Kitabı oku: «Алиса в Стране чудес / Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Алиса в Зазеркалье / Through the Looking-glass, and What Alice Found There», sayfa 5
“I wish I hadn’t spoken about59 Dinah! “She said to herself sadly. “It seems nobody likes her here, and I’m sure she’s the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Dinah! I wonder if I shall ever see you again!” And here poor Alice began to cry again because she felt very lonely and low-spirited. However a little later she again heard footsteps in the distance. She looked up hoping that the Mouse had changed its mind60 and was coming back to finish its story.
Chapter 4. The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill
It was the White Rabbit coming slowly back and looking aroundas if it had lost something.61 Alice heard it saying to itself: “The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers! I’ll be executed,62 I’m sure! Where COULD I drop them, I wonder?” Alice understood that it was looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she began looking for them too, but they were nowhere to be seen.63
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice and asked her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what ARE you doing here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so frightened that she ran immediatelyin the direction it pointed to.64
“He took me for65 his housemaid,” she said to herself as she ran. “How surprised he’ll be when he finds out who I am! But I’d better66 bring him his fan and gloves – of course, if I can find them.” As she said this, she came to a neat little house, on the door of which67 was a bright brass plate with the name “W. RABBIT” engraved upon it. She went in without knocking,68 and hurried upstairs.
Soon she was in a tidy little room with a table in the window and on it were a fan and two or three pairs of tiny gloves. Alice took the fan and one pair andwas going to leave the room69 when she saw a little bottle. This time there was no label on it with the words “DRINK ME” but she still put it to her lips. “I know SOMETHING interesting will happen,” she said to herself “I hope I’ll grow large again, because I’m quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!”
It happened so quickly that in the next momenther head was pressing against70 the ceiling. “Now I can’t get out of the door – Why did I drink so much?”
Alas! It was too late! She continued growing, and growing, and very soonhad to kneel down71 on the floor. Still she went on growing,72 and at last she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself “What WILL become of me?”
Fortunately Alice stopped growing but she felt very unhappy. “It was much pleasanter at home,” thought poor Alice, “when nobody grew larger and smaller. When I read fairy-tales, I thought that such things never happened, andnow here I am in one of them!73”
“Mary Ann! Mary Ann!” she heard the voice outside. “Fetch me my gloves this moment!” Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her.
When the Rabbit came up to the door, it tried to open it but couldn’t because Alice’s elbow was pressed against it.Alice heard it say74 to itself “Then I’ll go round and get in at the window.”
But when the Rabbit was just under the window she spread out her hand and immediately heard a little shriek and a fall and a crash of broken glass. Then the Rabbit’s angry voice cried: “Bill! Bill! Where are you? Come and help me! And take that thing away from the window!”
There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear whispersnow and then75 and at last she spread out her hand again. This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more sounds of broken glass. “I wonder what they’ll do next!” thought Alice.
“We must burn the house down!” said the Rabbit’s voice; and Alice called out as loud as she could, “If you do. I’ll set Dinah at you!”
There was a dead silence instantly. After a minute or two, they began moving about again and the next moment a lot of little pebbles came in through the window, and some of them hit her in the face. “I’ll put a stop to this,” she said to herself. But suddenly she noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes and a bright idea came into her head. “If I eat one of these cakes,” she thought, “it’ll surely make SOME change in my size; and as it can’t possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I suppose.”
