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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 7:
A mad tea-party, Lewis Carroll, Seite 4 ( von 5 )
"Take some more tea," the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.
"I've had nothing yet," Alice replied in an offended tone, "so I
can't take more."
"You mean you can't take
less," said
the Hatter: "it's very easy to take
more than
nothing."
"Nobody aked your opinion,"
said Alice.
"Who's making personal remarks now?" the Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to this: so she helped herself to some tea
and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the Dormouse, and repeated her
question. "Why did they live at the bottom of a well?"
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and then said,
"It was a treacle-well."
"There's no such thing!" Alice was beginning very angrily, but the
Hatter and the March Hare went "Sh! sh!" and the Dormouse sulkily
remarked, "If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the story for
yourself."
"No, please go on!" Alice said very humbly; "I won't interrupt
you again. I dare say there may be
one."
"One, indeed!" said the Dormouse indignantly. However, he consented
to go on. "And so these three little sisters - they were learning to draw,
you know -"
"What did they draw?" said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.
"Treacle," said the Dormouse, without considering at all this time.
"I want a clean cup," interrupted the Hatter "let's all move one
place on."
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him: the March Hare moved
into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather unwillingly took the place of the
March Hare. The Hatter was the only one who got any advantage from the change:
and Alice was a good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just
upset the milk-jug into his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began very cautiously:
"But I don't understand. Where did they draw the treacle from?"
"You can draw water out of a water-well," said the Hatter; "so I
should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well - eh, stupid?"
"But they were in the well,"
Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.
"Of course they were," said the Dormouse, - "well in."
This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse go on for some
time without interrupting it.
"They were learning to draw," the Dormouse went on, yawning and
rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; "and they drew all
manner of things - everything that begins with an M -"
"Why with an M?" said Alice.
"Why not?" said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze;
but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and
went on: "- that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and
memory, and muchness - you know you say things are 'much of a muchness' - did
you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?"
"Really, now you ask me," said Alice, very much confused, "I
don't think -"
"Then you shouldn't talk," said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in a great
disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the
others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or
twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them,
they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
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