Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (21 page)
Read Complete Works of Lewis Carroll Online
Authors: Lewis Carroll
"You’re nothing but a pack of cards!"
At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.
‘Wake up, Alice dear!’
said her sister; ‘Why, what a long sleep you’ve had!’
‘Oh, I’ve had such a curious dream!’
said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, ‘It
was
a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it’s getting late.’
So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.
But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:—
First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes were looking up into hers—she could hear the very tones of her voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back the wandering hair that
would
always get into her eyes—and still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place around her became alive the strange creatures of her little sister’s dream.
The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried by—the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the neighbouring pool—she could hear the rattle of the teacups as the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal, and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate guests to execution—once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the Duchess’s knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it—once more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard’s slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs, filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable Mock Turtle.
So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and all would change to dull reality—the grass would be only rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the reeds—the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-bells, and the Queen’s shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd boy—and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the confused clamour of the busy farm-yard—while the lowing of the cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle’s heavy sobs.
Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make
their
eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.
THE END
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
AND WHAT ALICE FOUND THERE
This 1871 novel is a sequel to
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, which was published six years previously. In
Through the Looking-Glass
, Carroll depicts themes and settings that simulate a mirror image of Wonderland. Other common devices in the novel include frequent changes in size, the imagery of playing cards and chess, and frequent changes in time and spatial directions.
The novel begins with Alice playing with a white kitten and a black kitten—posing the first opposites—who are the offspring of Dinah, Alice's cat in the first novel. When Alice ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror's reflection, she pokes at a wall-hung mirror behind the fireplace and discovers she is able to step through it to an alternative world.
The novel is also notable for containing the two famous poems
Jabberwocky
and
The Walrus and the Carpenter
, which can both be accessed easily via the following contents page.
The first edition
CONTENTS
JABBERWOCKY
CHAPTER 1
"
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 like 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, 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 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 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 morinng.
Now you can't deny it, Kitty, for 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
puinshments!"
she went on, talking more to herself than the kitten.
"What
would
they do at the end of a year?
I should be sent off 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 windowpanes, 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 wriggling 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
?