_Wherein We See Pinocchio's Heart_
All three of them were now up again. It was to be for them a day of
great gladness. Yet all three were in a bad humor. They didn't even
talk. Captain Teschisso, dressed in a brand-new uniform, couldn't tear
himself away from the mirror, which he addressed in a low voice:
"Just see what they have made of me. I can't go on this way.... I am
not presentable. Without an ear, with a slash on the cheek, half my
beard gone ... I look like a wild animal to be shown at a circus.
Lord! How many kicks I'd like to give those dogs! They've botched me
so I'm no longer fit for this world.... It's against the regulations,
but before I die I want to devour heaps of those curs! Who allows them
to make war like this? Who permits them to reduce a captain of Alpine
troops to such a sight? It would be better for me to die at once. I'm
not good for anything, and that dog of a Cutemup might have made a
better job of me. Let him show himself and I'll give him a piece of my
mind."
Poor Teschisso! He was right! His ugly scar did disfigure him. Another
man would have wept at seeing himself thus; he trembled with eagerness
to be revenged.
Pinocchio, too, was grumbling like a stewpot, giving vent to his ill
humor. They had put on him a wooden leg that was a real triumph of
mechanism. It was jointed like a real one and moved with an automatic
motion in harmony with his sound leg. Pinocchio had tried to run, to
jump, and to balance, and had to convince himself that he had not lost
anything by the exchange. But the leg had one fault--when he extended
it it unbent too rapidly, hitting the heel on the ground with a noisy
and annoying sound. And in addition to this the mechanism, which was
still so new, rattled.
"Plague take it! My own didn't need to be oiled. Who knows how much
oil this one will expect me to give it? But that I'll make Mr. Cutemup
pay for. If he comes up to me and repeats that I am better than I
used to be I'll plant another kick in his stomach, then I'll ask how
he would manage to walk if it were his, on the tip of his toes, with
this heel that beats like a drumstick."
[Illustration]
The Bersaglierino, too, had a wooden left arm. You wouldn't even have
noticed it. He could move it in any direction, and the gloved
artificial hand which came out of the sleeve of his gray jacket,
although a little stiff, could be moved as easily as a real hand. The
wound that furrowed his forehead didn't disfigure him; indeed, it gave
to his gentle features a certain air of nobility and fierceness. But
the Bersaglierino was sad, so sad that if you had looked into his
eyes you would have been certain that he had to make a great effort
not to cry. Pinocchio noticed it.
"Tell me, Bersaglierino, what was your business before the war?"
"What's that to you?"
"Oh, I just want to know."
"I was a journalist, a writer."
"Hm! Must be a horrid profession."
"Why?"
"Because you have to work so hard not to die of hunger."
"Who told you so?"
"Nobody. But if you had made a lot of money in your job you wouldn't
have left it to volunteer, and as you get only fourteen cents a day as
a volunteer at the front, as a civilian you must have been hard up all
the year. Then ... you needn't make a face ... you don't write with
the left hand ... so you can go back to being a journalist, even with
... the Austrian improvement."
He hoped to drive away his sadness by saying it in this way, but
instead he only increased it.
"Leave me in peace, puppet!" he said, roughly and with such a stern
tone that Pinocchio in his turn longed to cry.
At this moment the door of the room was opened with great violence and
Major Cutemup, as if hurled by a catapult, made his appearance,
followed by Fatina and by a regiment of soldiers and nurses. He was
red as the comb of a cock at his first crow, wheezed every now and
then like a pair of bellows, and dripped sweat as a bucket just out of
the well drips water.
"Sister Fatina, I rely on you ... I rely on you to see that everything
is in order. Four soldiers will wash the windows ... six will scrub
the floors, which must shine like a mirror, and everything must be
done in ten minutes. And you, boys, put on your special uniforms.... I
have great news for you. His Majesty has announced his visit to the
hospital; with his own august hands he will bestow the decorations.
You, Bersaglierino, who are among these fortunate ones, take care to
be irreproachable in your appearance. You, Captain ..."
"What! What did he say? Do you think I can let his Majesty see me in
this frightful condition? Half a beard, half a mustache, minus an ear,
half a face ..."
"But ... I don't know what you can do about it. Fix it up the best you
can."
"Certainly I'll fix it up, I'll ... Good Heavens! man, let me go to a
barber who can make me look like a Christian, because you, Major
Cutemup, have made me resemble one of Menelik's crew."
"But ..."
"But I swear that I won't let the dogs who got me in this condition
stick their fingers on my face, I tell you."
"Teschisso!"
"No, I won't let them touch me."
"Captain Teschisso, I must remind you of the respect due ..."
"What's that? Major Cutemup ... did you think I was talking of you?
Not a thought of doing so. I meant those dogs of Austrians."
"A-a-a-h! Then be off to the barber's."
"Thanks. I'll have him fix me up in a minute."
"Boy, hurry up. His Majesty is coming."
* * * * *
Ten minutes later everything was shining like a mirror. The soldiers
were already at work in the adjoining room. Pinocchio had disappeared.
Teschisso had gone to be shaved. Fatina was arranging the white
window-curtains. The Bersaglierino was seated on his bed, his right
arm resting on his knee and his chin held in the hollow of his hand.
"What's the matter? What is it, Bersaglierino?"
He didn't answer, and Fatina, after having looked at him a minute with
her large, soft eyes, came up nearer and sat down beside him on the
little white bed.
"Tell me what's the trouble, Bersaglierino. Why are you crying? Why
don't you make yourself handsome? Didn't you hear? The King is coming
to give you the medal."
"Why should I care about that? What do you think that means to me,
Fatina?"
And then, since she seemed much astonished at his words, he continued,
vehemently:
"Why, indeed, should I care about that?... After they have sent me
away from here I shall go back to living alone like a dog ... to
fighting every day for my existence. Who will get any satisfaction
from the reward the King's hand has bestowed on me? No one. Perhaps
the day will come when I shall have to pin the medal on my coat to
keep the boys in the streets from making fun of me, the poor maimed
creature who will wander about playing a street-organ."
"Oh, Bersaglierino! I never imagined you could talk like that. I don't
want you to talk so."
And she spoke with so much feeling that he, fearing he had offended
her, started to beg her pardon:
"Fatina ..."
"Tell me, aren't you glad to have done your duty, to have given your
blood for your country? Didn't you volunteer? Didn't you go willingly
through the barbed wire to open a road of victory for your country?
And now you are almost blaming yourself for the good you have done,
for fear of the morrow. And you think yourself destined to end as a
laughing-stock of horrid little children? Oh, but you are bad! Tell
me, are you really so sure that you are alone in the world, that there
is no one who will rejoice to see shining on your breast the medal
your country has bestowed on you?"
"Ah, if it were so, Fatina, if it were true!"
"Do you believe that no one has followed you in thought through all
your dangers on the field of honor, that no one suffered, knowing you
were wounded, or trembled at the thought of your bed of pain? Do you
really believe that there is no one to rejoice at seeing you take up
again your place in the world? You are young, full of ardor and
intelligence ..."
"But I am poor, so poor!"
"You can get rich by working. You fought the war with weapons;
continue it with the pen. Write what you have seen; you will make a
name for yourself and some day will be the pride of your family."
"I! Don't make fun of me, Fatina. I, wounded, maimed, will never find
a woman to link her life with mine."
"Bersaglierino, I, too, am alone in the world, free to dispose of
myself. I am not rich, but I have enough to live on; I am not a
professor, but I am widely educated.... I will be frank; if to-morrow
a brave man like you, in the same condition, should come and ask me
..."
"To be his wife?"
"I should say yes, and I should be proud. Do you understand? Proud of
him and of the medal shining on his breast, which would seem like my
own...."
"Oh! Fatina, Fatina!"
He could say no more. Tears choked him. But she looked at him tenderly
with her kind eyes, and in them, too two large tears were shining.
Pinocchio could not stand any more of this. For half an hour he had
been hidden under the bed, had therefore listened to this noble
dialogue, and had had to bite his lips to keep from crying. But as it
was not amusing he could not stand it any longer. He crawled very
quietly from his hiding-place, approached Fatina and Bersaglierino
cautiously and without their seeing him or being able to put up any
resistance, he gathered the two heads in his arms, brought them close
together, and held them close, covering them both with kisses.
Pinocchio's generous and lovable impulse had found the way to unite
these two beings whom destiny had brought together. The picture they
made was interesting and touching and would have touched every one who
knew them, if at this moment Captain Teschisso had not entered, quite
made over by the barber.
"What ... what are you doing? Aren't you preparing for the august
visit?"
"Augusta? Who's she?"
"What? Don't you know that the King, the commander-in-chief of our
army, the first soldier of New Italy, the head of the state, the
corporal of the Zouaves, like his grandfather before him, the flower
of gentlemen, a good father of his family, one of the wisest
sovereigns of Europe...? In short, you'll see him soon. Hurry up,
because when I came in the royal automobile had been sighted.... Don't
you think that dog of a barber fixed me up fine? Anyway, he was able
to get rid of the half of my beard which the Germans shaved with a
shell."
The King? This short word frightened Pinocchio terribly. This man who
commanded everybody, who could put everybody in prison, who was named
Majesty, August, and Victor Emanuel all at the same time, who caused
the rooms to be polished in five minutes, who set Cutemup to
trembling, who kept all the wounded in the hospital in order, all of
them men of valor who had held their own against hundreds of the
foe--frightened him like a hobgoblin or something similar. At the
very thought of having his glance fall upon him he felt goose-flesh
all over his body.
"It isn't fear; it is lack of courage or something of that sort, but I
must get out of the way. I have never had anything to do with kings
and I don't know much about the way they think. If Augusta, or his
Majesty, is in a bad humor and should find my presence among the
soldiers out of order, he can bat his eye at Cutemup, make him a sign,
and ... whack! ... my head would roll on the ground. Wouldn't that
murderer of a surgeon be glad to be revenged for the kick I gave him
in the stomach? Yes, I must find some way ..."
His musings were interrupted by three bugle notes which brought every
one to attention.
"There he is! There he is!"
Then resounded enthusiastic hurrahs for the King.
Pinocchio disappeared under Bersaglierino's bed ... popped up again,
disguised himself, and no one noticed that ...
Captain Teschisso and the Bersaglierino stood at attention at the foot
of their beds, straight and immovable, awaiting the royal visit. The
King in his soldier way entered without ceremony, followed by his
aide-de-camp, General Win-the-War, Major Cutemup, and a number of
other officers of the garrison, Red Cross nurses, and other wounded
who had come from their rooms to take part in the ceremony. It didn't
seem possible that the room could hold so many persons, but all of
them crowded in, squeezing together in order to see the King and to be
near to him. And his face, which was wrinkled, was illuminated by a
kindly smile that spread out from his thick mustache grown prematurely
white. He gave Teschisso a military salute, then shook his hand
vigorously and said:
"I am so pleased to see you recovered. I am sure that when you go back
to your regiment I shall hear more of you. You Alpine troopers are all
of you wonderful soldiers."
"For Italy and for our King, your Majesty."
"For our Italy greater than ever."
"She shall be, if we have to shed all our blood."
"Such is my belief."
Major Cutemup had suddenly turned crimson with rage, and approached
Fatina, his large, angry eyes scowling at her from behind his
eyeglasses.
"Why have you treated me so?" he asked, in a low, furious voice.
"I?"
"Yes. I told you to put everything in order."
"Well?"
"Look at that mess!" and he nodded toward a kind of clothes-hanger
near the head of Bersaglierino's bed, on which were hung a hat with
cock plumes, a coat, with a pair of trousers all torn and ragged and
dirty. It was the uniform the brave young soldier had worn on the
field and which Fatina had hidden under the bed a little while ago.
Fatina didn't know what to say. The sudden appearance of this
clothes-hanger, ... those clothes spread out, affected her so that she
had no thought of the major or of his rage, which escaped in such
violent outbursts that they would have started a windmill going.
The King had approached Bersaglierino, and General Win-the-War
presented him, with these words:
"Your Majesty, this brave soldier has been proposed for the medal of
valor for the following reasons: enrolled as a volunteer, he took part
in the first battles with the enemy, giving an example of courage and
discipline; he volunteered to blow up the enemy wire defenses; he
carried out the assignment given him, and, unhurt himself, he tried to
free a comrade caught on the barbed wire and managed to put to flight
an enemy patrol which attacked him. Then he was hit several times by
machine-gun fire. Carried to the first-aid station, he showed the
greatest self-control and cheered for his King and his country when he
learned that his efforts had enabled his company to take an important
trench from the enemy."
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.'"