24 Pinocchio (excerpt) (Italy)
Everyone, at one time or another, has found some surprise awaiting him. Of the kind which Pinocchio had on that eventful morning of his life, there are but few. On awakening,Pinocchio put his hand up to his head and there he found—
Guess!
He found that, during the night, his ears had grown at least ten full inches!
He went in search of a mirror, but not finding any, he just filled a basin with water and looked at himself. There he saw what he never could have wished to see. His manly figure was adorned and enriched by a beautiful pair of donkey’s ears.
I leave you to think of the terrible grief, the shame, the despair of the poor Marionette[1].
He began to cry, to scream, to knock his head against the wall, but the more he shrieked, the longer and the more hairy grew his ears. A fat, little Dormouse came into the room and asked what was wrong.
“Oh, what have I done? What have I done?”cried Pinocchio, grasping his two long ears in his hands and pulling and tugging at them angrily.
“My dear boy,”answered the Dormouse to cheer him up a bit, “why worry now? What is done cannot be undone.Fate has decreed that all lazy boys who come to hate books and schools and teachers and spend all their days with toys and games must sooner or later turn into donkeys.”
“But the fault is not mine. The fault is all Lamp-Wick’s,a classmate of mine.”
Pinocchio went to find Lamp-Wick who was in much the same plight. Both had to cover up their heads with a cotton bag to conceal their strange and shameful appearance.
When the Marionette and his friend Lamp-Wick saw each other both stricken by the same misfortune, instead of feeling sorrowful and ashamed, began to poke fun at each other, and after much nonsense, they ended by bursting out into hearty laughter.
But all of a sudden Lamp-Wick stopped laughing. He tottered and almost fell. Pale as a ghost, he turned to Pinocchio and said: “Help, help, Pinocchio!”
“What is the matter?”
“Oh, help me! I can no longer stand up.”
“I can’t either,”cried Pinocchio; and his laughter turned to tears as he stumbled about helplessly.
They had hardly finished speaking, when both of them fell on all fours and began running and jumping around the room. As they ran, their arms turned into legs, their faces lengthened into snouts, and their backs became covered with long gray hairs.
This was humiliating enough, but the most horrible moment was the one in which the two poor creatures felt their tails appear. Overcome with shame and grief, they tried to cry and bemoan their fate.
But what is done can’t be undone! Instead of moans and cries, they burst forth into loud donkey brays, which sounded very much like, “Haw! Haw! Haw!”
—Carlo Lorenzini
[1] Marionette：意大利語，小木偶。