Kabanata Kabanata 1 · Looking-Glass house

. 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 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 little thing!” cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and

giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace.

“Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You _ought_,

Dinah, you know you ought!” she added, looking reproachfully at the old

cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage—and then she

scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted

with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn’t get on

very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten,

and sometimes to herself. Kitty sat very demurely on her knee,

pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then

putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be

glad to help, if it might.

“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, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we’ll

go and see the bonfire to-morrow.” Here Alice wound two or three turns

of the worsted round the kitten’s neck, just to see how it would look:

this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor,

and yards and yards of it got unwound again.

“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’d have 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 morning. Now you can’t deny it, Kitty: 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_ punishments!” she went on,

talking more to herself than the kitten. “What _would_ they do at the

end of a year? I should be sent 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 window-panes, 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—oh, that’s very pretty!” cried Alice, dropping the ball of

worsted to clap her hands. “And I do so _wish_ it was true! I’m sure

the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.

“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 wiggling 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 frightened her old

nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, “Nurse! Do let’s pretend that

I’m a hungry hyaena, and you’re a bone.”

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 the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I do so wish I could

see _that_ bit! I want so much to know whether they’ve a fire in the

winter: you never _can_ tell, you know, unless our fire smokes, and

then smoke comes up in that room too—but that may be only pretence,

just to make it look as if they had a fire. Well then, the books are

something like our books, only the words go the wrong way; I know that,

because I’ve held up one of our books to the glass, and then they hold

up one in the other room.

“How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if

they’d give you milk in 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 drawing-room wide open: and it’s very like 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 of getting through into it, somehow,

Kitty. Let’s pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we

can get through. Why, it’s turning into a sort of mist now, I declare!

It’ll be easy enough to get through—” She was up on the chimney-piece

while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had got there. And

certainly the glass _was_ beginning to melt away, just like a bright

silvery mist.

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, blazing 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 somehow as if I were invisible—”

Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her

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 cried out as she rushed

past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the

cinders. “My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!” and she began

scrambling wildly up the side of the fender.

“Imperial fiddlestick!” said the King, rubbing his nose, which had been

hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a _little_ annoyed with the

Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.

Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily was

nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen

and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little daughter.

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

nothing but 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 see her.

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 found himself held in the air by an invisible

hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but

his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder

and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let

him drop upon the floor.

“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 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 could hardly hear what they

said.

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 I don’t know,” she said to herself.

It was like this.

.YKCOWREBBAJ

sevot yhtils eht dna, gillirb sawT’

ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD

,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA

.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA

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 toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

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 seems to

fill my head with ideas—only I don’t exactly know what they are!

However, _somebody_ killed _something_: that’s clear, at any rate—”

“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 down stairs—or, at least,

it wasn’t exactly running, but a new invention of hers for getting down

stairs 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.