_How Pinocchio Made Two Beasts Sing--Contrary to Nature_
Excuse me, my children, for not having presented Ciampanella to you
before. Ciampanella was a pure-blooded Roman, born under the shadow of
the Capitol, like--the wolf kept at the cost of the City Commune. If
Francis Joseph had seen him he would have appointed him at once as
royal hangman because he had a gallows countenance and a body like a
gigantic negro. Yet he was the best-hearted man in the world, so good
that he wouldn't harm a fly.
This evening he was in such a good humor that he made even Pinocchio
laugh, whom the charge of the prisoners had made as serious as a
judge.
"Listen, youngster, don't bother yourself with these two scoundrels
whose throats I'll cut some day with my kitchen knife as if they were
pigs, and so you will be freed from the care of them, and I win back
the honor which I lose in feeding the enemies of my country."
"Are you crazy?"
"Why?"
"Didn't you hear what my captain said? We must make them sing."
"Them sing? It's easier to make the statue of Marcus Aurelius sing
that's of bronze and won't move from the Capitol for fear the
Councilors of the Commune might take it to a pawnbroker's."
"But I've found out already what their names are."
"I, too."
"Let's hear."
"Pigs."
"That is their family name, but the real name of the Croat is Stolz
and the Hungarian's is Franz."
"And then?"
"We've got to find out how many of them are down there in the
trenches; if there are others behind them; how many pieces of
artillery they have and where; from what point their munitions and
supplies come, and how many officers are in command of the troops."
"That's the easiest thing possible."
"You think so?"
"You ask them and they will answer."
"And if they pretend not to hear?"
"Leave it to me, youngster. I have a special way of making myself
understood, even by the deaf. I didn't read for nothing _The Spanish
Inquisition_. Bring to me here those two satellites of Franz Joe and
you'll hear the speeches I'll make them."
Ciampanella rubbed his ears, tied an apron around his waist as when he
entered upon his official functions, filled up the little stove with
charcoal and lighted a fine fire. When Pinocchio returned to the
kitchen, followed by the prisoners, a pair of tongs and a shovel were
heating on the red-hot charcoal.
At the sight of these the Croat and the Hungarian exchanged glances
and a few quick, dry phrases in their language.
Ciampanella advanced triumphantly to within a foot of them, bowed like
an actor to an applauding audience, and unfolded one of his most
polished discourses:
"Gentlemen, our officers say that we must respect the enemy, and I
respect you according to command; but in case any one should persist
in refusing to speak, just like the beasts, I should feel it my duty
to treat him like a beast, and my superiors would say to me,
'Ciampanella, you're right.' I explain this because we have need of
certain information, so we take the liberty of asking you in secret
certain things which you, gentlemen, can answer, after which we will
give you special attention in our culinary service. This is said and
promised, so I begin my questions. We want to know how many men and
how many officers that big simpleton of your emperor has whipped up
together against us."
No answer.
"What? Are you deaf? Don't you understand modern Italian? Then I'll
talk ancient Roman to you."
Ciampanella grabbed from the stove the red-hot shovel and waved it
before the Austrians' noses. Their eyes popped out with fright, but
they didn't utter a word.
"You will either answer or I will give you two kisses with the shovel
on your right cheeks and two on your left."
"'Talian pigs! Brigands!"
"May you be skinned alive! To call me a brigand! Me! Pinocchio, which
creature is this, Spitz or Spotz?"
"Franz."
"Listen, Franz, if you dare insult me another time, I'll untie your
hands and then I'll give you so many boxes on your ear that'll make
you more of an imbecile than your emperor."
"You kill us, we die mouths shut."
"We, we ... Wait before you talk in the plural; wait till I put this
red-hot shovel to Stolz's ear, and then ..."
Ciampanella came closer to the Croat, armed with his other heated
iron, but suddenly he felt a blow on his eye which half blinded him.
"... they can ..."
He couldn't finish because Pinocchio burst out laughing so wildly that
he had to hold his stomach. Ciampanella, who had been taken unaware by
the glass of water Pinocchio had thrown at him, let out all his anger
on him.
"Youngster, look out for yourself. I won't stand nonsense from you. I
owe to our enemies the respect enjoined by regulations, but you I can
take by the nape of the neck and set you down on the stove, and I'll
roast you as if you were beef."
Pinocchio became suddenly serious and began to swing his wooden leg so
nervously that if Major Cutemup had seen him he would have turned as
yellow as a Chinaman with fear. If the descendant of Romulus and Remus
had had the slightest idea of the kick which menaced him at this
moment he would have grown calm as if by magic. But Pinocchio, who had
seen Franz and Stolz exchange sly glances and a smile full of irony,
held himself in and, after scratching his head solemnly, approached
Ciampanella, who was wiping his eye with his apron, and taking hold
affectionately of his arm, said:
"So you want to roast me on your stove?"
"As I told you."
"Wouldn't it be better to cook something on it for our supper this
evening?"
"This evening's supper? But you know that this evening I wouldn't
light the fire if the commander-in-chief came in person to command me
to. When the company is in action I am free to do what I want, and
when I am free to do what I want I don't do anything. So if you are
hungry you'll have to eat bread and compressed meat, and if you don't
like it you'll have to fast."
"Listen, Ciampanella; you reason like Menenius Agrippa, who was an
ancient Roman able to make things clearer than modern Romans, but
sometimes you get tangled up in your premises."
"Listen, youngster, don't insult me, because as sure as Ciampanella is
my name I will wring your neck like a chicken's."
"But I'm not insulting you."
"Then tell me what kind of things are _premises_; otherwise ..."
"Otherwise you'll take me and make me sit on the stove and roast me,
won't you? That proves that the fire is lighted and that the charcoal
is burning for nothing, and so if, for example, the commander-in-chief
should pay you a visit he would give you a fortnight's imprisonment
for it, because when the company's in action you are free to do what
you want, but not in the kitchen, and if you are hungry you must eat
bread and compressed meat or fast."
"Heh, youngster! I didn't light the stove for culinary purposes, but
for strategic reasons. It was to make these two beasts talk."
"But they haven't talked."
"We'll fling them out and let the mad dogs eat them."
"But if you, instead of heating the shovel and tongs, had roasted a
young pullet and served it with one of those famous sauces ..."
"Chicken in the Roman style with potato puffs ..."
"Just look at Stolz. He's licking his greased whiskers as if the
potatoes were cooking under his nose."
"Look at Franz gaping."
"They have a dog's hunger, and in order to make them sing ..."
"You want me to cook a little supper such as I can cook if I set
myself to it, stick it under their noses, and ... Youngster, that's a
magnificent idea! When I write my _Manual of War Cookery_ I'll put you
on the frontispiece as the first of kitchen strategians. Leave things
to me and in half an hour I'll hand you out a couple of stews that
would raise up the dead better even than Garibaldi's Hymn!"
Pinocchio heaved a sigh. He had won such a battle that, if he had
been a German, would have caused the people to hammer I don't know how
many nails into his statue. While Ciampanella was bustling about on
all sides, plucking two young fowls, peeling potatoes, frying lard and
onions, melting butter in a saucepan, preparing a stew in another,
Pinocchio was striding up and down the kitchen, long and narrow as a
corridor, eying stealthily the two prisoners, who were beginning to
show signs of a growing restlessness. They had been fasting for more
than twenty-four hours and their last food had been such a mess that
it might have been requisitioned from the poultry-yard and the stable.
Ciampanella seemed eager to surpass himself. He hovered over his pots
without paying any attention to Pinocchio, but talking in a loud voice
as if he wished to impart a lesson in cookery to half the world.
"Listen, youngster, when you want to eat two savory young fowls you
must cook them in the Roman fashion according to Ciampanella's recipe,
which, when it is written down, will not have its equal in _Urbis et
Orbis_. I call it the Roman fashion, but it might also truly be
called the Ostrogothic fashion ... but that's the way. Take two young
fowls and cut them into pieces, put a good-sized lump of butter into a
saucepan and a little onion and fry it a little; dredge the fowls with
flour, and put them to simmer in the butter; when they are browned put
in some tomato paste, salt and pepper, and let them cook down, later a
grain of nutmeg, cover it and let it cook.... Do you smell that odor,
youngster? And just think how it will taste! You'll lick your napkin
like that dirty Croat who ... Ho! ho! look at his tongue hanging
out.... Ho! ho! ho!"
The air was filled with a fragrance so entrancing that it would have
given an appetite to the mouth of a letter-box; so imagine how the
miserable two felt, who, after all, were men of flesh and blood and
had no other defect than of having been born under the Executioner's
scepter. Stolz with his mouth wide open breathed in the air in deep
breaths, tasting it hungrily as if he could really taste the odor that
tickled his nostrils. Ciampanella stepped in front of him, and spouted
out one of his special speeches, gesticulating with his fork.
"Well, Mr. Croat? How do you think we do it? Franz Joe is worse off
than the least of our Alpine troops, because we are not reduced to
gnawing bones like you who make war in order to fish, as the proverb
says, in troubled waters. What a delicious odor, isn't it? But don't
stand there with your mouth open or I'll fill it with dish-water.
Here's some!"
"'Talian pig!" howled Stolz, half strangled with nausea and disgust,
spitting all around.
"If you call me an Italian pig again, I'll break your head in spite of
the respect they teach us is due the enemy, because in this world it
is tit for tat."
"Listen, Ciampanella," Pinocchio interrupted at the right moment, "if
the chickens are done we could sit down at the table and offer a bite
to Stolz."
"That's a good idea, youngster."
While the boy was setting the table and the chef was dishing up the
stew, from the distance came several tremendous rumblings, which
brought a smile to the faces of the prisoners, who exchanged
significant glances. The sound came from our six-inch guns that had
been dragged with such effort to the altitude of nine thousand feet
and arrived the day before by way of the _filovia_, which were now
opening fire on the enemy's trenches. If Franz and Stolz had had even
the faintest suspicion of this they would have changed their
expressions.
* * * * *
"Dear Ciampanella, as a cook you should be put on the pedestal of a
monument. This chicken is a masterpiece. If that imbecile of a Stolz,
instead of standing there like a dog with his tongue hanging out, a
foot away from the tail of a hare, could give a lick to this
drumstick, I wager he would desert his emperor and demand Italian
citizenship."
[Illustration]
"For my part, I'd rather give him the chicken than the citizenship."
"I would as lief have it," Stolz risked saying, passing his tongue
over his whiskers.
"I guess so."
"And I'll give you not only a drumstick, but half a chicken with gravy
and a loaf of bread to go with it, if you'll tell me ..."
"We can't talk; don't want to betray our country."
"Dear Stolz, you're a fine fellow, but if you can't talk I can't give
you anything to eat and we are quits. But I haven't asked you to
betray either Croatia, or even Hungary, if you are afraid of Franz's
hearing you."
"Oh, he speaks only Magyar."
"All the better; then you can tell me how many Bohemians, Slovaks,
Carinthians, Poles, Germans, and Styrians are intrenched on Mount X
opposite our men.... We'll leave out the Croats, your countrymen ...
and, moreover, I'll wager five soldi of Victor Emanuel against a crown
of your emperor that if they were here and smelled this odor they
wouldn't make such a to-do about it or talk like lawyers. But smell
this" ... and while he spoke the rascal of a Pinocchio took in both
his hands the dish with the stew and held it close to Stolz's nose,
who shut his eyes and heaved a sigh as if he were giving up his soul
to the god of all the Croats.
"You 'Talian scoundrel, if you give me and Franz all we can eat and
drink I'll tell you what you want to know."
"May the saints in Paradise reward you! If you sing and sing well,
look what delicate morsels I'll give you," cried Ciampanella, jumping
about with delight. He hastened to fill two plates with delicious food
and two loaves of fresh bread and half of a sharp old sheep's cheese
which would have brought a dead man to life.
"And now there's nothing more to do except to untie your hands and to
give you chairs to sit on."
"We have three lines of trenches, fifteen hundred men ... two
batteries placed on the Donkey's Saddle ... but you have Alpine troops
and we can't get the better of you. So our colonel had marvelous
plan--he had huge mine dug and thought to blow up Alpines to bust them
all up. This morning we attacked on purpose. When Alpines came face to
us, we go all back to retreat, but they not come to mined spot and
didn't all bust up. But when Alpines enter first trench which we leave
... bum! 'Talian pigs all dead and Austrian soldiers shout hurrah for
emperor. Did you hear little while ago lots of noise? I knows ... I
knows what it was ... big mine blow up."
"And 'Talian pigs all killed, aren't they?" yelled the enraged
Ciampanella. "And you think I am going to give you food? Not by a long
shot. See what game I'm going to play with you. In the mean time pray
to the god of all the Croats that what you have said may not be true,
because if, instead of making war as real soldiers do, your side has
committed such a despicable deed, you two shall pay for it, and as
truly as my name is Ciampanella, chef of the mess, you'll pay for it
dearly enough."
And shaking his lion head and jumping up in the air, waving his arms
about violently, he took up a piece of rope and bound the prisoners
tightly to a pole which supported the roof of the dugout.
"And now if you can eat these good gifts of God which I leave under
your nose, you'll do well, I assure you.... Come, Pinocchio, we must
take this news to the officer commanding our company, because I don't
believe anything wrong has happened yet."
"And the prisoners?"
"They won't escape, I, Ciampanella, assure you. They are tied up like
two pork sausages, and, besides, you know what we'll do? When the door
is shut we'll put up against it one of the bombs that they make which
go off almost without touching them. I know where some of them are
hidden away. If they should succeed in loosening the rope and should
try to get away they'll take a ride in the air. And now we'll wish the
gentlemen good appetite and be off on our own affairs."
Five minutes later Ciampanella and Pinocchio were running across the
snow through the dusk.