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Файл:Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
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ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
“You are sad,” the Knight said in an anxious tone: “let me
sing you a song to comfort you.”
“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal
of poetry that day.
“It’s long,” said the Knight, “but very, very beautiful. Everybody that hears me sing it – either it brings the tears into
their eyes, or else – ”
“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is
called ‘Haddocks’ Eyes.’’
“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to
feel interested.
“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the name is called. The name really is ‘The Aged Aged Man.’’
“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the song is called’?”
Alice corrected herself.
“No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The song is
called ‘Ways and Means’: but that’s only what it’s called, you
know!”
“Well, what is the song, then?” said Alice, who was by this
time completely bewildered.
“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really is ‘A-sitting On A Gate’: and the tune’s my own invention.”
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its
neck: then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a
faint smile lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed
the music of his song, he began.
211
LEWIS CARROLL
Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey
Through The Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years afterwards she could
bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only
yesterday – the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the
Knight – the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and
shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled
her – the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her
feet – and the black shadows of the forest behind – all this
she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her
eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair,
and listening, in a half dream, to the melancholy music of
the song.
“But the tune isn’t his own invention,” she said to herself:
“it’s ‘I give thee all, I can no more.’’ She stood and listened very
attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.
212
“I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said,
‘and how is it you live?’
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.
He said ‘I look for butterfl ies
That sleep among the wheat:
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,’ he said,
‘Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread –
A trifl e, if you please.’
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, ‘Come, tell me how you live!’
And thumped him on the head.
His accents mild took up the tale:
He said ‘I go my ways,
And when I fi nd a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rolands’ Macassar Oil –
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.’
But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
213
LEWIS CARROLL
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
‘Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried,
‘And what it is you do!’
He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.
‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom-cabs.
And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink)
‘By which I get my wealth –
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour’s noble health.’
214
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
But chiefl y for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.
And now, if e’er by chance I put
My fi ngers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so,
Of that old man I used to know –
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo –
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.”
As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road
by which they had come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” he
said, “down the hill and over that little brook, and then you’ll
be a Queen – But you’ll stay and see me off fi rst?” he added as
215
LEWIS CARROLL
Alice turned with an eager look in the direction to which he
pointed. “I shan’t be long. You’ll wait and wave your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll encourage me, you see.”
“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice: “and thank you very
much for coming so far – and for the song – I liked it very
much.”
“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully: “but you didn’t cry
so much as I thought you would.”
So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly
away into the forest. “It won’t take long to see him off, I expect,” Alice said to herself, as she stood watching him. “There
he goes! Right on his head as usual! However, he gets on again
pretty easily – that comes of having so many things hung
round the horse – ” So she went on talking to herself, as she
watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and the
Knight tumbling off, fi rst on one side and then on the other.
After the fourth or fi fth tumble he reached the turn, and
then she waved her handkerchief to him, and waited till he
was out of sight.
“I hope it encouraged him,” she said, as she turned to run
down the hill: “and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen!
How grand it sounds!” A very few steps brought her to the
edge of the brook. “The Eighth Square at last!” she cried as she
bounded across, and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as
soft as moss, with little fl ower-beds dotted about it here and
there. “Oh, how glad I am to get here! And what is this on
my head?” she exclaimed in a tone of dismay, as she put her
216
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
hands up to something very heavy, and fi tted tight all round
her head.
“But how can it have got there without my knowing it?”
she said to herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to
make out what it could possibly be.
It was a golden crown.
CHAPTER IX
QUEEN ALICE
“Well, this is grand!” said A lice. “I never expected
I should be a Queen so soon – and I’ll tell you what it is,
your majesty,” she went on in a severe tone (she was always
rather fond of scolding herself), “it’ll never do for you to be
lolling about on the grass like that! Queens have to be dignifi ed, you know!”
So she got up and walked about – rather stiffl y just at fi rst,
as she was afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with the thought that there was nobody to see
her, “and if I really am a Queen,” she said as she sat down
again, “I shall be able to manage it quite well in time.”
Everything was happening so oddly that she didn’t feel a
bit surprised at fi nding the Red Queen and the White Queen
sitting close to her, one on each side: she would have liked
very much to ask them how they came there, but she feared it
would not be quite civil. However, there would be no harm,
she thought, in asking if the game was over. “Please, would
you tell me – ” she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen.
“Speak when you’re spoken to!” The Queen sharply interrupted her.
218
ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was
always ready for a little argument, “and if you only spoke
when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited
for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so
that – ”
“Ridiculous!” cried the Queen. “Why, don’t you see,
child – ” here she broke off with a frown, and, after thinking
for a minute, suddenly changed the subject of the conversation. “What do you mean by ‘If you really are a Queen’? What
right have you to call yourself so? You can’t be a Queen, you
know, till you’ve passed the proper examination. And the
sooner we begin it, the better.”
“I only said ‘if’!” poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone.
The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen
remarked, with a little shudder, “She says she only said ‘if’ – ”
“But she said a great deal more than that!” the White
Queen moaned, wringing her hands. “Oh, ever so much more
than that!”
“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen said to Alice. “Always speak the truth – think before you speak – and write it
down afterwards.”
“I’m sure I didn’t mean – ” Alice was beginning, but the
Red Queen interrupted her impatiently.
“That’s just what I complain of! You should have meant!
What do you suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning – and a child’s
more important than a joke, I hope. You couldn’t deny that,
even if you tried with both hands.”
“I don’t deny things with my hands,” Alice objected.
219
LEWIS CARROLL
“Nobody said you did,” said the Red Queen. “I said you
couldn’t if you tried.”
“She’s in that state of mind,” said the White Queen, “that
she wants to deny something – only she doesn’t know what
to deny!”
“A nasty, vicious temper,” the Red Queen remarked; and
then there was an uncomfortable silence for a minute or two.
The Red Queen broke the silence by saying to the White
Queen, “I invite you to Alice’s dinner-party this afternoon.”
The White Queen smiled feebly, and said “And I invite you.”
“I didn’t know I was to have a party at all,” said Alice; “but
if there is to be one, I think I ought to invite the guests.”
“We gave you the opportunity of doing it,” the Red Queen
remarked: “but I daresay you’ve not had many lessons in manners yet?”
“Manners are not taught in lessons,” said Alice. “Lessons
teach you to do sums, and things of that sort.”
“And you do Addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s
one and one and one and one and one and one and one and
one and one and one?”
“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I lost count.”
“She can’t do Addition,” the Red Queen interrupted. “Can
you do Subtraction? Take nine from eight.”
“Nine from eight I can’t, you know,” Alice replied very
readily: “but – ”
“She can’t do Subtraction,” said the White Queen. “Can
you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife – what’s the answer
to that?”
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