The poor marionette, who was still half asleep, had not yet discovered that his two feet were burned and totally gone. So as soon as he heard his father's voice, he naturally jumped up from his seat to open the door for the old man. But when he did this, he staggered and fell head first onto the floor, making as much noise as a sack of wood dropping from the fifth story of a house.
"Open the door for me!" @Geppetto shouted from outside in the street.
"Father, dear Father, I can't," answered the marionette in despair, crying and rolling helplessly on the floor.
"You've done it before, so why can't you now?"
"Because someone has eaten my feet."
"And who has eaten them?"
"The cat," answered @Pinocchio without hesitation, seeing that little animal busily playing with some wood shavings in the corner of the room.
"Open up, I say!" repeated Geppetto angrily, "or I'll give you a sound whipping the moment I get in."
"Father, believe me, I can't stand up. Oh, dear, oh, dear! I shall have to walk on my knees for the rest of my life."
Geppetto, thinking that all these tears and cries were only new pranks his marionette had dreamed up, climbed up the side of the house and crawled in through the open window.
At first he was very angry, but when he saw Pinocchio stretched out on the floor and really without his feet, he felt very sad and ashamed that he had yelled at the boy. Picking him up from the floor, held him tightly, talking to him while the tears ran down his cheeks:
"My little Pinocchio, my dear little Pinocchio! I see it wasn't the cat at all. How did you burn your feet?"
"I don't know, Father, but believe me, the night has been a terrible one and I shall remember it as long as I live. The thunder was so noisy, and the lightning was so bright -- and I was very, very hungry. And then the Talking Cricket hopped on the windowsill and said to me, æYou deserve it; you were bad;' and I said to him, æYou be careful, Cricket;' and he said to me, æYou are a marionette and you have a wooden head;' and I threw the hammer at him and killed him. I didn't really want to kill him, but it was his own fault for being so mean to me and saying such things. And I was still hungry, so I put the pan on the coals, but the chick flew away, and my hunger only got worse, so I went out. And then the old man wearing a nightcap looked out of his window and threw water on me, and I came home and put my feet on the stove to dry them because I was still hungry, but I fell asleep and now my feet are gone, and I'm still so hungry. Oh! Oh! Oh!" And poor Pinocchio began to scream and cry so loudly that he could be heard for miles around.
Geppetto, who had understood nothing of all that jumbled talk, except that his little marionette was hungry, felt sorry for him, and pulling three pears out of his pocket, he offered them to the boy, saying:
"These three pears were for my breakfast, but I give them to you gladly. Eat them and stop crying.
