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Read Ebook: Through the Looking-Glass by Carroll Lewis
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Ebook has 658 lines and 31716 words, and 14 pages
"In most gardens," the Tiger-lily said, "they make the beds too soft--so that the flowers are always asleep."
This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know it. "I never thought of that before!" she said.
"I never saw anybody that looked stupider," a Violet said, so suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn't spoken before.
"Are there any more people in the garden besides me?" Alice said, not choosing to notice the Rose's last remark.
"There's one other flower in the garden that can move about like you," said the Rose. "I wonder how you do it--" , "but she's more bushy than you are."
"Is she like me?" Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her mind, "There's another little girl in the garden, somewhere!"
"Well, she has the same awkward shape as you," the Rose said, "but she's redder--and her petals are shorter, I think."
"Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia," the Tiger-lily interrupted: "not tumbled about anyhow, like yours."
Alice didn't like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she asked "Does she ever come out here?"
"I daresay you'll see her soon," said the Rose. "She's one of the thorny kind."
"Where does she wear the thorns?" Alice asked with some curiosity.
"She's coming!" cried the Larkspur. "I hear her footstep, thump, thump, thump, along the gravel-walk!"
Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. "She's grown a good deal!" was her first remark. She had indeed: when Alice first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high--and here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself!
"It's the fresh air that does it," said the Rose: "wonderfully fine air it is, out here."
"I think I'll go and meet her," said Alice, for, though the flowers were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have a talk with a real Queen.
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again.
A little provoked, she drew back, and after looking everywhere for the queen , she thought she would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction.
It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the hill she had been so long aiming at.
"Where do you come from?" said the Red Queen. "And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time."
Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she could, that she had lost her way.
Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the Queen to disbelieve it. "I'll try it when I go home," she thought to herself, "the next time I'm a little late for dinner."
"I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty--"
Alice didn't dare to argue the point, but went on: "--and I thought I'd try and find my way to the top of that hill--"
For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all directions over the country--and a most curious country it was. There were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook.
She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, "That's easily managed. You can be the White Queen's Pawn, if you like, as Lily's too young to play; and you're in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to the Eighth Square you'll be a Queen--" Just at this moment, somehow or other, they began to run.
The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they went, they never seemed to pass anything. "I wonder if all the things move along with us?" thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to guess her thoughts, for she cried, "Faster! Don't try to talk!"
"Nearly there!" the Queen repeated. "Why, we passed it ten minutes ago! Faster!" And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.
"Now! Now!" cried the Queen. "Faster! Faster!" And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.
The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, "You may rest a little now."
Alice looked round her in great surprise. "Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!"
"Of course it is," said the Queen, "what would you have it?"
"While you're refreshing yourself," said the Queen, "I'll just take the measurements." And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in here and there.
"At the end of two yards," she said, putting in a peg to mark the distance, "I shall give you your directions--have another biscuit?"
"Thirst quenched, I hope?" said the Queen.
She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with great interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly walking down the row.
"I--I didn't know I had to make one--just then," Alice faltered out.
At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said, "Speak in French when you can't think of the English for a thing--turn out your toes as you walk--and remember who you are!" She did not wait for Alice to curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg, where she turned for a moment to say "good-bye," and then hurried on to the last.
How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the last peg, she was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether she ran quickly into the wood , there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for her to move.
"I think I'll go down the other way," she said after a pause: "and perhaps I may visit the elephants later on. Besides, I do so want to get into the Third Square!"
So with this excuse she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks.
"Tickets, please!" said the Guard, putting his head in at the window. In a moment everybody was holding out a ticket: they were about the same size as the people, and quite seemed to fill the carriage.
"Now then! Show your ticket, child!" the Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice. And a great many voices all said together , "Don't keep him waiting, child! Why, his time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!"
"I'm afraid I haven't got one," Alice said in a frightened tone: "there wasn't a ticket-office where I came from." And again the chorus of voices went on. "There wasn't room for one where she came from. The land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!"
"Don't make excuses," said the Guard: "you should have bought one from the engine-driver." And once more the chorus of voices went on with "The man that drives the engine. Why, the smoke alone is worth a thousand pounds a puff!"
"I shall dream about a thousand pounds tonight, I know I shall!" thought Alice.
All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he said, "You're travelling the wrong way," and shut up the window and went away.
"So young a child," said the gentleman sitting opposite to her , "ought to know which way she's going, even if she doesn't know her own name!"
A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, shut his eyes and said in a loud voice, "She ought to know her way to the ticket-office, even if she doesn't know her alphabet!"
Alice couldn't see who was sitting beyond the Beetle, but a hoarse voice spoke next. "Change engines--" it said, and was obliged to leave off.
"It sounds like a horse," Alice thought to herself. And an extremely small voice, close to her ear, said, "You might make a joke on that--something about 'horse' and 'hoarse,' you know."
Then a very gentle voice in the distance said, "She must be labelled 'Lass, with care,' you know--"
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