ALICE'S
ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
Lewis Carroll
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- CHAPTER
II
- The
Pool of Tears
- `Curiouser
and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised,
that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope
that ever was! Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down
at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they
were getting so far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I
wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you
now, dears? I'm sure _I_ shan't be able! I shall be a
great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you
must manage the best way you can; --but I must be kind to
them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the way
I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of
boots every Christmas.'
- And she
went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
`They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how
funny it'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And
how odd the directions will look!
- ALICE'S
RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH
ALICE'S LOVE).
- Oh
dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'
- Just
then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in
fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at
once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the
garden door.
- Poor
Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but
to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down
and began to cry again.
- `You
ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on
crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But
she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears,
until there was a large pool all round her, about four
inches deep and reaching half down the hall.
- After a
time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was
coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly
dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and
a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a
great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, `Oh! the
Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be savage if I've
kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate that she was
ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit came
near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you
please, sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the
white kid gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the
darkness as hard as he could go.
- Alice
took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on
talking: `Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And
yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've
been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same
when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember
feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the
next question is, Who in the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the
great puzzle!' And she began thinking over all the
children she knew that were of the same age as herself,
to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
- `I'm
sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all;
and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of
things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little!
Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I, and--oh dear, how puzzling
it all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to
know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four
times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the
Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try
Geography. London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is
the capital of Rome, and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm
certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I'll try and
say "How doth the little--"' and she crossed
her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons, and
began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
strange, and the words did not come the same as they used
to do:--
- `How
doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And
pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale!
- `How
cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!'
- `I'm
sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must
be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in
that poky little house, and have next to no toys to play
with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I've
made up my mind about it; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down
here! It'll be no use their putting their heads down and
saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look
up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and
then, if I like being that person, I'll come up: if not,
I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh
dear!' cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, `I do
wish they WOULD put their heads down! I am so VERY tired
of being all alone here!'
- As she
said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised
to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
white kid gloves while she was talking. `How CAN I have
done that?' she thought. `I must be growing small again.'
She got up and went to the table to measure herself by
it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was
now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking
rapidly: she soon found out that the cause of this was
the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just
in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
- `That
WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened
at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still
in existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with
all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little
door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying
on the glass table as before, `and things are worse than
ever,' thought the poor child, `for I never was so small
as this before, never! And I declare it's too bad, that
it is!'
- As she
said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment,
splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first
idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and
in that case I can go back by railway,' she said to
herself. (Alice had been to the seaside once in her life,
and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you
go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing
machines in the sea, some children digging in the sand
with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made
out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept
when she was nine feet high.
- `I wish
I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it
now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That
WILL be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is
queer to-day.'
- Just
then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it
was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or
hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was
now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that
had slipped in like herself.
- `Would
it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I
should think very likely it can talk: at any rate,
there's no harm in trying.' So she began: `O Mouse, do
you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of
swimming about here, O Mouse!' (Alice thought this must
be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never
done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen
in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to
a mouse--a mouse--O mouse!' The Mouse looked at her
rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one
of its little eyes, but it said nothing.
- `Perhaps
it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I daresay
it's a French mouse, come over with William the
Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history,
Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had
happened.) So she began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which
was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The
Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to
quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg your pardon!'
cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor
animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'
- `Not
like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'
- `Well,
perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be
angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat
Dinah: I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could
only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went
on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the
pool, `and she sits purring so nicely by the fire,
licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a
nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital one
for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice
again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over,
and she felt certain it must be really offended. `We
won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not.'
- `We
indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the
end of his tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject!
Our family always HATED cats: nasty, low, vulgar things!
Don't let me hear the name again!'
- `I
won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
subject of conversation. `Are you--are you fond--of--of
dogs?' The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on
eagerly: `There is such a nice little dog near our house
I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed terrier,
you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it'll
fetch things when you throw them, and it'll sit up and
beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I can't
remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred
pounds! He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!'
cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've
offended it again!' For the Mouse was swimming away from
her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion
in the pool as it went.
- So she
called softly after it, `Mouse dear! Do come back again,
and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
like them!' When the Mouse heard this, it turned round
and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale
(with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low
trembling voice, `Let us get to the shore, and then I'll
tell you my history, and you'll understand why it is I
hate cats and dogs.'
- It was
high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there
were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several
other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole
party swam to the shore.
Chapter
III
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