he wanted to say a thousand things, and instead he could only stammer
out a few confused and broken words. At last he succeeded in uttering a
cry of joy, and, opening his arms, he threw them around the little old
man's neck, and began to shout:

"Oh, my dear papa! I have found you at last! I will never leave you
more, never more, never more!"

"Then my eyes tell me true?" said the little old man, rubbing his eyes;
"then you are really my dear Pinocchio?"

"Yes, yes, I am Pinocchio, really Pinocchio! And you have quite forgiven
me, have you not? Oh, my dear papa, how good you are! And to think that
I, on the contrary--Oh! but if you only knew what misfortunes have been
poured on my head, and all that has befallen me! Only imagine, the day
that you, poor, dear papa, sold your coat to buy me a spelling-book,
that I might go to school, I escaped to see the puppet show, and the
showman wanted to put me on the fire, that I might roast his mutton, and
he was the same that afterwards gave me five gold pieces to take them to
you, but I met the Fox and the Cat, who took me to the inn of The Red
Craw-Fish, where they ate like wolves, and I left by myself in the
middle of the night, and I encountered assassins who ran after me, and I
ran away, and they followed, and I ran, and they always followed me, and
I ran, until they hung me to a branch of a Big Oak, and the beautiful
Child with blue hair sent a little carriage to fetch me, and the doctors
when they saw me said immediately, 'If he is not dead, it is a proof
that he is still alive'--and then by chance I told a lie, and my nose
began to grow until I could no longer get through the door of the room,
for which reason I went with the Fox and the Cat to bury the four gold
pieces, for one I had spent at the inn, and the Parrot began to laugh,
and instead of two thousand gold pieces I found none left, for which
reason the judge when he heard that I had been robbed had me immediately
put in prison to content the robbers, and then when I was coming away I
saw a beautiful bunch of grapes in a field, and I was caught in a trap,
and the peasant, who was quite right, put a dog-collar round my neck
that I might guard the poultry-yard, and acknowledging my innocence let
me go, and the Serpent with the smoking tail began to laugh and broke a
blood-vessel in his chest, and so I returned to the house of the
beautiful Child, who was dead, and the Pigeon, seeing that I was crying,
said to me, '