pieces!"they said so much that, finally, the carabineer endedmatters by setting pinocchio at liberty and dragginggeppetto to prison. the poor old fellow did not know how todefend himself, but wept and wailed like a child and saidbetween his sobs:
"ungrateful boy! to think i tried so hard to make youa well-behaved marionette! i deserve it, however! i shouldhave given the matter more thought."what happened after this is an almost unbelievablestory, but you may read it, dear children, in the chaptersthat follow.
