Part 21 (1/2)
”Why?”
”Because I'd feel as if I were on stilts and it would amuse me to death to take steps longer than any one else.”
He was satisfied and left the hospital with such long legs that he was almost as tall as Ciampanella, who took Pinocchio's arm in his as if he were his sweetheart.
”Heh, youngster, but you have grown! And then they say that we non-combatants never do anything! I haven't done anything, but if I were the one I have in mind I would bestow on you the medal for bravery because your legs have won it. I tell you, I, who know what I am talking about.”
”Even if they don't give me anything, I am satisfied all the same. All I ask is for them to leave me here and not send me home.”
”Come with me and I'll appoint you first adjutant of the mess kitchen, and when I have taught you how and put the ladle in your hand _we will live on the fat of the land_ and will make meat-b.a.l.l.s with our leavings for the general, and when we don't know what else to do we'll write the _Manual of War Cookery_, which I won't risk now because I haven't a writing hand, as the saying is.”
”Listen, Ciampanella, I am as grateful as if you had offered to lend me a hundred lire without interest, but just now I can't accept.”
”Why?”
”Because it requires a special const.i.tution to be a cook. I'd be all right as far as eating the best morsels was concerned, but it would be dangerous for me to stay near the stove. I am half wooden and run the risk of catching on fire. I should have to decide to take out insurance against fire. Moreover, let's consider. To-day I have other views. Fatina here has given me a letter for my friend Bersaglierino, who is at headquarters as the war correspondent of an important newspaper. We'll see what he advises me to do.”
They parted good friends after a solemn feast which almost made Ciampanella roll under the table, like an ancient Roman at one of the banquets of Lucullus or Nero.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Bersaglierino was truly delighted to see his dear little friend again and kept him with him several days for company. From him he learned a number of things he didn't know. One day he asked him:
”Tell me, Pinocchio, do you know the reason for this war in which you, too, have played your small part and to which you have paid tribute of part of yourself?”
”Do you imagine I don't know? It is _to make Italy bigger_.”
”And that seems a just reason to you?”
”That's what every one says.”
”All those who don't know what they are talking about. If every nation had the right to let loose a war for the sole purpose of enlarging her boundaries we'd have to take off our hats to the Germans who provoked the present curse for their own purposes. We have other and n.o.bler ideals. We have brothers to liberate, peoples to free from a foreign yoke. Certain lands which are ours because they were enriched by the labors of our fathers, because our Italian tongue is spoken in them, were until to-day exploited by the enemy, who sought in every way to embitter the existence of our brothers, paying with contempt and scorn, with persecution and oppression, their loyalty and love for the mother-country. Italian unity, begun in the revolutionary movement of 1811, was not completed in 1870 with the taking of Rome. The jealousy of other nations halted us on our way to emanc.i.p.ation. We were too weak then to make our will felt; we were exhausted with fifty years of continuous fighting and we had need of a little rest in order to restore our energy. To-day we are strong enough to stand up for our rights. Neither underhand dealings of wicked men nor betrayal by partizans will prevent the victory of our arms. Italy will be retempered in the war. Our destiny will be fulfilled.
”I see as in a dream our borders which have been overrun won back to us, Trent bleeding with Italian blood, Goriza twice redeemed, Trieste in the shadow of the tricolor. Istria awaits us impatiently; Parenzo is preparing the way for us to Pola, which we shall take intact, with the defenses the Austrians erected there against our own brothers.
Zara, Sebenico, and the coast of Dalmatia, which for so many centuries displayed the glorious insignia of the Lion of St. Mark, are longing impatiently for the moment which shall reunite them to the mother-country, that for them and with them will grow ever greater.
War is a curse; this one which is being fought to-day all over the civilized world is perhaps the most terrible which humanity has ever known; yet it will not fail to bring great blessings. It has awakened the consciences of peoples and revealed the virtues and the defects of particular races. In the contest of the ancient Latin civilization with the Teuton power the might of right has been re-established, the right that has been trampled upon by force....”
And so on and so on, for when Bersaglierino began to argue there was no way of stopping him, and Pinocchio stood there listening with his mouth open like a peasant absorbed by the wonderful discourse of a fakir at a fair. And who knows how long he would have stood there, but Bersaglierino had so much to do and was obliged to leave him alone, letting him stay in the rear where he could follow the progress of the war without exposing himself too much, but where he could still be doing important service for his country. He put him in the care of a captain of the commissary department, a good friend of his who had the unlucky idea of making him a baker in a camp bakery. He stayed there only two days, astounded at the enormous quant.i.ty of bread which was kneaded and baked all the time. All he did was to give a hand in filling the baskets which were loaded on automobiles that carried the bread to the front. The third day he made a figure of dough that looked like the twin brother of the captain, put it in the oven and, when it was baked, set it astraddle on the cup of coffee poured out for that officer, then hid himself behind a curtain to take part in the welcome which would certainly be given to his most valuable work of art. But the commissary officer's orderly found him and wanted to dust his trousers and pull his ears. He never succeeded in doing this.
Pinocchio helped him out of the house with kicks and then hurled him into the flour-barrel. If they had not pulled him out in time he would have suffocated.
The boy fled on the first automobile which left for the front, and for several days whirled back and forth between the front and rear lines, going forward on the supply automobiles and returning on the Red Cross ambulances which brought the wounded to the first-aid posts. The drivers were glad to take him on their machines because he kept them all jolly with his pranks, and he, better than any one, was able to get an idea of the gigantic and wonderful work which was being done side by side with the army which was fighting for the defense of its country. What profound respect for discipline, what order, what spirit of self-sacrifice in those brave soldiers (almost all fathers of families), continually exposed to bad weather, to the hardest fatigues, to the most complete privations! Rain, snow, ice, tornadoes of wind and of shot and sh.e.l.l, nothing succeeded in interrupting for a single minute the interminably long chain of wagons and lorries that carried food to the trenches, ammunition to the artillery, and cannon to the fortified positions. The drivers, dead with sleep, soaked with rain, s.h.i.+vering with cold, remained calmly at their wheels and at the heads of their horses. When the great caravan stopped for a moment for any reason these men, revived with new energy and by the force of their will, started the huge mechanism on its way again.
For a little way Pinocchio thought he would become an automobile-driver, but when they told him that he would have to have a license and that, in order to get one, he would have to take a regular examination, he didn't proceed farther. Examiners he looked upon as even greater enemies than Franz Joe's hunters.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
After pondering the subject a long time he decided to become a military postman. At first he took pleasure in it all. When he arrived it seemed as if heaven had come down to earth. He was received like a king, with joyous cries and shouts, and he walked between two rows of soldiers like a general. When he distributed the letters it was as if he conferred a favor; when he handed out a money-order he had an air of condescension as if he were doling the soldi from his purse. When he had finished distributing the mail he would let them pay him to read their letters. I can tell you it was not an easy matter. Often he had hieroglyphics to decipher which would have given trouble to a professor of paleontology. But Pinocchio had such a quick mind that when he found he couldn't puzzle it out he invented a letter and did it so well that he earned a soldo by it and the deep grat.i.tude of his clients. What disgusted him with the business was the postal service, which suddenly became confoundedly bad, perhaps on account of a change in the Ministry. Pinocchio saw his popularity vanish in an instant, and the soldiers made him bear the brunt of their dissatisfaction. One day he heard so many complaints that he grew furious and flung away the bag he wore about his neck and cried out to those who were disputing around him:
”You are a bunch of imbeciles. Why do you come to me with your letters? Do you know what you ought to do? Go and get them, because I won't take another step for the sake of your pretty faces.”