The World's Greatest Books - Volume 2 Part 30

In another moment down went Alice after him, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next.

"Well," thought Alice to herself, "after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling downstairs."

Down, down, down. Would the fall _never_ come to an end? "I wonder if I shall fall right _through_ the earth? How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! The Antipathies, I think" (she was rather glad there was no one listening this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word).

Down, down, down. Then suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment.

She looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long pa.s.sage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it.

There was not a moment to be lost. Away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear him say, as he turned a corner, "Oh, my ears and whiskers, how late it is getting!" She was close behind him when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen. She found herself in a long narrow hall, which was lit up by lamps hanging from the roof.

In the hall she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid gla.s.s. There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first idea was that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, for, at any rate, it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches high. She tried the little golden key in the lock, and, to her great delight, it fitted.

Alice opened the door, and found that it led into a small pa.s.sage, not much larger than a rat-hole. She knelt down and looked along the pa.s.sage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway.

There seemed to be no use in waiting near the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or at any rate, a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes. This time she found a little bottle on it ("which certainly was not here before," said Alice), and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words DRINK ME beautifully printed on it in large letters. Alice tasted it, and very soon finished it off.

"What a curious feeling!" said Alice. "I must be shutting up like a telescope."

And so it was, indeed; she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.... But, alas for poor Alice, when she got to the door she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it she found she could not possibly reach it.

Soon her eye fell on a little gla.s.s box that was lying under the table.

She opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words EAT ME were beautifully marked in currants.

She very soon finished off the cake.

"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-by 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?"

Just at this moment 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, 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 d.u.c.h.ess! the d.u.c.h.ess!

Or, won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!"

Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a timid voice: "If you please, sir----"

The Rabbit started violently, dropped the gloves and the fan, and scurried 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! 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!" But presently on looking down at her hands, she 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 save herself from shrinking away altogether. Now she hastened to the little door, but alas, it was shut again. "I declare it's too bad, that it is!" she said aloud, and just as she spoke her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. It was the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet high!

_II.--The Pool of Tears and the Animals' Party_

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." 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." 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 feeling. "I quite forgot you don't like cats."

"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a shrill, pa.s.sionate voice. "Would _you_ like cats if you were me?" The Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go. 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 pa.s.sion, Alice thought), and it said in a low, trembling voice, "Let us get to the sh.o.r.e, and 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 other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the sh.o.r.e.

A very queer-looking party of dripping birds and animals now gathered on the bank of the Pool of Tears; but they were not so queer as their talk.

First the Mouse, who was quite a person of authority among them, tried to dry them by telling them frightfully dry stories from history. But Alice confessed she was as wet as ever after she had listened to the bits of English history; so the Dodo proposed a Caucus race. They all started off when they liked, and stopped when they liked. The Dodo said everybody had won, and Alice had to give the prizes. Luckily she had some sweets, which were not wet, and there was just one for each of them, but none for herself. The party were anxious she, too, should have a prize, and as she happened to have a thimble, the Dodo commanded her to hand it to him, and then, with great ceremony, the Dodo presented it to her, saying, "We beg your acceptance of this elegant thimble," and they all cheered.

Of course, Alice thought this all very absurd; but they were dry now, and began eating their sweets. Then the Mouse began to tell Alice its history, and to explain why it hated C and D--for it was afraid to say cats and dogs. But she soon offended the Mouse, first by mistaking its "long and sad tale" for a "long tail," and next by thinking it meant "knot" when it said "not," so that it went off in a huff. Then when she mentioned Dinah to the others, and told them that was the name of her cat, the birds got uneasy, and one by one the whole party gradually went off and left her all alone. Just when she was beginning to cry, she heard a pattering of little feet, and half thought it might be the Mouse coming back to finish its story.

It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about as he went, as if he had lost something and she heard him muttering to himself, "The d.u.c.h.ess! The d.u.c.h.ess! Oh, my dear paws!

Oh, my fur and whiskers! She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where _can_ I have dropped them, I wonder?"

Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, and called out to her in an angry tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what _are_ you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan. Quick, now!"

"He took me for his housemaid," she said to herself as she ran. "How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them." As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright bra.s.s plate with the name W. RABBIT engraved upon it. Inside the house she had a strange adventure, for she tried what the result of drinking from a bottle she found in the room would be, and grew so large that the house could hardly hold her. The White Rabbit and some of his friends, including Bill, the Lizard, threw a lot of little pebbles through the window, and these turned into tiny cakes. So Alice ate some and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared but she ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a thick wood.

_III.--The Adventures in the Wood_

Once in the wood, she was anxious to get back to her right size again, and then to get into that lovely garden. But how? Peeping over a mushroom, she beheld a large blue caterpillar sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else. At length, in a sleepy sort of way, it began talking to her, and she told it what she wanted so much--to grow to her right size again.

"I should like to be a _little_ longer," she said. "Three inches is such a wretched height to be."

"It is a very good height indeed," said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).

"But I'm not used to it," pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone. And she thought to herself, "I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily offended."

"You'll get used to it in time," said the Caterpillar; and it put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.

This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away into the gra.s.s, merely remarking as it went, "One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter."