| CHAPTER II . The Pool of Tears 'Curiouser and curiouser ! ' cried Alice ( she was so much surprised , that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English ) ; 'now I 'm opening out like the largest telescope that ever was ! Good-bye , feet ! ' ( for when she looked down at her feet , they seemed to be almost out of sight , they were getting so far off ) . 'Oh , my poor little feet , I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now , dears ? I 'm sure _I_ sha n't be able ! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you : you must manage the best way you can ; --but I must be kind to them , ' thought Alice , 'or perhaps they wo n't walk the way I want to go ! Let me see : I 'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas . ' And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it . 'They must go by the carrier , ' she thought ; 'and how funny it 'll seem , sending presents to one 's own feet ! And how odd the directions will look ! ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT , ESQ . HEARTHRUG , NEAR THE FENDER , ( WITH ALICE'S LOVE ) . Oh dear , what nonsense I 'm talking ! ' Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall : in fact she was now more than nine feet high , and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door . Poor Alice ! It was as much as she could do , lying down on one side , to look through into the garden with one eye ; but to get through was more hopeless than ever : she sat down and began to cry again . 'You ought to be ashamed of yourself , ' said Alice , 'a great girl like you , ' ( she might well say this ) , 'to go on crying in this way ! Stop this moment , I tell you ! ' But she went on all the same , shedding gallons of tears , until there was a large pool all round her , about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall . After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance , and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming . It was the White Rabbit returning , splendidly dressed , with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other : he came trotting along in a great hurry , muttering to himself as he came , 'Oh ! the Duchess , the Duchess ! Oh ! wo n't she be savage if I 've kept her waiting ! ' Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of any one ; so , when the Rabbit came near her , she began , in a low , timid voice , 'If you please , sir-- ' The Rabbit started violently , dropped the white kid gloves and the fan , and skurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go . Alice took up the fan and gloves , and , as the hall was very hot , she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking : 'Dear , dear ! How queer everything is to-day ! And yesterday things went on just as usual . I wonder if I 've been changed in the night ? Let me think : was I the same when I got up this morning ? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different . But if I 'm not the same , the next question is , Who in the world am I ? Ah , THAT'S the great puzzle ! ' And she began thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself , to see if she could have been changed for any of them . 'I 'm sure I 'm not Ada , ' she said , 'for her hair goes in such long ringlets , and mine does n't go in ringlets at all ; and I 'm sure I ca n't be Mabel , for I know all sorts of things , and she , oh ! she knows such a very little ! Besides , SHE'S she , and I 'm I , and--oh dear , how puzzling it all is ! I 'll try if I know all the things I used to know . Let me see : four times five is twelve , and four times six is thirteen , and four times seven is--oh dear ! I shall never get to twenty at that rate ! However , the Multiplication Table does n't signify : let 's try Geography . London is the capital of Paris , and Paris is the capital of Rome , and Rome--no , THAT'S all wrong , I 'm certain ! I must have been changed for Mabel ! I 'll try and say " How doth the little-- " ' and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons , and began to repeat it , but her voice sounded hoarse and strange , and the words did not come the same as they used to do : -- 'How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail , And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale ! 'How cheerfully he seems to grin , How neatly spread his claws , And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws ! ' 'I 'm sure those are not the right words , ' said poor Alice , and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on , 'I must be Mabel after all , and I shall have to go and live in that poky little house , and have next to no toys to play with , and oh ! ever so many lessons to learn ! No , I 've made up my mind about it ; if I 'm Mabel , I 'll stay down here ! It 'll be no use their putting their heads down and saying " Come up again , dear ! " I shall only look up and say " Who am I then ? Tell me that first , and then , if I like being that person , I 'll come up : if not , I 'll stay down here till I 'm somebody else"--but , oh dear ! ' cried Alice , with a sudden burst of tears , 'I do wish they WOULD put their heads down ! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here ! ' As she said this she looked down at her hands , and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit 's little white kid gloves while she was talking . 'How CAN I have done that ? ' she thought . 'I must be growing small again . ' She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it , and found that , as nearly as she could guess , she was now about two feet high , and was going on shrinking rapidly : she soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding , and she dropped it hastily , just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether . 'That WAS a narrow escape ! ' said Alice , a good deal frightened at the sudden change , but very glad to find herself still in existence ; 'and now for the garden ! ' and she ran with all speed back to the little door : but , alas ! the little door was shut again , and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before , 'and things are worse than ever , ' thought the poor child , 'for I never was so small as this before , never ! And I declare it 's too bad , that it is ! ' As she said these words her foot slipped , and in another moment , splash ! she was up to her chin in salt water . Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea , 'and in that case I can go back by railway , ' she said to herself . ( Alice had been to the seaside once in her life , and had come to the general conclusion , that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea , some children digging in the sand with wooden spades , then a row of lodging houses , and behind them a railway station . ) However , she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high . 'I wish I had n't cried so much ! ' said Alice , as she swam about , trying to find her way out . 'I shall be punished for it now , I suppose , by being drowned in my own tears ! That WILL be a queer thing , to be sure ! However , everything is queer to-day . ' Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off , and she swam nearer to make out what it was : at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus , but then she remembered how small she was now , and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself . 'Would it be of any use , now , ' thought Alice , 'to speak to this mouse ? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here , that I should think very likely it can talk : at any rate , there 's no harm in trying . ' So she began : 'O Mouse , do you know the way out of this pool ? I am very tired of swimming about here , O Mouse ! ' ( Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse : she had never done such a thing before , but she remembered having seen in her brother 's Latin Grammar , 'A mouse--of a mouse--to a mouse--a mouse--O mouse ! ' ) The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively , and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes , but it said nothing . 'Perhaps it does n't understand English , ' thought Alice ; 'I daresay it 's a French mouse , come over with William the Conqueror . ' ( For , with all her knowledge of history , Alice had no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened . ) So she began again : 'Ou est ma chatte ? ' which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book . The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water , and seemed to quiver all over with fright . 'Oh , I beg your pardon ! ' cried Alice hastily , afraid that she had hurt the poor animal 's feelings . 'I quite forgot you did n't like cats . ' 'Not like cats ! ' cried the Mouse , in a shrill , passionate voice . 'Would YOU like cats if you were me ? ' 'Well , perhaps not , ' said Alice in a soothing tone : 'do n't be angry about it . And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah : I think you 'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her . She is such a dear quiet thing , ' Alice went on , half to herself , as she swam lazily about in the pool , 'and she sits purring so nicely by the fire , licking her paws and washing her face--and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she 's such a capital one for catching mice--oh , I beg your pardon ! ' cried Alice again , for this time the Mouse was bristling all over , and she felt certain it must be really offended . 'We wo n't talk about her any more if you 'd rather not . ' 'We indeed ! ' cried the Mouse , who was trembling down to the end of his tail . 'As if I would talk on such a subject ! Our family always HATED cats : nasty , low , vulgar things ! Do n't let me hear the name again ! ' 'I wo n't indeed ! ' said Alice , in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation . 'Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs ? ' The Mouse did not answer , so Alice went on eagerly : 'There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you ! A little bright-eyed terrier , you know , with oh , such long curly brown hair ! And it 'll fetch things when you throw them , and it 'll sit up and beg for its dinner , and all sorts of things--I ca n't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer , you know , and he says it 's so useful , it 's worth a hundred pounds ! He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear ! ' cried Alice in a sorrowful tone , 'I 'm afraid I 've offended it again ! ' For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go , and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went . So she called softly after it , 'Mouse dear ! Do come back again , and we wo n't talk about cats or dogs either , if you do n't like them ! ' When the Mouse heard this , it turned round and swam slowly back to her : its face was quite pale ( with passion , Alice thought ) , and it said in a low trembling voice , 'Let us get to the shore , and then I 'll tell you my history , and you 'll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs . ' It was high time to go , for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it : there were a Duck and a Dodo , a Lory and an Eaglet , and several other curious creatures . Alice led the way , and the whole party swam to the shore . |