And, as his stomach cried out more than ever and he did not know how to
quiet it, he thought he would leave the house and make an excursion in
the neighborhood in hopes of finding some charitable person who would
give him a piece of bread.




[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

PINOCCHIO'S FEET BURN TO CINDERS


It was a wild and stormy night. The thunder was tremendous and the
lightning so vivid that the sky seemed on fire.

Pinocchio had a great fear of thunder, but hunger was stronger than
fear. He therefore closed the house door and made a rush for the
village, which he reached in a hundred bounds, with his tongue hanging
out and panting for breath like a dog after game.

But he found it all dark and deserted. The shops were closed, the
windows shut, and there was not so much as a dog in the street. It
seemed the land of the dead.

Pinocchio, urged by desperation and hunger, took hold of the bell of a
house and began to ring it with all his might, saying to himself: