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ALICE IN WONDERLAND
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
[Also known as "Alice in Wonderland"]
by Lewis Carroll
May, 1997 [Etext #928]
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ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND
Lewis Carroll
THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0
CHAPTER I
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank,
and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her
sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, 'and what is
the use of a book,' thought Alice 'without pictures or conversation?'
So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day
made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a
daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies,
when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it
so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, 'Oh dear!
Oh dear! I shall be late!' (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to
her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite
natural); but when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its
waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to
her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit
with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and burning with
curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time
to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the
world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped
suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping
herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of
time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen
next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it
was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there
she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the
shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great
disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of
killing somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell
past it.
'Well!' thought Alice to herself, 'after such a fall as this, I shall think
nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I
wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which
was very likely true.)
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end! 'I wonder how
many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud. 'I must be getting
somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand
miles down, I think--' (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this
sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very
good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to
her, still it was good practice to say it over) '--yes, that's about the right
distance--but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?' (Alice had
no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand
words to say.)
Presently she began again. 'I wonder if I shall fall right through the
earth! How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their
heads downward! The Antipathies, I think--' (she was rather glad there was
no one listening, this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) '--but I
shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma'am,
is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke--fancy
curtseying as you're falling through the air! Do you think you could
manage it?) 'And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No,
it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking
again. 'Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I should think!' (Dinah was the
cat.) 'I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I
wish you were down here with me! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but
you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat
bats, I wonder?' And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying
to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?' and
sometimes, 'Do bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was
dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with
Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly, 'Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you
ever eat a bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she
looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage,
and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it. There was not a
moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear
it say, as it turned a corner, 'Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!'
She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer
to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of
lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice
had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying every door, she
walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass;
there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was
that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the
locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it would not
open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain
she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches
high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it
fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much
larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the
loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and
wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
she could not even get her head though the doorway; 'and even if my head
would go through,' thought poor Alice, 'it would be of very little use
without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope! I think I
could, if I only know how to begin.' For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed
were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to
the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book
of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little
bottle on it, ('which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the
neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words 'DRINK ME' beautifully
printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say 'Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not
going to do that in a hurry. 'No, I'll look first,' she said, 'and see
whether it's marked "poison" or not'; for she had read several nice
little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts
and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the
simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker will
burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very
deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had never forgotten that, if you
drink much from a bottle marked 'poison,' it is almost certain to
disagree with you, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked 'poison,' so Alice ventured to
taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of
cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,)
she very soon finished it off.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
'What a curious feeling!' said Alice; 'I must be shutting up like a
telescope.'
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face
brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through
the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few
minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous
about this; 'for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, 'in my going
out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?' And she
tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out,
for she could not remember ever having seen such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into
the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she
found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the
table for it, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite
plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of
the table, but it was too slippery; and when she had tired herself out with
trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
'Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to herself, rather
sharply; 'I advise you to leave off this minute!' She generally gave herself
very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she
scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she
remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of
croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of
pretending to be two people. 'But it's no use now,' thought poor Alice, 'to
pretend to be two people! Why, there's hardly enough of me left to make one
respectable person!'
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she
opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words 'EAT ME' were
beautifully marked in currants. 'Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, 'and if it
makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I
can creep under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't
care which happens!'
She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, 'Which way? Which way?',
holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and
she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure,
this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the
way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed
quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.
So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.
* * * * *
* * * *
* * * * *
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
A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank--the birds
with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and
all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.
The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a
consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to
Alice to find herself talking familiarly with them, as if she had known them all
her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last
turned sulky, and would only say, 'I am older than you, and must know better';
and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory
positively refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.
At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among them, called
out, 'Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I'll soon make you dry
enough!' They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the
middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would
catch a bad cold if she did not get dry very soon.
'Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, 'are you all ready? This is the
driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! "William the Conqueror,
whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who
wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest.
Edwin and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'
'Ugh!' said the Lory, with a shiver.
'I beg your pardon!' said the Mouse, frowning, but very politely: 'Did you
speak?'
'Not I!' said the Lory hastily.
'I thought you did,' said the Mouse. '--I proceed. "Edwin and Morcar, the
earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him: and even Stigand, the
patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found it advisable--"'
'Found what?' said the Duck.
'Found it,' the Mouse replied rather crossly: 'of course you know what
"it" means.'
'I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said the
Duck: 'it's generally a frog or a worm. The question is, what did the archbishop
find?'
The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on, '"--found it
advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown.
William's conduct at first was moderate. But the insolence of his Normans--" How
are you getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it spoke.
'As wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone: 'it doesn't seem to dry me
at all.'
'In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, 'I move that the
meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies--'
'Speak English!' said the Eaglet. 'I don't know the meaning of half those
long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do either!' And the Eaglet
bent down its head to hide a smile: some of the other birds tittered audibly.
'What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone, 'was, that the
best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'
'What is a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much to know,
but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that somebody ought to speak,
and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.
'Why,' said the Dodo, 'the best way to explain it is to do it.' (And, as you
might like to try the thing yourself, some winter day, I will tell you how the
Dodo managed it.)
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ('the exact shape
doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course,
here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running
when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know
when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so,
and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called out 'The race is over!' and
they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, 'But who has won?'
This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and
it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position
in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest
waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 'everybody has won, and all
must have prizes.'
'But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices asked.
'Why, she, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with one
finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her, calling out in a confused
way, 'Prizes! Prizes!'
Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand in her pocket,
and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt water had not got into it),
and handed them round as prizes. There was exactly one a-piece all round.
'But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse.
'Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely. 'What else have you got in your
pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice.
'Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly.
'Hand it over here,' said the Dodo.
Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo solemnly presented
the thimble, saying 'We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble'; and, when
it had finished this short speech, they all cheered.
Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked so grave that
she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not think of anything to say, she
simply bowed, and took the thimble, looking as solemn as she could.
The next thing was to eat the comfits: this caused some noise and confusion,
as the large birds complained that they could not taste theirs, and the small
ones choked and had to be patted on the back. However, it was over at last, and
they sat down again in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.
'You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice, 'and why it is
you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half afraid that it would be
offended again.
'Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and
sighing.
'It is a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with wonder
at the Mouse's tail; 'but why do you call it sad?' And she kept on puzzling
about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was
something like this:--
'Fury said to a mouse, That he met in the house, "Let us both go to law: I
will prosecute you. --Come, I'll take no denial; We must have a trial:
For really this morning I've nothing to do." Said the mouse to the cur, "Such a
trial, dear Sir,With no jury or judge, would be wasting our breath." "I'll be
judge, I'll be jury," said cunning old Fury:"I'll try the whole cause, and
condemn you to death."'
'You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely. 'What are you
thinking of?'
'I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly: 'you had got to the fifth bend,
I think?'
'I had not!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.
'A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking
anxiously about her. 'Oh, do let me help to undo it!'
'I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up and walking
away. 'You insult me by talking such nonsense!'
'I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice. 'But you're so easily offended, you
know!'
The Mouse only growled in reply.
'Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after it; and the
others all joined in chorus, 'Yes, please do!' but the Mouse only shook its head
impatiently, and walked a little quicker.
'What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it was quite out
of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to her daughter 'Ah, my
dear! Let this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!' 'Hold your
tongue, Ma!' said the young Crab, a little snappishly. 'You're enough to try the
patience of an oyster!'
'I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud, addressing
nobody in particular. 'She'd soon fetch it back!'
'And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?' said the Lory.
Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her pet:
'Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for catching mice you can't
think! And oh, I wish you could see her after the birds! Why, she'll eat a
little bird as soon as look at it!'
This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party. Some of the birds
hurried off at once: one old Magpie began wrapping itself up very carefully,
remarking, 'I really must be getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my
throat!' and a Canary called out in a trembling voice to its children, 'Come
away, my dears! It's high time you were all in bed!' On various pretexts they
all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
'I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah!' she said to herself in a melancholy tone.
'Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm sure she's the best cat in the
world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you any more!' And here
poor Alice began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited. In a
little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of footsteps in the
distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping that the Mouse had changed his
mind, and was coming back to finish his story.
CHAPTER IV
The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously
about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to
itself 'The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers!
She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have
dropped them, I wonder?' Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the
fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began hunting
about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have
changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and
the little door, had vanished completely.
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out
to her in an angry tone, 'Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run
home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!' And
Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it
pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.
'He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran. 'How
surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan
and gloves--that is, if I can find them.' As she said this, she came upon a neat
little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name 'W.
RABBIT' engraved upon it. She went in without knocking, and hurried upstairs, in
great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann, and be turned out of the
house before she had found the fan and gloves.
'How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, 'to be going messages for a
rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next!' And she began
fancying the sort of thing that would happen: '"Miss Alice! Come here directly,
and get ready for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse! But I've got to see
that the mouse doesn't get out." Only I don't think,' Alice went on, 'that
they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like that!'
By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in
the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny
white kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just
going to leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near
the looking- glass. There was no label this time with the words 'DRINK ME,' but
nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips. 'I know something
interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself, 'whenever I eat or drink
anything; so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make me grow
large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk
half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to
stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle,
saying to herself 'That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is,
I can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so much!'
Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and
very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even
room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the
door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and,
as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the
chimney, and said to herself 'Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What
will become of me?'
Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full effect, and
she grew no larger: still it was very uncomfortable, and, as there seemed to be
no sort of chance of her ever getting out of the room again, no wonder she felt
unhappy.
'It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, 'when one wasn't always
growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I
almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather
curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened
to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never
happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book
written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm
grown up now,' she added in a sorrowful tone; 'at least there's no room to grow
up any more here.'
'But then,' thought Alice, 'shall I never get any older than I am now?
That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman-- but then--always to
have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't like that!'
'Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself. 'How can you learn lessons in
here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at all for any
lesson-books!'
And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other, and making
quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few minutes she heard a voice
outside, and stopped to listen.
'Mary Ann! Mary Ann!' said the voice. 'Fetch me my gloves this moment!' Then
came a little pattering of feet on the stairs. Alice knew it was the Rabbit
coming to look for her, and she trembled till she shook the house, quite
forgetting that she was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and
had no reason to be afraid of it.
Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it; but, as the
door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed hard against it, that attempt
proved a failure. Alice heard it say to itself 'Then I'll go round and get in at
the window.'
'That you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she fancied
she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly spread out her hand,
and made a snatch in the air. She did not get hold of anything, but she heard a
little shriek and a fall, and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded
that it was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something of
the sort.
Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--'Pat! Pat! Where are you?' And then a
voice she had never heard before, 'Sure then I'm here! Digging for apples, yer
honour!'
'Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily. 'Here! Come and help
me out of this!' (Sounds of more broken glass.)
'Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?'
'Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!' (He pronounced it 'arrum.')
'An arm, you goose! Who ever saw one that size? Why, it fills the whole
window!'
'Sure, it does, yer honour: but it's an arm for all that.'
'Well, it's got no business there, at any rate: go and take it away!'
There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispers now
and then; such as, 'Sure, I don't like it, yer honour, at all, at all!' 'Do as I
tell you, you coward!' and at last she spread out her hand again, and made
another snatch in the air. This time there were two little shrieks, and
more sounds of broken glass. 'What a number of cucumber-frames there must be!'
thought Alice. 'I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of the
window, I only wish they could! I'm sure I don't want to stay in here any
longer!'
She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a
rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking
together: she made out the words: 'Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to
bring but one; Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up
at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half high enough
yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular-- Here, Bill! catch hold of
this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down!
Heads below!' (a loud crash)--'Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's
to go down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! you do it!--That I won't,
then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to go down the
chimney!'
'Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said Alice to herself.
'Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a
good deal: this fireplace is narrow, to be sure; but I think I can kick a
little!'
She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and waited till she
heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what sort it was) scratching and
scrambling about in the chimney close above her: then, saying to herself 'This
is Bill,' she gave one sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.
The first thing she heard was a general chorus of 'There goes Bill!' then the
Rabbit's voice along--'Catch him, you by the hedge!' then silence, and then
another confusion of voices--'Hold up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How
was it, old fellow? What happened to you? Tell us all about it!'
Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, ('That's Bill,' thought Alice,)
'Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm better now--but I'm a deal too
flustered to tell you--all I know is, something comes at me like a
Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes like a sky-rocket!'
'So you did, old fellow!' said the others.
'We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and Alice called out
as loud as she could, 'If you do. I'll set Dinah at you!'
There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to herself, 'I wonder
what they will do next! If they had any sense, they'd take the roof off.'
After a minute or two, they began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit
say, 'A barrowful will do, to begin with.'
'A barrowful of what?' thought Alice; but she had not long to doubt,
for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came rattling in at the window,
and some of them hit her in the face. 'I'll put a stop to this,' she said to
herself, and shouted out, 'You'd better not do that again!' which produced
another dead silence.
Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into
little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright idea came into her head. 'If
I eat one of these cakes,' she thought, 'it's sure to make some change in
my size; and as it can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I
suppose.'
So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began
shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she
ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds
waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up
by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made
a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she ran off as hard as she could,
and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.
'The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she wandered
about in the wood, 'is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is
to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.'
It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged;
the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it;
and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark
just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.
An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly
stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. 'Poor little thing!' said Alice, in
a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly
frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it
would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.
Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it
out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at
once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry
it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run
over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another rush
at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it; then
Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and
expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a
very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely all
the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its tongue
hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.
This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape; so she set off
at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the
puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance.
'And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she leant against a
buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves: 'I should
have liked teaching it tricks very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to
do it! Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again! Let me
see--how is it to be managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something
or other; but the great question is, what?'
The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the
flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see anything that looked like
the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large
mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had
looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her that
she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom,
and her eyes immediately met those of a large caterpillar, that was sitting on
the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the
smallest notice of her or of anything else.
CHAPTER V
Advice from a Caterpillar
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at
last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a
languid, sleepy voice.
'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather
shyly, 'I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I was
when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times
since then.'
'What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. 'Explain yourself!'
'I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, 'because I'm not
myself, you see.'
'I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.
'I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very politely, 'for I
can't understand it myself to begin with; and being so many different sizes in a
day is very confusing.'
'It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.
'Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; 'but when you have
to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you know--and then after that into
a butterfly, I should think you'll feel it a little queer, won't you?'
'Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.
'Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice; 'all I know is,
it would feel very queer to me.'
'You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously. 'Who are you?'
Which brought them back again to the beginning of the conversation. Alice
felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's making such very short
remarks, and she drew herself up and said, very gravely, 'I think, you ought to
tell me who you are, first.'
'Why?' said the Caterpillar.
Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not think of any good
reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in a very unpleasant state of
mind, she turned away.
'Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. 'I've something important to
say!'
This sounded promising, certainly: Alice turned and came back again.
'Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.
'Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she could.
'No,' said the Caterpillar.
Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else to do, and
perhaps after all it might tell her something worth hearing. For some minutes it
puffed away without speaking, but at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah
out of its mouth again, and said, 'So you think you're changed, do you?'
'I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; 'I can't remember things as I used--and I
don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'
'Can't remember what things?' said the Caterpillar.
'Well, I've tried to say "How doth the little busy bee," but it all
came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.
'Repeat, "you are old, Father William,"' said the Caterpillar.
Alice folded her hands, and began:--
'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has
become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at
your age, it is right?'
'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might
injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it
again and again.'
'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before, And have grown most
uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door-- Pray, what is
the reason of that?'
'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 'I kept all my
limbs very supple By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box-- Allow me
to sell you a couple?'
'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak For anything
tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
Pray how did you manage to do it?'
'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law, And argued each case
with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the
rest of my life.'
'You are old,' said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose That your eye was
as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose-- What made
you so awfully clever?'
'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,' Said his father;
'don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be
off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'
'That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.
'Not quite right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; 'some of the words
have got altered.'
'It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar decidedly, and
there was silence for some minutes.
The Caterpillar was the first to speak.
'What size do you want to be?' it asked.
'Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied; 'only one doesn't
like changing so often, you know.'
'I don't know,' said the Caterpillar.
Alice said nothing: she had never been so much contradicted in her life
before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.
'Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.
'Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you wouldn't
mind,' said Alice: 'three inches is such a wretched height to be.'
'It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing
itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).
'But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she
thought of herself, 'I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended!'
'You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and it put the hookah
into its mouth and began smoking again.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute
or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or
twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in
the grass, merely remarking as it went, 'One side will make you grow taller, and
the other side will make you grow shorter.'
'One side of what? The other side of what?' thought Alice to
herself.
'Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud;
and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to
make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she
found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms
round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each
hand.
'And now which is which?' she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the
right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a violent blow
underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that
there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work
at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against
her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last,
and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.
* * * * *
'Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of delight, which
changed into alarm in another moment, when she found that her shoulders were
nowhere to be found: all she could see, when she looked down, was an immense
length of neck, which seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves
that lay far below her.
'What can all that green stuff be?' said Alice. 'And where have
my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I can't see you?' She was
moving them about as she spoke, but no result seemed to follow, except a little
shaking among the distant green leaves.
As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her head, she
tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted to find that her neck
would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded
in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the
leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she
had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large
pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently with its wings.
'Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon.
'I'm not a serpent!' said Alice indignantly. 'Let me alone!'
'Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more subdued tone, and
added with a kind of sob, 'I've tried every way, and nothing seems to suit
them!'
'I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said Alice.
'I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges,'
the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; 'but those serpents! There's no
pleasing them!'
Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no use in saying
anything more till the Pigeon had finished.
'As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the Pigeon; 'but I
must be on the look-out for serpents night and day! Why, I haven't had a wink of
sleep these three weeks!'
'I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was beginning to see
its meaning.
'And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued the Pigeon,
raising its voice to a shriek, 'and just as I was thinking I should be free of
them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!'
'But I'm not a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice. 'I'm a--I'm a--'
'Well! what are you?' said the Pigeon. 'I can see you're trying to
invent something!'
'I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she remembered the
number of changes she had gone through that day.
'A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the deepest contempt.
'I've seen a good many little girls in my time, but never one with such a
neck as that! No, no! You're a serpent; and there's no use denying it. I suppose
you'll be telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'
'I have tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very truthful
child; 'but little girls eat eggs quite as much as serpents do, you know.'
'I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; 'but if they do, why then they're a
kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'
This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent for a minute or
two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of adding, 'You're looking for eggs,
I know that well enough; and what does it matter to me whether you're a
little girl or a serpent?'
'It matters a good deal to me,' said Alice hastily; 'but I'm not
looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't want yours: I
don't like them raw.'
'Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled down
again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well as she could,
for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and every now and then
she had to stop and untwist it. After a while she remembered that she still held
the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully,
nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and
sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual
height.
It was so long since she had been anything near the right size, that it felt
quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a few minutes, and began
talking to herself, as usual. 'Come, there's half my plan done now! How puzzling
all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to
another! However, I've got back to my right size: the next thing is, to get into
that beautiful garden--how is that to be done, I wonder?' As she said
this, she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about four
feet high. 'Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, 'it'll never do to come upon
them this size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!' So she
began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go near the
house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high.
CHAPTER VI
Pig and Pepper
For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and wondering what to do
next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood--(she
considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by
his face only, she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door
with his knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round
face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen, Alice noticed, had powdered
hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was
all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.
The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly
as large as himself, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn
tone, 'For the Duchess. An invitation from the Queen to play croquet.' The
Frog-Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the
words a little, 'From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.'
Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together.
Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for
fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the Fish-Footman was
gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up
into the sky.
Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.
'There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, 'and that for two
reasons. First, because I'm on the same side of the door as you are; secondly,
because they're making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.' And
certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on within--a constant
howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or
kettle had been broken to pieces.
'Please, then,' said Alice, 'how am I to get in?'
'There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went on without
attending to her, 'if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were
inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.' He was looking
up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly
uncivil. 'But perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; 'his eyes are so
very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer
questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.
'I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, 'till tomorrow--'
At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming
out, straight at the Footman's head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to
pieces against one of the trees behind him.
'--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if
nothing had happened.
'How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.
'Are you to get in at all?' said the Footman. 'That's the first
question, you know.'
It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. 'It's really
dreadful,' she muttered to herself, 'the way all the creatures argue. It's
enough to drive one crazy!'
The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark,
with variations. 'I shall sit here,' he said, 'on and off, for days and days.'
'But what am I to do?' said Alice.
'Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.
'Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately: 'he's
perfectly idiotic!' And she opened the door and went in.
The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end
to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle,
nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron
which seemed to be full of soup.
'There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to herself, as
well as she could for sneezing.
There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed
occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately
without a moment's pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze,
were the cook, and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from
ear to ear.
'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not
quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why your cat
grins like that?'
'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Pig!'
She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but
she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so
she took courage, and went on again:--
'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that
cats could grin.'
'They all can,' said the Duchess; 'and most of 'em do.'
'I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely, feeling quite
pleased to have got into a conversation.
'You don't know much,' said the Duchess; 'and that's a fact.'
Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as
well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to
fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to
work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby --the
fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes.
The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was
howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows
hurt it or not.
'Oh, please mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up and down
in an agony of terror. 'Oh, there goes his precious nose'; as an
unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off.
'If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a hoarse growl,
'the world would go round a deal faster than it does.'
'Which would not be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very glad to
get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. 'Just think of what
work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four
hours to turn round on its axis--'
'Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, 'chop off her head!'
Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the
hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening,
so she went on again: 'Twenty-four hours, I think; or is it twelve? I--'
'Oh, don't bother me,' said the Duchess; 'I never could abide
figures!' And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of
lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every
line:
'Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.'
CHORUS
(In which the cook and the baby joined):--
'Wow! wow! wow!'
While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the
baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice
could hardly hear the words:--
'I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!'
CHORUS
'Wow! wow! wow!'
'Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said to Alice,
flinging the baby at her as she spoke. 'I must go and get ready to play croquet
with the Queen,' and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan
after her as she went out, but it just missed her.
Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer- shaped little
creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, 'just like a
star-fish,' thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a
steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening
itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as
much as she could do to hold it.
As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist
it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left
foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open
air. 'If I don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, 'they're
sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn't it be murder to leave it behind?' She
said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left
off sneezing by this time). 'Don't grunt,' said Alice; 'that's not at all a
proper way of expressing yourself.'
The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see
what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very
turn-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were
getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of
the thing at all. 'But perhaps it was only sobbing,' she thought, and looked
into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.
No, there were no tears. 'If you're going to turn into a pig, my dear,' said
Alice, seriously, 'I'll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!' The poor
little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they
went on for some while in silence.
Alice was just beginning to think to herself, 'Now, what am I to do with this
creature when I get it home?' when it grunted again, so violently, that she
looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no
mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it
would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.
So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot
away quietly into the wood. 'If it had grown up,' she said to herself, 'it would
have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.'
And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as
pigs, and was just saying to herself, 'if one only knew the right way to change
them--' when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a
bough of a tree a few yards off.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good- natured, she thought:
still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it
ought to be treated with respect.
'Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know
whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come,
it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me,
please, which way I ought to go from here?'
'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.
'I don't much care where--' said Alice.
'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.
'--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.
'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.
'What sort of people live about here?'
'In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, 'lives
a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw, 'lives a March
Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.
'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're
mad.'
'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.
'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'
Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on 'And how do
you know that you're mad?'
'To begin with,' said the Cat, 'a dog's not mad. You grant that?'
'I suppose so,' said Alice.
'Well, then,' the Cat went on, 'you see, a dog growls when it's angry, and
wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased, and wag my tail
when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'
'I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.
'Call it what you like,' said the Cat. 'Do you play croquet with the Queen
to-day?'
'I should like it very much,' said Alice, 'but I haven't been invited yet.'
'You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things
happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly
appeared again.
'By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. 'I'd nearly forgotten to
ask.'
'It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a
natural way.
'I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.
Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear,
and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare
was said to live. 'I've seen hatters before,' she said to herself; 'the March
Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.' As she said this, she
looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.
'Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.
'I said pig,' replied Alice; 'and I wish you wouldn't keep appearing and
vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'
'All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning
with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time
after the rest of it had gone.
'Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; 'but a grin
without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!'
She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the
March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were
shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house,
that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the
lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then
she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself 'Suppose it should be
raving mad after all! I almost wish I'd gone to see the Hatter instead!'
CHAPTER VII
A Mad Tea-Party
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March
Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them,
fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows
on it, and talking over its head. 'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought
Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one
corner of it: 'No room! No room!' they cried out when they saw Alice coming.
'There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a
large arm-chair at one end of the table.
'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. 'I
don't see any wine,' she remarked.
'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.
'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being invited,' said the
March Hare.
'I didn't know it was your table,' said Alice; 'it's laid for a great
many more than three.'
'Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for
some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.
'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with some
severity; 'it's very rude.'
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said
was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'
'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've begun
asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.
'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the
March Hare.
'Exactly so,' said Alice.
'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.
'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least--at least I mean what I say--that's
the same thing, you know.'
'Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say that
"I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that "I like what I get"
is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in
his sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I
breathe"!'
'It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought
over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. 'What day of the month is it?'
he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was
looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his
ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said 'The fourth.'
'Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter. 'I told you butter wouldn't suit the
works!' he added looking angrily at the March Hare.
'It was the best butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.
'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter grumbled: 'you
shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'
The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it
into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing
better to say than his first remark, 'It was the best butter, you know.'
Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. 'What a funny
watch!' she remarked. 'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't tell what
o'clock it is!'
'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter. 'Does your watch tell you what
year it is?'
'Of course not,' Alice replied very readily: 'but that's because it stays the
same year for such a long time together.'
'Which is just the case with mine,' said the Hatter.
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort of
meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. 'I don't quite understand you,'
she said, as politely as she could.
'The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot
tea upon its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes,
'Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.'
'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's the answer?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.
'Nor I,' said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily. 'I think you might do something better with the time,'
she said, 'than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.'
'If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, 'you wouldn't talk about
wasting it. It's him.'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
'Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. 'I
dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
'Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied: 'but I know I have to beat time when
I learn music.'
'Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter. 'He won't stand beating. Now, if
you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do almost anything you liked with the
clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to
begin lessons: you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the
clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!'
('I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)
'That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully: 'but then--I
shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'
'Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter: 'but you could keep it to half-past
one as long as you liked.'
'Is that the way you manage?' Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully. 'Not I!' he replied. 'We quarrelled
last March--just before he went mad, you know--' (pointing with his tea
spoon at the March Hare,) '--it was at the great concert given by the Queen of
Hearts, and I had to sing
"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!"
You know the song, perhaps?'
'I've heard something like it,' said Alice.
'It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, 'in this way:--
"Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle--"'
Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep 'Twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that they had to pinch it
to make it stop.
'Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter, 'when the Queen
jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the time! Off with his head!"'
'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.
'And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, 'he won't do a
thing I ask! It's always six o'clock now.'
A bright idea came into Alice's head. 'Is that the reason so many tea-things
are put out here?' she asked.
'Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh: 'it's always tea-time, and
we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'
'Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.
'Exactly so,' said the Hatter: 'as the things get used up.'
'But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice ventured to
ask.
'Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted, yawning. 'I'm
getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.'
'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.
'Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried. 'Wake up, Dormouse!' And they
pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. 'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse,
feeble voice: 'I heard every word you fellows were saying.'
'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.
'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.
'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, 'or you'll be asleep again before
it's done.'
'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a
great hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at
the bottom of a well--'
'What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in
questions of eating and drinking.
'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.
'They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; 'they'd have
been ill.'
'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'very ill.'
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living
would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: 'But why did they
live at the bottom of a well?'
'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, 'so I can't take
more.'
'You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: 'it's very easy to
take more than nothing.'
'Nobody asked your opinion,' said Alice.
'Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some
tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her
question. 'Why did they live at the bottom of a well?'
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said, 'It
was a treacle-well.'
'There's no such thing!' Alice was beginning very angrily, but the Hatter and
the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, 'If you can't
be civil, you'd better finish the story for yourself.'
'No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; 'I won't interrupt again. I dare
say there may be one.'
'One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented to go on.
'And so these three little sisters--they were learning to draw, you know--'
'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.
'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.'
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved
into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the
March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change:
and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just
upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very
cautiously: 'But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?'
'You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; 'so I should think
you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh, stupid?'
'But they were in the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing
to notice this last remark.
'Of course they were', said the Dormouse; '--well in.'
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some
time without interrupting it.
'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its
eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew all manner of
things--everything that begins with an M--'
'Why with an M?' said Alice.
'Why not?' said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze;
but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and
went on: '--that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and
memory, and muchness-- you know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you
ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?'
'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, 'I don't think--'
'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great
disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the
others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice,
half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they
were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
'At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice as she picked her
way through the wood. 'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my
life!'
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a door leading
right into it. 'That's very curious!' she thought. 'But everything's curious
today. I think I may as well go in at once.' And in she went.
Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass
table. 'Now, I'll manage better this time,' she said to herself, and began by
taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden.
Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in
her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little
passage: and then--she found herself at last in the beautiful garden,
among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.
CHAPTER VIII
The Queen's Croquet-Ground
A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on
it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red.
Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and
just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, 'Look out now, Five!
Don't go splashing paint over me like that!'
'I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; 'Seven jogged my elbow.'
On which Seven looked up and said, 'That's right, Five! Always lay the blame
on others!'
You'd better not talk!' said Five. 'I heard the Queen say only
yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'
'What for?' said the one who had spoken first.
'That's none of your business, Two!' said Seven.
'Yes, it is his business!' said Five, 'and I'll tell him--it was for
bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun 'Well, of all the unjust
things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them,
and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them
bowed low.
'Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, 'why you are painting
those roses?'
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice,
'Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red
rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it
out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we're
doing our best, afore she comes, to--' At this moment Five, who had been
anxiously looking across the garden, called out 'The Queen! The Queen!' and the
three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a
sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.
First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three
gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the
ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and
two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were ten of
them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples:
they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and
Queens, and among them Alice recognised the White Rabbit: it was talking in a
hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King's crown on a
crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came THE KING
AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.
Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like
the three gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule
at processions; 'and besides, what would be the use of a procession,' thought
she, 'if people had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see
it?' So she stood still where she was, and waited.
When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at
her, and the Queen said severely 'Who is this?' She said it to the Knave of
Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.
'Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice,
she went on, 'What's your name, child?'
'My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very politely; but she
added, to herself, 'Why, they're only a pack of cards, after all. I needn't be
afraid of them!'
'And who are these?' said the Queen, pointing to the three gardeners
who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as they were lying on their
faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she
could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three
of her own children.
'How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage. 'It's no
business of mine.'
The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment
like a wild beast, screamed 'Off with her head! Off--'
'Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.
The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said 'Consider, my dear: she
is only a child!'
The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave 'Turn them
over!'
The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.
'Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners
instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal
children, and everybody else.
'Leave off that!' screamed the Queen. 'You make me giddy.' And then, turning
to the rose-tree, she went on, 'What have you been doing here?'
'May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on
one knee as he spoke, 'we were trying--'
'I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. 'Off
with their heads!' and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining
behind to execute the unfortunate gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.
'You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a large
flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about for a minute or
two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.
'Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.
'Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers shouted in
reply.
'That's right!' shouted the Queen. 'Can you play croquet?'
The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently
meant for her.
'Yes!' shouted Alice.
'Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering
very much what would happen next.
'It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side. She was walking
by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her face.
'Very,' said Alice: '--where's the Duchess?'
'Hush! Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone. He looked anxiously
over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself upon tiptoe, put his
mouth close to her ear, and whispered 'She's under sentence of execution.'
'What for?' said Alice.
'Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.
'No, I didn't,' said Alice: 'I don't think it's at all a pity. I said "What
for?"'
'She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began. Alice gave a little scream
of laughter. 'Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a frightened tone. 'The Queen
will hear you! You see, she came rather late, and the Queen said--'
'Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder, and people
began running about in all directions, tumbling up against each other; however,
they got settled down in a minute or two, and the game began. Alice thought she
had never seen such a curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and
furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live flamingoes, and the
soldiers had to double themselves up and to stand on their hands and feet, to
make the arches.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she
succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm,
with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely
straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it
would twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled
expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got
its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very provoking to find that
the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides
all this, there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted
to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up
and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion
that it was a very difficult game indeed.
The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling all the
while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen was in
a furious passion, and went stamping about, and shouting 'Off with his head!' or
'Off with her head!' about once in a minute.
Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet had any
dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen any minute, 'and
then,' thought she, 'what would become of me? They're dreadfully fond of
beheading people here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'
She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering whether she could
get away without being seen, when she noticed a curious appearance in the air:
it puzzled her very much at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she
made it out to be a grin, and she said to herself 'It's the Cheshire Cat: now I
shall have somebody to talk to.'
'How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was mouth enough for
it to speak with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. 'It's no use speaking
to it,' she thought, 'till its ears have come, or at least one of them.' In
another minute the whole head appeared, and then Alice put down her flamingo,
and began an account of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to
her. The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no
more of it appeared.
'I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a complaining
tone, 'and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't hear oneself speak--and they
don't seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody
attends to them--and you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being
alive; for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next walking about
at the other end of the ground--and I should have croqueted the Queen's hedgehog
just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming!'
'How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.
'Not at all,' said Alice: 'she's so extremely--' Just then she noticed that
the Queen was close behind her, listening: so she went on, '--likely to win,
that it's hardly worth while finishing the game.'
The Queen smiled and passed on.
'Who are you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and
looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.
'It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice: 'allow me to introduce
it.'
'I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: 'however, it may kiss my
hand if it likes.'
'I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.
'Don't be impertinent,' said the King, 'and don't look at me like that!' He
got behind Alice as he spoke.
'A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. 'I've read that in some book, but I
don't remember where.'
'Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and he called the
Queen, who was passing at the moment, 'My dear! I wish you would have this cat
removed!'
The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great or small. 'Off
with his head!' she said, without even looking round.
'I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and he hurried
off.
Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game was going on,
as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance, screaming with passion. She had
already heard her sentence three of the players to be executed for having missed
their turns, and she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in
such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went
in search of her hedgehog.
The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, which seemed to
Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one of them with the other: the
only difficulty was, that her flamingo was gone across to the other side of the
garden, where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up into
a tree.
By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, the fight was
over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: 'but it doesn't matter much,'
thought Alice, 'as all the arches are gone from this side of the ground.' So she
tucked it away under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for
a little more conversation with her friend.
When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to find quite a
large crowd collected round it: there was a dispute going on between the
executioner, the King, and the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all
the rest were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable.
The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to settle the
question, and they repeated their arguments to her, though, as they all spoke at
once, she found it very hard indeed to make out exactly what they said.
The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a head unless there
was a body to cut it off from: that he had never had to do such a thing before,
and he wasn't going to begin at his time of life.
The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be beheaded, and
that you weren't to talk nonsense.
The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about it in less than
no time she'd have everybody executed, all round. (It was this last remark that
had made the whole party look so grave and anxious.)
Alice could think of nothing else to say but 'It belongs to the Duchess:
you'd better ask her about it.'
'She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: 'fetch her here.' And
the executioner went off like an arrow.
The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and, by the time he
had come back with the Duchess, it had entirely disappeared; so the King and the
executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while the rest of the party
went back to the game.
CHAPTER IX
The Mock Turtle's Story
'You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old thing!' said
the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately into Alice's, and they walked
off together.
Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and thought to
herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had made her so savage when
they met in the kitchen.
'When I'm a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very hopeful tone
though), 'I won't have any pepper in my kitchen at all. Soup does very
well without--Maybe it's always pepper that makes people hot-tempered,' she went
on, very much pleased at having found out a new kind of rule, 'and vinegar that
makes them sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar and
such things that make children sweet-tempered. I only wish people knew that:
then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you know--'
She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a little startled
when she heard her voice close to her ear. 'You're thinking about something, my
dear, and that makes you forget to talk. I can't tell you just now what the
moral of that is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'
'Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.
'Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess. 'Everything's got a moral, if only you
can find it.' And she squeezed herself up closer to Alice's side as she spoke.
Alice did not much like keeping so close to her: first, because the Duchess
was very ugly; and secondly, because she was exactly the right height to
rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder, and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin.
However, she did not like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.
'The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of keeping up the
conversation a little.
''Tis so,' said the Duchess: 'and the moral of that is--"Oh, 'tis love, 'tis
love, that makes the world go round!"'
'Somebody said,' Alice whispered, 'that it's done by everybody minding their
own business!'
'Ah, well! It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess, digging her sharp
little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added, 'and the moral of that
is--"Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves."'
'How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to herself.
'I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your waist,' the
Duchess said after a pause: 'the reason is, that I'm doubtful about the temper
of your flamingo. Shall I try the experiment?'
'He might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all anxious
to have the experiment tried.
'Very true,' said the Duchess: 'flamingoes and mustard both bite. And the
moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock together."'
'Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.
'Right, as usual,' said the Duchess: 'what a clear way you have of putting
things!'
'It's a mineral, I think,' said Alice.
'Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything
that Alice said; 'there's a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that
is--"The more there is of mine, the le |
