Imagine Pinocchio's joy when he found himself free. Without a moment's delay he went straight out of the town and set off again along the road that was to take him back to the Fairy's little house.
Because of the drizzly weather, the road had turned into one big bog, and you sank in it up to your shins.
But the puppet paid no attention to that.
Tormented by his longing to see his father and his little sister with blue hair again, he ran along in leaps and bounds like a greyhound, and as he ran the mud splashed up right over his cap. Meanwhile he kept saying to himself:
“How many misfortunes have happened to me… And I deserve them! Because I'm a stubborn, touchy puppet… I always want to do everything my own way, without listening to the people who love me and have a thousand times more sense than I have!… But from now on I make a resolution to change my ways and become a good, obedient boy!… For by now I've seen for myself that boys who are disobedient always come off worst and never get anything right. And will my father have waited for me?… Will I find him at the Fairy's house? It's so long, poor man, since I last saw him, and I'm longing to give him a thousand hugs and smother him with kisses! And will the Fairy forgive me for the nasty thing I did to her?… And to think of all the kindness and loving care I had from her… and to think that if I'm still alive today, I owe it to her! Could there ever be a boy more ungrateful and more heartless than me?…”
Just as he was saying this, he suddenly stopped in fright and took four steps backwards.
What had he seen?
He had seen a big Serpent stretched out across the road, with green skin, eyes of fire and a pointed tail that smoked like a chimney.
You cannot imagine how frightened the puppet was: he went off more than half a kilometre away and sat down on a little heap of stones, waiting for the Serpent to go away about its business once and for all and leave the road clear.
He waited an hour; two hours; three hours: but the Serpent was still there, and even from far away you could see the red glow of its fiery eyes and the column of smoke rising from the tip of its tail.
Then Pinocchio, imagining he was brave, went up to within a few steps of it and, putting on a sweet, coaxing, thin little voice, said to the Serpent:
“Excuse me, Mr Serpent, would you be so kind as to move a tiny bit to one side, just enough to let me pass?”
He might as well have been talking to a wall. Nobody moved.
Then he began again in the same little voice:
“You must know, Mr Serpent, that I'm going home, where my father is waiting for me, and I haven't seen him for such a long time!… So would you mind if I carried on along my way?”
He waited for some sign of an answer to this question; but no answer came; in fact the Serpent, which until then had seemed lively and full of life, went quite still and almost stiff. Its eyes closed, and its tail stopped smoking.
“Can it really be dead?” said Pinocchio, rubbing his hands with delight; and without wasting any time he made as if to step over it, to get to the other side of the road. But he had not even finished lifting his leg when the Serpent suddenly reared up like a spring let loose; and the puppet, jumping back in fright, tripped and fell to the ground.
And as luck would have it he fell so badly that he was left with his head stuck in the mud of the road and his legs straight up in the air.
At the sight of that puppet kicking about upside down at an incredible speed, the Serpent was seized by such a fit of laughter that it laughed and laughed and laughed, until at last, from the strain of laughing too much, it burst a vein in its chest: and this time it really did die.
Then Pinocchio began to run again, so as to reach the Fairy's house before it grew dark. But along the way, unable to bear the terrible pangs of hunger any longer, he jumped into a field meaning to pick a few bunches of muscat grapes. If only he had never done it!
No sooner had he reached the vine than – snap!… he felt his legs gripped by two sharp irons that made him see every star in the sky.
The poor puppet had been caught in a trap that some farmers had set there to catch some big weasels which were the scourge of every chicken in the neighbourhood.