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Lewis Carrol "Alice's
Adventure in Wonderland"
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 at this moment her head struck against the roof of the
hall: in fact she was now rather 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 around 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 scurried 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
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 doesn'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
doesn'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 spreads his claws,
And welcomes 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
save herself from 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 hadn'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 doesn'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: `Où 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 didn'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: `don'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 won't talk about her any more if you'd rather
not.'
`We, indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the
end of its tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject! Our
family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don'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
don'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 was 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.
