Part 11 (1/2)
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.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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 n.o.bility 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?”
”n.o.body. 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 c.o.c.k 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 s.h.i.+ne 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!”