(Re)Visions: Alice ((Re)Visions) Read online

  Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, “just like a star-fish,” thought Alice. The poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.

  As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. “If I don’t take this child away with me,” thought Alice, “they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?” She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). “Don’t grunt,” said Alice; “that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.”

  The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very turned-up nose, much more like a snout than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for a baby: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. “But perhaps it was only sobbing,” she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

  No, there were no tears. “If you’re going to turn into a pig, my dear,” said Alice, seriously, “I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!” The poor little thing sobbed again (or grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for some while in silence.

  Alice was just beginning to think to herself, “Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?” when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be NO mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.

  So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. “If it had grown up,” she said to herself, “it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.” And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, “if one only knew the right way to change them—” when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

  The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

  “Cheshire Puss,” she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. “Come, it’s pleased so far,” thought Alice, and she went on. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

  “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

  “I don’t much care where—” said Alice.

  “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

  “—so long as I get somewhere,” Alice added as an explanation.

  “Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

  Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. “What sort of people live about here?”

  “In that direction,” the Cat said, waving its right paw round, “lives a Hatter: and in that direction,” waving the other paw, “lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.”

  “But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

  “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

  “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

  “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”

  Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on “And how do you know that you’re mad?”

  “To begin with,” said the Cat, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”

  “I suppose so,” said Alice.

  “Well, then,” the Cat went on, “you see, a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.”

  “I call it purring, not growling,” said Alice.

  “Call it what you like,” said the Cat. “Do you play croquet with the Queen today?”

  “I should like it very much,” said Alice, “but I haven’t been invited yet.”

  “You’ll see me there,” said the Cat, and vanished.

  Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

  “By-the-bye, what became of the baby?” said the Cat. “I’d nearly forgotten to ask.”

  “It turned into a pig,” Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

  “I thought it would,” said the Cat, and vanished again.

  Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the March Hare was said to live. “I’ve seen hatters before,” she said to herself; “the March Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won’t be raving mad—at least not so mad as it was in March.” As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

  “Did you say pig, or fig?” said the Cat.

  “I said pig,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.”

  “All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

  “Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,” thought Alice; “but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!”

  She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the March Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself “Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!”

  VII.

  A Mad Tea-Party

  There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head. “Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,” thought Alice; “only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.”

  The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: “No room! No room!” they cried out when they saw Alice coming. “There’s plenty of room!” said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.

  “Have some wine,” the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. “I don’t see any wine,” she remarked.

  “There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.

  “Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,” said Alice angrily.

  “It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” said the March Hare.

  “I didn’t know it was your table,” said Alice; “it’s laid for a great many more than three.”

  “Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

  “You should learn not to make personal remarks,” Al
ice said with some severity; “it’s very rude.”

  The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

  “Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles.—I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud.

  “Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.

  “Exactly so,” said Alice.

  “Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.

  “I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.”

  “Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!”

  “You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!”

  “You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!”

  “It IS the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

  The Hatter was the first to break the silence. “What day of the month is it?” he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

  Alice considered a little, and then said “The fourth.”

  “Two days wrong!” sighed the Hatter. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!” he added looking angrily at the March Hare.

  “It was the best butter,” the March Hare meekly replied.

  “Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Hatter grumbled: “you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.”

  The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, “It was the best butter, you know.”

  Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity. “What a funny watch!” she remarked. “It tells the day of the month, and doesn’t tell what o’clock it is!”

  “Why should it?” muttered the Hatter. “Does your watch tell you what year it is?”

  “Of course not,” Alice replied very readily: “but that’s because it stays the same year for such a long time together.”

  “Which is just the case with mine,” said the Hatter.

  Alice felt dreadfully puzzled. The Hatter’s remark seemed to have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English. “I don’t quite understand you,” she said, as politely as she could.

  “The Dormouse is asleep again,” said the Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon its nose.

  The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without opening its eyes, “Of course, of course; just what I was going to remark myself.”

  “Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

  “No, I give it up,” Alice replied: “what’s the answer?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said the Hatter.

  “Nor I,” said the March Hare.

  Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

  “If you knew Time as well as I do,” said the Hatter, “you wouldn’t talk about wasting it. It’s him.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said Alice.

  “Of course you don’t!” the Hatter said, tossing his head contemptuously. “I dare say you never even spoke to Time!”

  “Perhaps not,” Alice cautiously replied: “but I know I have to beat time when I learn music.”

  “Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

  (“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

  “That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”

  “Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.”

  “Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.

  The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

  Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

  How I wonder what you’re at!

  You know the song, perhaps?”

  “I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.

  “It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

  Up above the world you fly,

  Like a tea-tray in the sky.

  Twinkle, twinkle—

  Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

  “Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, “He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!””

  “How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.

  “And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”

  A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.

  “Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”

  “Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.

  “Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”

  “But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.

  “Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know one,” said Alice, rather alarmed at the proposal.

  “Then the Dormouse shall!” they both cried. “Wake up, Dormouse!” And they pinched it on both sides at once.

  The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” he said in a hoarse, feeble voice: “I heard every word you fellows were saying.”

  “Tell us a story!” said the March Hare.

  “Yes, please do!” pleaded Alice.

  “And be quick about it,” added the Hatter, “or you’ll be asleep again before it’s done.”

  “Once upon a time there were three little sisters,” the Dormouse began in a great hurry; “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well—”

  “What did they live on?” said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.

  “They lived on treacle,” said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.

  “They couldn’t have done that, you know,” Alice gently remarked; “they’d have been ill.”

  “So they were,” said the Dormouse; “Very ill.”

  Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went on: “But why did they live at the bottom of a well?”

  “Take some more tea,” the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.

  “I’ve had nothing yet,” Alice replied in an offended tone, “so
I can’t take more.”

  “You mean you can’t take less,” said the Hatter: “it’s very easy to take more than nothing.”

  “Nobody asked your opinion,” said Alice.

  “Who’s making personal remarks now?” the Hatter asked triumphantly.

  Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her question. “Why did they live at the bottom of a well?”