“Good-by, Alidoro, good luck and remember me
to the family!”
“Good-by, little Pinocchio,” answered
the Dog. “A thousand thanks for having
saved me from death. You did me a good turn, and,
in this world, what is given is always returned.
If the chance comes, I shall be there.”
Pinocchio went on swimming close to shore. At
last he thought he had reached a safe place.
Glancing up and down the beach, he saw the opening
of a cave out of which rose a spiral of smoke.
“In that cave,” he said to himself, “there
must be a fire. So much the better. I’ll
dry my clothes and warm myself, and then—well—”
His mind made up, Pinocchio swam to the rocks, but
as he started to climb, he felt something under him
lifting him up higher and higher. He tried to
escape, but he was too late. To his great surprise,
he found himself in a huge net, amid a crowd of fish
of all kinds and sizes, who were fighting and struggling
desperately to free themselves.
At the same time, he saw a Fisherman come out of the
cave, a Fisherman so ugly that Pinocchio thought he
was a sea monster. In place of hair, his head
was covered by a thick bush of green grass. Green
was the skin of his body, green were his eyes, green
was the long, long beard that reached down to his
feet. He looked like a giant lizard with legs
and arms.
When the Fisherman pulled the net out of the sea,
he cried out joyfully:
“Blessed Providence! Once more I’ll
have a fine meal of fish!”
“Thank Heaven, I’m not a fish!”
said Pinocchio to himself, trying with these words
to find a little courage.
The Fisherman took the net and the fish to the cave,
a dark, gloomy, smoky place. In the middle of
it, a pan full of oil sizzled over a smoky fire, sending
out a repelling odor of tallow that took away one’s
breath.
“Now, let’s see what kind of fish we have
caught today,” said the Green Fisherman.
He put a hand as big as a spade into the net and pulled
out a handful of mullets.
“Fine mullets, these!” he said, after
looking at them and smelling them with pleasure.
After that, he threw them into a large, empty tub.
Many times he repeated this performance. As he
pulled each fish out of the net, his mouth watered
with the thought of the good dinner coming, and he
said:
“Fine fish, these bass!”
“Very tasty, these whitefish!”
“Delicious flounders, these!”
“What splendid crabs!”
“And these dear little anchovies, with their
heads still on!”
As you can well imagine, the bass, the flounders,
the whitefish, and even the little anchovies all went
together into the tub to keep the mullets company.
The last to come out of the net was Pinocchio.
As soon as the Fisherman pulled him out, his green
eyes opened wide with surprise, and he cried out in
fear:
“What kind of fish is this? I don’t
remember ever eating anything like it.”
