wonderland_ch_02 (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

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05Chapter 2.

06The Pool of Tears Curiouser and curiouser, cried Alice.

07She was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English.

08Now I am opening out like the largest telescope that ever was.

09Good-bye, feet!

10For when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight.

11They were getting so far off.

12Oh, my poor little feet!

13I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears.

14I am sure I shan't be able to.

15I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you.

16You must manage the best you can.

17But I must be kind to them, thought Alice.

18Or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go.

19Let me see.

20I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.

21And she went on planning to herself how she should manage it.

22They must go by carrier, she thought.

23And how funny I'll seem, sending presents to one's own feet.

24And how odd the directions will look.

25Alice's right foot, Esquire.

26Hearthrug near the fender with Alice's love.

27Oh, dear, what nonsense I'm talking!

28Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall.

29In fact, she was now more than nine feet high.

30And she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

31Poor Alice!

32It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to look into the garden with one eye.

33But to get through was more hopeless than ever.

34She sat down and began to cry again.

35You ought to be ashamed of yourself, said Alice.

36A great girl like you, she might well say this.

37To go on crying in this way, stop this moment, I tell you.

38But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all around her, about four inches deep, and reaching half down the hall.

39After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.

40It was the white rabbit returning, splendidly dressed with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.

41He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came.

42Oh, the Duchess!

43The Duchess!

44Oh, won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting?

45Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone.

46So when the rabbit came near her, she began in a low, timid voice.

47If you please, sir.

48The rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness, as hard as he could go.

49Alice took up the fan and gloves, and as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.

50Dear, dear, how queer everything is today!

51And yesterday things went on just as usual.

52I wonder if I've been changed in the night.

53Let me think, was I the same when I got up this morning?

54I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.

55But if I'm not the same, the next question is, who in the world am I?

56Ah, that's the great puzzle!

57And she began thinking over all the children that she knew, that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.

58I'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.

59And I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things.

60And she, oh, she knows such a very little, besides she, she, and I'm I.

61And, oh, dear, how puzzling it all is!

62I'll try if I know all the things I used to know.

63Let me see.

64Four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh, dear!

65I shall never get to twenty at that rate!

66However, the multiplication table doesn't signify.

67Let's try geography.

68London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome, and Rome—no, that's all wrong!

69I'm certain!

70I must have been changed for Mabel.

71I'll try and say, How doth the little!

72And she crossed her hands on her lap, as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it.

73But her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to.

74How doth the little crocodile improve his shining tail, and pour the waters of the Nile on every golden scale!

75How cheerfully he seemed to grin!

76How neatly spread his claws, and welcomed little fishes in with gently smiling jaws!

77I'm sure those are not the right words, said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on.

78I must be Mabel after all, and I shall have to go and live in that pokey little house, and have next to no toys to play with, and, oh, ever so many lessons to learn!

79No, I've made up my mind about it.

80If I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here.

81It'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying, Come up again, dear!

82I shall only look up and say, Who am I, then?

83Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up.

84If not, I'll stay down here, till I'm somebody else.

85But, oh, dear, cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, I do wish they would put their heads down.

86I am so very tired of being all alone here.

87As 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.

88How can I have done that, she thought?

89I must be growing small again.

90Then 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.

91She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan that she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

92That was a narrow escape, said Alice, a good deal frightened at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence.

93And now for the garden, and she ran with all speed back to the little door.

94But, alas, the door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before.

95And things are worse than ever, thought the poor child, for I never was so small as this before, never.

96And I declare it's too bad that it is.

97As she said these words, her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash!

98She was up to her chin in salt water.

99Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea.

100And in that case, I can go back by railway, she said to herself.

101Alice had been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion that wherever you go 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.

102However, she soon made out that she was in a pool of tears, which she had wept when she was nine feet high.

103I wish I hadn't cried so much, said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out.

104I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears.

105That will be a queer thing, to be sure.

106However, everything is queer today.

107Just then she heard something splash about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was.

108At first she thought it must be a walrus or a hippopotamus.

109But 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.

110Would it be of any use now, thought Alice, to speak to this mouse?

111Everything is so out of the way down here that I should think very likely it can talk.

112At any rate, there's no harm in trying.

113So she began, Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse.

114She had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen her brother's Latin grammar, a mouse of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, oh mouse.

115The mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

116Perhaps it doesn't understand English, thought Alice.

117I dare say it's a French mouse.

118Come over with William the Conqueror.

119With all her knowledge of history, Alice had no clear notion how long ago anything had happened.

120So she began again, Who is, monsieur?

121Which was the first sentence in her French lesson book.

122The mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.

123Oh, I beg your pardon, cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings.

124I quite forgot you don't like cats.

125Not like cats, cried the mouse in a shrill, passionate voice.

126Would you like cats, if you were me?

127Well, perhaps not, said Alice in a soothing tone.

128Don't be angry about it.

129And yet I wish I could show you our cat, Dinah.

130I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.

131She's such a dear, quiet thing, Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily about in the pool.

132And she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face.

133And she is such a nice, soft thing to nurse.

134And she's such a capital one for catching mice.

135Oh, 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.

136We won't talk about her any more, if you'd rather not.

137We, indeed, cried the mouse, who was trembling down to the end of his tail, as if I would talk on such a subject.

138Our family always hated cats, nasty, low, vulgar things.

139Don't let me hear the name again.

140I won't, indeed, said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversations.

141And you, are you fond of—of dogs?

142The mouse did not answer.

143So Alice went on eagerly.

144There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you.

145A little bright-eyed Terry, you know, with, oh, such long curly brown hair.

146And it'll fetch things when you throw them.

147And it'll sit up and beg for its dinner.

148And all sorts of things.

149I can't remember half of them.

150And it belongs to a farmer, you know.

151And he says it's so useful.

152It's worth a hundred pounds.

153He says it kills all the rats and— Oh, dear!

154cried Alice in a sorrowful tone.

155I'm afraid I'll be offended again.

156For the mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

157So she called softly after it.

158Mouse, dear!

159Do come back again, and I won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't like them.

160When the mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her.

161Its face was quite pale, with passion, Alice thought.

162And it said in a low, trembling voice, Let us get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my history.

163And you'll understand why it is that I hate cats and dogs.

164It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with birds and animals that had fallen into it.

165There was a duck and a dodo, a lorry and an eaglet, and several other curious creatures.

166Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

167End of chapter 2