Page:Collodi - The Story of a Puppet, translation Murray, 1892.djvu/41

 has been an infernal night that I shall remember as long as I live. It thundered and lightened, and I was very hungry, and then the Talking-cricket said to me: "It serves you right; you have been wicked and you deserve it," and I said to him: "Take care, Cricket!" . . . and he said: "You are a puppet and you have a wooden head," and I threw the handle of a hammer at him, and he died, but the fault was his, for I didn't wish to kill him, and the proof of it is that I put an earthenware saucer on a brazier of burning embers, but a chicken flew out and said: "Adieu until we meet again, and many compliments to all at home": and I got still more hungry, for which reason that little old man in a nightcap opening the window said to me: "Come underneath and hold out your hat," and poured a basinful of water on my head, because asking for a little bread isn't a disgrace, is it? and I returned home at once, and because I was always very hungry I put my feet on the brazier to dry them, and then you returned, and I found they were burnt off, and I am always hungry, but I have no longer any feet! Ih! Ih! Ih! Ih! . . .' And poor Pinocchio began to cry and to roar so loudly that he was heard five miles off.

Geppetto, who from all this jumbled account had only understood one thing, which was that the puppet was dying of