《Alice's Adventures In Wonderland》 CHAPTER2
by Lewis Carroll
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.
