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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 8:
"It's my own invention", Lewis Carroll, Seite 5 ( von 8 )
"Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn't have two
pudding-courses in one dinner?"
"Well, not the next day," the
Knight repeated as before: "not the next
day. In
fact," he went on, holding his head down, and his voice getting lower and
lower, "I don't believe that pudding ever
was cooked! In
fact, I don't believe that pudding ever
will be cooked!
And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent."
"What did you mean it to be made of?" Alice asked, hoping to cheer
him up, for the poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it.
"It began with blotting-paper," the Knight answered with a groan.
"That wouldn't be very nice, I'm afraid -"
"Not very nice alone," he
interrupted, quite eagerly: "but you've no idea what a difference it
makes, mixing it with other things - such as gunpowder and sealing-wax. And
here I must leave you." They had just come to the end of the wood.
Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding.
"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing
you a song to comfort you."
"Is it very long?" Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of
poetry that day.
"It's long" said the Knight, "but it's very,
very beautiful.
Everybody that hears me sing it - either it brings the
tears into their
eyes, or else -"
"Or else what?" said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
"Or else it doesn't, you know. The name of the song is called 'Haddocks'
Eyes.'"
"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?" Alice said, trying to feel
interested.
"No, you don't understand," the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is
called. The name
really is 'The Aged Aged
Man.'"
"Then I ought to have said 'That's what the
song is
called'?" Alice corrected herself.
"No, you oughtn't: that's quite another thing! The
song is called
'Ways And
Means': but that's only what it's
called, you
know!"
"Well, what is the song,
then?" said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.
"I was coming to that," the Knight said. "The song really
is 'A-sitting On A
Gate': and the tune's my own invention."
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then,
slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his
gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of his song, he began.
Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The
Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly. Years
afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only
yesterday - the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight - the setting sun
gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that
quite dazzled her - the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging
loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet - and the black shadows of
the forest behind - all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand
shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and
listening, in a half dream, to the melancholy music of the song.
"But the tune isn't his own
invention," she said to herself: "it's 'I give thee all, I can
no more.'" She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came
into her eyes.
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