Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/225

 lighted candle stuck into a green glass bottle, and seated at the table was a little old man. He was eating some live fish, and they were so very much alive that whilst he was eating them they sometimes even jumped out of his mouth.

At this sight Pinocchio was filled with such great and unexpected joy that he became almost delirious. He wanted to laugh, he wanted to cry, he wanted to say a thousand things, and instead he could only stammer out a few confused and broken words. At last he succeeded in uttering a cry of joy, and opening his arms he threw them round the little old man's neck, and began to shout:

'Oh, my dear papa! I have found you at last! I will never leave you more, never more, never more!'

'Then my eyes tell me true?' said the little old man, rubbing his eyes; 'then you are really my dear Pinocchio?'

'Yes, yes, I am Pinocchio, really Pinocchio! And you have quite forgiven me, have you not? Oh, my dear papa, how good you are! . . . and to think that I, on the contrary. . . Oh! but if you only knew what misfortunes have been poured on my head, and all that has befallen me! Only imagine, the day that you, poor dear papa, sold your coat to buy me a Spelling-book that I might go to school, I escaped to see