Friday, June 29, 2012

Pinocchio Chapter Three

CHAPTER III
As soon as he gets home, Geppetto fashions the Marionette and calls it Pinocchio. The first pranks of the Marionette

     Little as Geppetto's house was, it was neat and comfortable. It was a small room on the ground floor, with a tiny window under the stairway.

Wait, the whole house was a small room on the ground floor? Or he only owned a small room on the ground floor of the building? If the house is only a one-floor room, why is there a stairway? Clarity, people!

 The furniture could not have been much simpler: a very old chair, a rickety old bed, and a tumble-down table. A fireplace full of burning logs was painted on the wall opposite the door. Over the fire, there was painted a pot full of something which kept boiling happily away and sending up clouds of what looked like real steam.

So....no actual fire, then?

    As soon as he reached home, Geppetto took his tools and began to cut and shape the wood into a Marionette.
    "What shall I call him?" he said to himself. "I think I'll call him PINOCCHIO. This name will make his fortune. I knew a whole family of Pinocchi once--Pinocchio the father, Pinocchia the mother, and Pinocchi the children-- and they were all lucky. The richest of them begged for his living."

 Begging typically is not the employ that comes to mind when thinking of riches...

    After choosing the name for his Marionette, Geppetto set seriously to work to make the hair, the forehead, the eyes. Fancy his surprise when he noticed that these eyes moved and then stared fixedly at him. Geppetto, seeing this, felt insulted and said in a grieved tone:

    "Ugly wooden eyes, why do you stare so?"

    There was no answer.

These people seem to get offended at the slightest thing. Even being looked at is an insult! Heaven forbid someone DARED to sneeze in their general direction!

    After the eyes, Geppetto made the nose, which began to stretch as soon as finished. It stretched and stretched and stretched till it became so long, it seemed endless.

Well that seems inconvenient.

    Poor Geppetto kept cutting it and cutting it, but the more he cut, the longer grew that impertinent nose. In despair he let it alone.
    Next he made the mouth.

Here I am sensing a mistake.

    No sooner was it finished than it began to laugh and poke fun at him.

 Eeeyup.

    "Stop laughing!" said Geppetto angrily; but he might as well have spoken to the wall.
    "Stop laughing, I say!" he roared in a voice of thunder.
    The mouth stopped laughing, but it stuck out a long tongue.

    Not wishing to start an argument, Geppetto made believe he saw nothing and went on with his work. After the mouth, he made the chin, then the neck, the shoulders, the stomach, the arms, and the hands.

So, he wants to avoid arguing with a hunk of wood that's being a pain, and yet was willing to jump into fisticuffs with his 'sworn' friend who gave him the wood? Inconsistent.

    As he was about to put the last touches on the finger tips, Geppetto felt his wig being pulled off. He glanced up and what did he see? His yellow wig was in the Marionette's hand. "Pinocchio, give me my wig!"
     But instead of giving it back, Pinocchio put it on his own head, which was half swallowed up in it.
    At that unexpected trick, Geppetto became very sad and downcast, more so than he had ever been before.
    "Pinocchio, you wicked boy!" he cried out. "You are not yet finished, and you start out by being impudent to your poor old father. Very bad, my son, very bad!"
    And he wiped away a tear.

 Whaaa....he cries?! He gets into a physical fight with another adult over barely a word, and yet instead of taking a switch to an impertinent, insulting and rude child, he cries?!

    The legs and feet still had to be made. As soon as they were done, Geppetto felt a sharp kick on the tip of his nose.
    "I deserve it!" he said to himself. "I should have thought of this before I made him. Now it's too late!"

 Too late? Just find someone who has an operation fireplace and toss him in. That'll end the whole matter.

    He took hold of the Marionette under the arms and put him on the floor to teach him to walk.
    Pinocchio's legs were so stiff that he could not move them, and Geppetto held his hand and showed him how to put out one foot after the other.
     When his legs were limbered up, Pinocchio started walking by himself and ran all around the room. He came to the open door, and with one leap he was out into the street. Away he flew!

 Let him go, dude, let him go.

    Poor Geppetto ran after him but was unable to catch him, for Pinocchio ran in leaps and bounds, his two wooden feet, as they beat on the stones of the street, making as much noise as twenty peasants in wooden shoes.
    "Catch him! Catch him!" Geppetto kept shouting. But the people in the street, seeing a wooden Marionette running like the wind, stood still to stare and to laugh until they cried.

Now, see, I'd be very surprised if people in that time laughed at such an unearthly sight. More likely they'd brand the puppet and it's maker witches and burn them, or at least destroy the marionette.

 At last, by sheer luck, a Carabineer happened along, who, hearing all that noise, thought that it might be a runaway colt, and stood bravely in the middle of the street, with legs wide apart, firmly resolved to stop it and prevent any trouble.
     A military policeman

 Well, thank you for clarifying what a Carabineer is, at least. Decent of him to want to prevent any trouble from starting up, too.

     Pinocchio saw the Carabineer from afar and tried his best to escape between the legs of the big fellow, but without success.
    The Carabineer grabbed him by the nose (it was an extremely long one and seemed made on purpose for that very thing) and returned him to Master Geppetto.

 He uses logic and actually does his job well! Bravo!

    The little old man wanted to pull Pinocchio's ears. Think how he felt when, upon searching for them, he discovered that he had forgotten to make them!

 Then how could the puppet hear him at all when he told it to be quiet?

    All he could do was to seize Pinocchio by the back of the neck and take him home. As he was doing so, he shook him two or three times and said to him angrily:
    "We're going home now. When we get home, then we'll settle this matter!"
    Pinocchio, on hearing this, threw himself on the ground and refused to take another step. One person after another gathered around the two.
    Some said one thing, some another.
    "Poor Marionette," called out a man. "I am not surprised he doesn't want to go home. Geppetto, no doubt, will beat him unmercifully, he is so mean and cruel!"
    "Geppetto looks like a good man," added another, "but with boys he's a real tyrant. If we leave that poor Marionette in his hands he may tear him to pieces!"
    They said so much that, finally, the Carabineer ended matters by setting Pinocchio at liberty and dragging Geppetto to prison.

Wait, what? No, really, what? The policeman who caught the obviously troublesome puppet is now freeing it again, so it can cause more trouble, and dragging an old man off to prison just because some bystanding gossippers wouldn't shut up?

 The poor old fellow did not know how to defend himself, but wept and wailed like a child and said between his sobs:
    "Ungrateful boy! To think I tried so hard to make you a well-behaved Marionette! I deserve it, however! I should have given the matter more thought."

 Yes, you should have, like NOT MAKING IT after you notice the first few signs of the wood containing such a mischievous spirit!

    What happened after this is an almost unbelievable story, but you may read it, dear children, in the chapters that follow.

And so ends chapter three. As to the picture....It is far, FAR from my best, I know it and I apologize for it, but it was both rushed and a bit forced because I've been working on other projects, making convention badges for my friends, and...well....I don't like puppets and really, REALLY didn't want to draw one. Puppets creep me the heck out, and I don't like seeing them, much less drawing them, so I basically threw this one together as quickly as I could just to get it over and done with. The upcoming chapters won't have the puppet in the images if I can at all avoid it. I'm such a wuss...Cardboard cutouts, lightning, puppets and a lot of other everyday things just freak me out. Blargle.

3 comments:

  1. First of all, never apologize for your art. Secondly, the drawing is good. It has an old world appeal to it. Thanks for the third chapter. Hope you are getting paid for the badges.

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    1. No, I don't charge close friends for stuff like that. They did insist on giving me an HQ for my army (everyone plays Warhammer 40k, and they've been getting me into it. I'm playing Chaos), even though it was unnecessary. I never charge close friends, particularly those I know IRL, for stuff like that.

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  2. Okay I had to go back and reread the chapters you have put on here and I think I will stick to the modern story. This is just a little out there. Someone must have been smoking something.

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