Читать книгу Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi - Страница 15

The puppets recognize Pinocchio as one of them, and are pleased to see him, but Fire-eater, the Showman, appears in the midst of their joy, and Pinocchio almost comes to a bad end

When Pinocchio entered the puppet show, he nearly caused a revolution. You must know that the curtain was up, and they had just started the play.

Harlequin and Punchinello were on the stage, quarrelling as usual, threatening every moment to come to blows.

The audience paid the closest attention, and were laughing until they were sore to see those two puppets quarrelling and gesticulating and calling each other names, just as if they were truly two reasoning beings, two real persons.

But all at once Harlequin stopped and, turning to the public, pointed to the pit of the theatre, and shouted dramatically:

‘Heavens above! Am I awake, or am I dreaming? That must be Pinocchio there!’

‘Yes, it’s indeed Pinocchio!’ cried Punchinello.

‘It is indeed!’ exclaimed Miss Rosy, peeping from the back of the stage.

‘Here’s Pinocchio! Here’s Pinocchio!’ shouted all the puppets in chorus, running to the stage from every wing. ‘Here’s Pinocchio! Here’s our brother Pinocchio! Hurrah for Pinocchio!’

‘Come up here to me, Pinocchio!’ cried Harlequin. ‘Come and throw yourself into the arms of your wooden brothers!’

At this affectionate invitation, Pinocchio made one jump from the back of the pit to the front seats. Another jump, and he landed on the head of the orchestra leader; and from there he jumped to the stage.

It is impossible to describe the hugging and kissing that followed, the friendly pinches, the brotherly taps that Pinocchio received from the actors and actresses of that puppet company.

It was a very spectacular sight, but the audience, when they saw that the play had stopped, grew impatient and began shouting, ‘The play! We want the play! Go on with the play!’

However, their breath was wasted, for the puppets, instead of continuing the play, redoubled their noise and, placing Pinocchio on their shoulders, carried him in triumph before the footlights.

Suddenly the Showman appeared. He was very tall, and so ugly that he frightened anyone who looked at him. His beard was like black ink, and it was so long that it reached the ground. Believe me, he stepped on it when he walked. His mouth was as big as an oven, his eyes were like two burning red lanterns, and he was constantly cracking a great whip made of serpents and foxes’ tails, twisted together.

When the Showman appeared so unexpectedly, everybody was speechless. No one breathed. You could have heard a fly in the air. Even the poor puppets, male and female, trembled like so many leaves.

‘Why have you come here to disturb my theatre?’ he asked Pinocchio, in a voice like that of a spook with a bad cold in his head.

‘Believe me, Your Honour, it was not my fault.’

‘Not another word! We shall settle our accounts tonight.’

As soon as the show was over, the Showman went into the kitchen, where the whole sheep, which he was preparing for his supper, was roasting on the slowly turning spit.

When he saw that there was not enough wood to finish roasting it, he called Harlequin and Punchinello and said, ‘Bring me in Pinocchio! You will find him hanging on a nail. He is made of nice, dry wood, and I am sure he will make a good fire for my roast.’

At first Harlequin and Punchinello hesitated; but, when the Showman glanced at them menacingly, they obeyed. In a few moments they returned to the kitchen carrying poor Pinocchio, who was wriggling like an eel out of water, and shouting desperately,

‘O Daddy, O Daddy, save me! I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die!’