The Heart of Pinocchio Part 14

"No, not exactly ill, but I suffered terribly from--lack of courage."

"Why don't you get up?"

"I'm afraid of sliding off again."

"Let me help you."

Captain Teschisso took hold of the rope Pinocchio had tied around his waist and pulled one end of it through his leather belt, fastened the other end round his body, and, after planting his feet firmly, said: "Take hold of the rope and pull yourself up. You are quite safe; the mountain will crumble before I fall."

Pinocchio did his best to get on his feet, but couldn't succeed. His hinder parts adhered to the crust of the snow as if some magician had glued them firmly. Teschisso, who had little patience and thought that Pinocchio was feigning in order not to have to climb the mountain, gave such a vigorous pull on the rope tied to the boy's belt that he jerked him up, swung him through the air for several feet, and flung him face downward on a heap of snow as downy as a feather-bed. A piece of gray cloth left behind showed the spot where Pinocchio had been miraculously halted in his precipitous descent. Teschisso glanced at it and couldn't keep back one of his loud, honest mountain laughs.

Pinocchio, believing he was being swung around for fun, sprang to his feet, so furious that the captain's hilarity grew even stronger and louder.

"Heavens! And you can thank Heaven that you are still in the land of the living. Look there and feel the back of your trousers. Hah, hah, hah! Don't you understand yet what has happened to you? You were caught in a wolf-trap which the Austrians put there to catch some of us, and instead you were the one, which isn't the same thing at all."

[Ill.u.s.tration: PINOCCHIO DID HIS BEST TO GET ON HIS FEET, BUT COULDN'T SUCCEED]

Notwithstanding the laughter of the captain, Pinocchio's anger evaporated in a second. His eyes were fixed on the sc.r.a.ps of his trousers that still hung on the teeth of the trap and his hands were rubbing the frozen surface left uncovered. He longed to cry, and felt so ridiculous that he was almost on the point of flinging himself again down the snowy slope.

"Come on, come on! There's no time to lose. There is a long road to go and the clouds are hanging lower. There's no sense in your staying there like a macaw, weeping for the seat of your breeches. When we arrive up there I'll have the company's tailor mend them for you.

You've got to march, and no more nonsense. Forward, march!"

"Captain, it's impossible."

"Heavens alive! How impossible?"

"I am not presentable."

"Why?"

"If we find the enemy and the Austrians see me with my trousers in such a state, they will say that the Italian army ..."

"Fool! The Italian army never turns its rear to the enemy, and you won't, either."

"But ..."

"If you are afraid of taking cold in your spine that's another matter.

If that's the case let's see what can be done."

Captain Teschisso turned Pinocchio over, took a copy of a newspaper out of his pocket, folded it over four times, and stuck it into the hole of the trousers. And he did it so well that the "Latest News"

with the headlines seemed to be framed in the ragged edges of the cloth.

"There you are. Are you satisfied?"

To tell the truth, he would have preferred to consider a little before answering, but the captain didn't give him the time. He started off with a quick stride, pulling the rope after him which he had fastened to his belt, as if bringing a calf to the butcher.

I do not know if you, my children, have ever been up in the high mountains. You must know that after you reach a certain alt.i.tude, whether because the air becomes rarefied or because of the silence that surrounds you, you seem to be living another life in another world. Your breath grows shorter; it seems as if you could not draw a long one, while the lungs are so full of oxygen that the heart beats more rapidly; then fatigue is followed by a condition of strange torpor. Nevertheless, you continue to climb without effort, as if the legs moved automatically. If you speak, the voice reaches the ears faintly as if it came from a distance. Sometimes you have a certain discomfort called mountain-sickness, which makes the temples throb and brings with it such a languor that the traveler is forced to give up his ascent. Pinocchio, who for some time had been experiencing all these sensations peculiar to the high mountains, found himself suddenly hidden in a fog so thick that he couldn't see a hand's-breath before his nose.

Not seeing Teschisso any more, and not feeling his numbed legs move, and feeling himself dragged upward and upward through the darkness as if by some prodigious force, he really imagined himself to have entered a new world, and was seized by such a terror that he began to scream as if his throat were being cut. But, seeing that his voice didn't carry far and that Teschisso was not affected by it, he thought it easier to let himself be dragged along and to spare his breath for a better cause.

"I'd like to know where that creature is dragging me," he began to grumble in a low voice like a somnambulist in the dark to give himself courage. "I'd like to know where he is taking me. I am almost beginning to believe that I am really in the clouds, but I'd like to know what need there is to climb 'way up here to fight when there is plenty of room down below. Anyway, I don't believe that we'll find a single Austrian up here in the clouds; it's just a fancy of the captain, who must be a trifle crazy. Once I heard a country priest say that the Heavenly Father lives in the clouds to let the water down when the peasants need it to water their cabbages and turnips, and to keep the sun lighted to warm those who have no clothes. It looks to me as if He had let the Alpine troops take His place.

"Hum! Let's see how this is going to come out. All I care about is to fill my stomach when we arrive, because I am hungry and can't stand it any longer. I've been eating snow for an hour now, but I don't get any nourishment from that. I am beginning to think I was better off where I was before. If Bersaglierino hadn't been injured I'd still be with him and his fine regiment. At least down there I could hear some noise ... patapin! patapum ... pum! Here there's nothing but snow and ice, not a living person to be seen. I should just like to know with whom we can fight. In any case, if the Austrians are up there it seems to me it'll be hard to get close enough to bother them.... But it's easy to see that the air up there isn't for me; I can scarcely go on, but if I slip I'd have to fall all the way, as I did this morning. If I hadn't been so frightened I should almost have enjoyed it. I went along like a trolley-car, and such speed! But I left my trousers on the way. A nice sight I'll be when I'm introduced to the company with the newspaper on ... the rear front! And, to tell the truth, it doesn't keep me very warm. I feel a little cold in my back. I don't know whether it really comes from that, but I feel it, almost--if I didn't feel so well--as if I were going to be sick."

Teschisso noticed the dead weight on the rope he was pulling and absent-mindedly quickened his pace, so terrifyingly horizontal. If the boy had fainted it wouldn't be an easy matter to carry him to safety in such weather. Although he knew the rocks inch by inch, it was not easy to find the way in the whiteness of the snow nor to judge how much more of the road there still remained to cover, on account of the fog which hid the landscape. He was reproaching himself for not having listened to the advice of his comrades at the fort, who had advised him to delay his climb, when he heard a strange metallic noise which grew stronger each moment.

"No so bad. Here we are!"

He took a few steps more, then, pulling from his pocket a horn whistle, he blew several short, shrill blasts. He was answered by a dozen voices, one deep one calling:

"Who goes there?"

"Friends."

"Pasquale."

"Pinerolo."

"I'm well. Who are you?"

"Captain Teschisso."

"Bah! Don't believe it."

"Here, you dog! I tell you it is I."

"Captain Teschisso is killed. Too bad. I saw him fall down in the valley."

"Oh, did you, Sergeant Minestron?"

"I'll be dogged if it isn't he; it really is he!"

From the fog emerged several Alpine figures; they came nearer, growing more distinct, and then there was a yell of delight.

"It is he in flesh and blood. Hurrah!"

"Hurrah for our captain!"

"Thank G.o.d that he is really alive."

"Lieutenant, Lieutenant, come here ... a surprise!"

"Captain, how many surprises?"

"Let me get my breath; you are suffocating me with your hugs. Where are they?"

"The Austrians?"