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 shine 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!"

"No, I won't let them touch me."

"Captain Teschisso, I must remind you of the respect due ..."

"What's that? Major Cutemup ... did you think I was talking of you?

Not a thought of doing so. I meant those dogs of Austrians."

"A-a-a-h! Then be off to the barber's."

"Thanks. I'll have him fix me up in a minute."

"Boy, hurry up. His Majesty is coming."

Ten minutes later everything was shining like a mirror. The soldiers were already at work in the adjoining room. Pinocchio had disappeared.

Teschisso had gone to be shaved. Fatina was arranging the white window-curtains. The Bersaglierino was seated on his bed, his right arm resting on his knee and his chin held in the hollow of his hand.

"What's the matter? What is it, Bersaglierino?"

He didn't answer, and Fatina, after having looked at him a minute with her large, soft eyes, came up nearer and sat down beside him on the little white bed.

"Tell me what's the trouble, Bersaglierino. Why are you crying? Why don't you make yourself handsome? Didn't you hear? The King is coming to give you the medal."

"Why should I care about that? What do you think that means to me, Fatina?"

And then, since she seemed much astonished at his words, he continued, vehemently:

"Why, indeed, should I care about that?... After they have sent me away from here I shall go back to living alone like a dog ... to fighting every day for my existence. Who will get any satisfaction from the reward the King's hand has bestowed on me? No one. Perhaps the day will come when I shall have to pin the medal on my coat to keep the boys in the streets from making fun of me, the poor maimed creature who will wander about playing a street-organ."

"Oh, Bersaglierino! I never imagined you could talk like that. I don't want you to talk so."

And she spoke with so much feeling that he, fearing he had offended her, started to beg her pardon:

"Fatina ..."

"Tell me, aren't you glad to have done your duty, to have given your blood for your country? Didn't you volunteer? Didn't you go willingly through the barbed wire to open a road of victory for your country?

And now you are almost blaming yourself for the good you have done, for fear of the morrow. And you think yourself destined to end as a laughing-stock of horrid little children? Oh, but you are bad! Tell me, are you really so sure that you are alone in the world, that there is no one who will rejoice to see shining on your breast the medal your country has bestowed on you?"

"Ah, if it were so, Fatina, if it were true!"

"Do you believe that no one has followed you in thought through all your dangers on the field of honor, that no one suffered, knowing you were wounded, or trembled at the thought of your bed of pain? Do you really believe that there is no one to rejoice at seeing you take up again your place in the world? You are young, full of ardor and intelligence ..."

"But I am poor, so poor!"

"You can get rich by working. You fought the war with weapons; continue it with the pen. Write what you have seen; you will make a name for yourself and some day will be the pride of your family."

"I! Don't make fun of me, Fatina. I, wounded, maimed, will never find a woman to link her life with mine."