“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like you,” (she might well say this,) “to cry in this way! Stop this instant, I tell you!” But she cried on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool, about four inches deep, all round her, and reaching half way across the hall. After a time, she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and dried her eyes to see what was coming.
It was the white rabbit coming back again, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid-gloves in one hand, and a nosegay in the other. Alice was ready to ask help of any one, she felt so desperate, and as the rabbit passed her, she said, in a low, timid voice, “If you please, Sir—” the rabbit started violently, looked up once into the roof of the hall, from which the voice seemed to come, and then dropped the nosegay and the white kid-gloves, and scurried away into the darkness as hard as it could go.
Alice took up the nosegay and gloves, and found the nosegay so delicious that she kept smelling at it all the time she went on talking to herself—”dear, dear! how queer everything is today! and yesterday everything happened just as usual: I wonder if I was changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I think I remember feeling rather different. But if I’m not the same, who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over all the children she knew of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
“I’m sure I’m not Gertrude,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all—and I’m sure I ca’n’t be Florence, 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 fourteen—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at this rate! But the Multiplication Table don’t signify—let’s try Geography. London is the capital of France, and Rome is the capital of Yorkshire, and Paris—oh dear! dear! that’s all wrong, I’m certain! I must have been changed for Florence! I’ll try and say “How doth the little”,” and she crossed her hands on her lap, and began, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not sound the same as they used to do:
“How doth the little crocodile
Improve its shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully it seems to grin!
How neatly spreads its claws!
And welcomes 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 as she thought “I must be Florence 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 Florence, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying “come up, dear!” I shall only look up and say “who am I, then? answer 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 tired of being all alone here!”
As she said this, she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to find she had put on one of the rabbit’s little gloves while she was talking. “How can I have done that?” thought she, “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: soon she found out that the reason of it was the nosegay she held in her hand: she dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether, and found that she was now only three inches high.
“Now for the garden!” cried Alice, as she hurried back to the little door, but the little door was locked again, and the little gold key was lying on the glass table as before, and “things are worse than ever!” thought the poor little girl, “for I never was as small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, it is!”
At this moment her foot slipped, and splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had fallen into the sea: then she remembered that she was under ground, and she soon made out that it was the pool of tears 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! Well! that’ll be a queer thing, to be sure! However, every thing is queer today.” Very soon she saw something splashing about in the pool near her: at first she thought it must be a walrus or a hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was herself, and soon made out that it was only a mouse, that had slipped in like herself.
“Would it be any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? The rabbit is something quite out-of-the-way, no doubt, and so have I been, ever since I came down here, but that is no reason why the mouse should not be able to talk. I think I may as well try.”
So she began: “oh Mouse, do you know how to get out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, oh 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: “où est ma chatte?” which was the first sentence out of her French lesson-book. The mouse gave a sudden jump in the pool, and seemed to quiver 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,” said Alice, half to herself as she swam lazily about in the pool, “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 poor Alice again, for this time the mouse was bristling all over, and she felt certain that it was really offended, “have I offended you?”
“Offended indeed!” cried the mouse, who seemed to be positively trembling with rage, “our family always hated cats! Nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t talk to me about them any more!”
“I wo’n’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the conversation, “are you—are you—fond 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 ca’n’t remember half of them—and it belongs to a farmer, and he says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!” said Alice sadly, “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 wo’n’t talk about cats and dogs any more, if you don’t like them!” When the mouse heard this, it turned and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale, (with passion, Alice thought,) and it said in a trembling low voice “let’s 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 w
as high time to go, for the pool was getting quite full of birds and animals that had fallen into it. There was 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 II
THEY WERE indeed a curious looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them—all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry: they had a consultation about this, and Alice hardly felt at all surprised at finding herself talking familiarly with the birds, 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 best,” and this Alice would not admit without knowing how old the Lory was, and as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was nothing more to be said.
At last the mouse, who seemed to have some authority among them, called out “sit down, all of you, and attend to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, shivering, in a large ring, Alice in the middle, with her eyes anxiously fixed on the mouse, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry soon.
“Ahem!” said the mouse, with a self-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 to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer him the crown. William’s conduct was at first moderate—how are you getting on now, dear?” said the mouse, turning to Alice as it spoke.
“As wet as ever,” said poor Alice, “it doesn’t seem to dry me at all.”
“In that case,” said the Dodo solemnly, rising to his feet, “I move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more energetic remedies—”
“Speak English!” said the Duck, “I don’t know the meaning of half of those long words, and what’s more, I don’t believe you do either!” And the Duck quacked a comfortable laugh to itself. Some of the other birds tittered audibly.
“I only meant to say,” said the Dodo in a rather offended tone, “that I know of a house near here, where we could get the young Lady and the rest of the party dried, and then we could listen comfortably to the story which I think you were good enough to promise to tell us,” bowing gravely to the mouse.
The mouse made no objection to this, and the whole party moved along the river bank, (for the pool had by this time begun to flow out of the hall, and the edge of it was fringed with rushes and forget-me-nots,) in a slow procession, the Dodo leading the way. After a time the Dodo became impatient, and, leaving the Duck to bring up the rest of the party, moved on at a quicker pace with Alice, the Lory, and the Eaglet, and soon brought them to a little cottage, and there they sat snugly by the fire, wrapped up in blankets, until the rest of the party had arrived, and they were all dry again.
Then they all sat down again in a large ring on the bank, and begged the mouse to begin his story.
“Mine is a long and a sad tale!” cried the mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.
“It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the mouse’s tail, which was coiled nearly all round the party, “but why do you call it sad?” and she went on puzzling about this as the mouse went on speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:
We lived beneath the mat
Warm and snug and fat
But one woe, & that
Was the cat!
To our joys a clog,
In our eyes a fog,
On our hearts a log
Was the dog!
When the cat’s away,
Then the mice will play,
But, alas!
One day, (So they say)
Came the dog and cat,
Hunting for a rat,
Crushed the mice all flat,
Each one as he sat
Underneath the mat,
warm, & snug, & fat—
Think of that!
“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 from the party, “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 ears, and walked quickly away, and was soon out of sight.
“What a pity it wouldn’t stay!” sighed the Lory, and an old Crab took the opportunity of saying to its 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 no one 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 ca’n’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 answer 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 does not suit my throat,” and to its children “come away from her, my dears, she’s no fit company for you!” On various pretexts, they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
She sat for some while sorrowful and silent, but she was not long before she recovered her spirits, and began talking to herself again as usual: “I do wish some of them had stayed a little longer! and I was getting to be such friends with them—really the Lory and I were almost like sisters! and so was that dear little Eaglet! And then the Duck and the Dodo! How nicely the Duck sang to us as we came along through the water: and if the Dodo hadn’t known the way to that nice little cottage, I don’t know when we should have got dry again—” and there is no knowing how long she might have prattled on in this way, if she had not suddenly caught the sound of pattering feet.
It was the white rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about it as it went, as if it had lost something, and she heard it muttering to itself “the Marchioness! the Marchioness! oh my dear paws! oh my fur and whiskers! She’ll have 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 nosegay and the pair of white kid-gloves, and she began hunting for them, but they were now nowhere to be seen—everything seemed to have changed since her swim in the pool, and her walk along the river-bank with its fringe of rushes and forget-me-nots, and the glass table and the little door had vanished.
Soon the ra
bbit noticed Alice, as she stood looking curiously about her, and at once said in a quick angry tone, “why, Mary Ann! what are you doing out here? Go home this moment, and look on my dressing-table for my gloves and nosegay, and fetch them here, as quick as you can run, do you hear?” and Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once, without saying a word, in the direction which the rabbit had pointed out.
She soon found herself in front of a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass plate with the name W. RABBIT, ESQ. She went in, and hurried upstairs, for fear she should meet the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had found the gloves: she knew that one pair had been lost in the hall, “but of course,” thought Alice, “it has plenty more of them in its house. How queer it seems to be going messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah’ll be sending me messages next!” And she began fancying the sort of things that would happen: “Miss Alice! come here directly and get ready for your walk!” “Coming in a minute, nurse! but I’ve got to watch this mousehole till Dinah comes back, and 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 on which was a looking-glass and, (as Alice had hoped,) two or three pairs of tiny white kid-gloves: she took up a pair of 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 on it 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 see what this bottle does. I do hope it’ll make me grow larger, for I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!”
The Complete Alice in Wonderland (Wonderland Imprints Master Editions) Page 28
