"Looking-glass house" Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There | ||
1. "Looking-glass house"
ONE thing was certain, that the white kitten had had nothing to do with it — it was the black kitten's fault entirely. For the white kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat, for the last quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it couldn't have had any hand in the mischief.
The way Dinah washed her children's faces was like this: first she held the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr — no doubt feeling that it was all meant for its good.
But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again; and there it was spread over the hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.
"Oh, you wicked, wicked little thing!" cried
"Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?" Alice began. "You'd have guessed if you'd been up in the window with me — only Dinah was making you tidy, so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the bonfire — and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it got so cold, and it snowed so,
"Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty," Alice went on, as soon as they were comfortably settled again, "when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into the snow! And you deserved it, you little mischievous darling! What have you got to say for yourself? Now don't interrupt me!" she went on, holding up one finger. "I'm going to tell you all your faults. Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this morinng. Now you can't deny it, Kitty, for I heard you! What's that you say?" (pretending that the kitten was speaking). "Her paw went into your eye? Well, that's your fault, for keeping your eyes open — if you'd shut them tight up, it wouldn't have happened. Now don't make any more excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What, you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn't thirsty too? Now for number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn't looking!
"That's three faults, Kitty, and you've not been punished for any of them yet. You know I'm saving up all your punishments for Wednesday week — suppose they had saved up all my puinshments!" she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten. "What would they do at the end of a year? I should be sent off to prison, I suppose, when the day came. Or — let me see — suppose each punishment was to be going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn't mind that much! I'd far rather go without them than eat them!
"Do you hear the snow against the windowpanes, Kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over outside, I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.' And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they dress themselves all in green, and dance about — whenever the wind blows
"Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don't smile, my dear, I'm asking it seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as if you understood it: and when I said 'Check!' you purred! Well, it was a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn't been for that nasty Knight, that came wriggling down among my pieces. Kitty, dear, let's pretend — -" And here I wish I could tell you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase "Let's pretend." She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the day before — all because Alice had begun with "Let's pretend we're kings and queens"; and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued that they couldn't because there were only two of them, and Alice had been reduced at last to say, "Well, you can be one of them then, and I'll be all the rest." And once she had really
But this is taking us away from Alice's speech to the kitten. "Let's pretend that you're the Red Queen Kitty! Do you know, I think, if you sat up and folded your arms, you'd look exactly like her. Now do try, there's a dear!" And Alice got the Red Queen off the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally, Alice said, because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly. So, to punish it, she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it was " — and if you're not good directly," she added, "I'll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like that?
"Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House. First, there's the room you can see through the glass — that's just the same as our drawing-room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair — all but
"How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they'd give you milk, there? Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn't good to drink — but oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage. You can just see a little peep of the passage in Looking-glass House, if you leave the door of our passage as far as you can see, only you know it may be quite different on beyond. Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let's pretend there's a way
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a real one and lazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. "So I shall be as warm here as I was in the old room," thought Alice: "warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can't get at me!"
Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at her.
"They don't keep this room so tidy as the other" Alice thought to herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little "Oh!" of surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about, two and two!"
"Here are the Red King and the Red Queen," Alice said (in a whisper, for fear of frightening them), "and there are the White King and the White" Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel — and here are two Castles walking arm in arm — I don't think they can hear me," she went on, as she put her head closer down, "and I'm nearly sure they can't see me. I feel as if I were invisible — -"
Here something began squeaking on the table, and made Alice turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen next.
"It is the voice of my child!" the White Queen
Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as
The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air had quite taken away her breath, and for a minute or two she could do nobut hug the little Lily in silence. As soon as she had recovered her breath a little, she called out to the White King, who was sitting sulkily among the ashes, "Mind the volcano!"
"What volcano?" said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as if he thought that was the most likely place to find one.
"Blew — me — up," panted the Queen, who was still a little out of breath. "Mind you come up — the regular way-don't get blown up!"
Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar, till at last she said, "Why, you'll be hours and hours getting to the table,,at that rate. I'd far better help you, hadn't I?" But the King took no notice of the question: it was quite clear that he could neither hear her nor
So Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him across more slowly than she had lifted the Queen, that she mightn't take his breath away: but, before she put him on the table, she thought she might as well dust him a little, he was so covered with ashes.
She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face as the King made, when he
"Oh! please don't make such faces, my dear!" she cried out, quite forgetting that the King couldn't hear her. "You make me laugh so that I can hardly hold you! And don't keep your mouth so wide open! All the ashes will get into it — there, now I think you're tidy enough!" she added, as she smoothed his hair, and set him down very carefully upon the table near the Queen.
The King immediately fell flat on his back, and lay perfectly still and Alice was a little alarmed at what she had done, and went round the room to see if she could find any water to throw over him. However, she could find nothing but a bottle of ink, and when she got back with it she found he had recovered, and he and the Queen were talking together in a frightened whisper — so low, that Alice
The King was saying, "I assure you, my dear, I turned cold to the very ends of my whiskers!" To which the Queen replied, "You haven't got any whiskers."
"The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never, never forget!"
"You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it."
Alice looked on,with great interest as the King took an enormous memorandum-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought struck her, and she took hold of the end of the pencil, which came some way over his shoulder, and began writing for him.
The poor King looked puzzled and unhappy, and struggled with the pencil for some time without saying anything; but Alice was too strong for him, and at last he panted out, "My dear! I really must get a thinner pencil. I can't manage this one a bit; "it writes all manner of things that I don't intend — -"
"What manner of things?" said the Queen, looking over the book (in which Alice had put "The White Knight is sliding down the poker. he balances very badly"). "That's not a memorandum of your feelings!"
There was a book lying near Alice on the table, and while she sat watching the White King (for she was still a little anxious about him, and had the ink all ready to throw over :him, in case he fainted again), she turned over the leaves, to find some part that she could read," — for it's all in some language
"JABBERWOCKY"
'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe
She puzzled over this for some time, but at last a bright thought struck her. "Why, it's a Looking-glass book of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again." This was the poem that Alice read.
"JABBERWOCKY"
'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the jubjub bird, and shun
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
The jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it's rather hard to understand!" (You see she didn't like to confess even to herself, that she couldn't make it out at all.) "Somehow it
"But oh!" thought Alice, suddenly jumping up, "if I don't make haste I shall have to go back through the Looking-glass, before I've seen what the rest of the house is like! Let's have a look at the garden first!" She was out of the room in a moment, and ran downstairs — or, at least, it wasn't exactly running, but a new invention for getting downstairs quickly and easily, as Alice said to herself. She just kept the tips of her fingers on the hand-rail, and floated gently down without even touching the stairs with her feet; then she floated on through the hall, and would have gone straight out at the door in the same way, if she hadn't caught hold of the door-post. She was getting a little giddy with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself walking again in the natural way.
"Looking-glass house" Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There | ||