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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 8:
"It's my own invention", Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 8 )
"Have you invented a plan for keeping the hair from being blown off?"
Alice enquired.
"Not yet," said the Knight. "But I've got a plan for keeping it
from falling
off."
"I should like to hear it, very much."
"First you take an upright stick," said the Knight. "Then you
make your hair creep up it, like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is
because it hangs down - things never
fall upwards,
you know. It's a plan of my own invention. You may try it if you like."
It didn't sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few minutes she
walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now and than stopping
to help the poor Knight, who certainly was
not a good
rider.
Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and
whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off
behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and
than falling off sideways; and as he generally did this on the side on which
Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk
quite close to
the horse.
"I'm afraid you've not had much practice in riding," she ventured to
say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble.
The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the remark.
"What makes you say that?" he asked, as he scrambled back into the
saddle, keeping hold af Alice's hair with one hand, to save himself from
falling over on the other side.
"Because people don't fall off quite so often, when they've had much
practice."
"I've had plenty of practice," the Knight said very gravely:
"plenty of practice!"
Alice could think of nothing better to say than "Indeed?" but she
said it as heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after
this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice watching
anxiously for the next tumble.
"The great art of riding," the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice,
waving his right arm as he spoke, "is to keep -" Here the sentence
ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his
head exactly in the path where Alice was walking. She was quite frightened this
time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him up, "I hope no bones
are broken?"
"None to speak of," the Knight said, as if he didn't mind breaking
two or three of them. "The great art of riding, as I was saying, is - to
keep your balance properly. Like this, you know -"
He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he
meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the horse's feet.
"Plenty of practice!" he went on repeating, all the time that Alice
was getting him on his feet again. "Plenty of practice!"
"It's too ridiculous!" cried Alice, losing all her patience this
time. "You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!"
"Does that kind go smoothly?" the Knight asked in a tone of great
interest, clasping his arms round the horse's neck as he spoke, just in time to
save himself from tumbling off again.
"Much more smoothly than a live horse," Alice said, with a little
scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it.
"I'll get one," the Knight said thoughtfully to himself. "One or
two - several."
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