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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 1:
Looking-glass house, Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 6 )
Oh, Kitty! how nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass
House! I'm sure it's got, oh! such beautiful things in it! Let's pretend
there's a way of getting through into it, somehow, Kitty. Let's pretend the
glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's
turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through
-" She was up on the chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly
knew how she had got there. And certainly the glass
was beginning to
melt away, just like a bright silvery mist.
In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into
the Looking-glass room. The very first thing she did was to look whether there
was a fire in the fireplace, and she was quite pleased to find that there was a
real one, blazing away as brightly as the one she had left behind. "So I
shall be as warm here as I was in the old room," thought Alice:
"warmer, in fact, because there'll be no one here to scold me away from
the fire. Oh, what fun it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here,
and can't get at me!"
Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen from the old
room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all the rest was as different
as possible. For instance, the pictures on the wall next the fire semmed to be
all alive, and the very clock on the chimney-piece (you know you can only see
the back of it in the Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and
grinned at her.
"They don't keep this room so tidy as the other," Alice thought to
herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth among the
cinders: but in another moment, with a little "Oh!" of surprise, she
was down on her hands and knees watching them. The chessmen were walking about,
two and two!
"Here are the Red King and the Red Queen," Alice said (in a whisper,
for fear of frightening them), "and there are the White King and the White
Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel - and here are two Castles walking arm
in arm - I don't think they can hear me," she went on, as she put her head
closer down, "and I'm nearly sure they can't see me. I feel somehow as if
I were invisible -"
Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made her turn her
head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll over and begin kicking:
she watched it with great curiosity to see what would happen next.
"It is the voice of my child!" the White Queen cried out, as she
rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among the cinders.
"My precious Lily! My imperial kitten!" and she began scrambling
wildly up the side of the fender.
"Imperial fiddlestick!" said the King, rubbing his nose, which had
been hurt by the fall. He had a right to be a
little annoyed
with the Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.
Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily was nearly
screaming herself info a fit, she hastily picked up the Queen and set her on
the table by the side of her noisy little daughter.
The Queen gasped, and sat down: the rapid journey through the air had quite
taken away her breath, and for a minute or two she could do nothing but hug the
little Lily in silence. As soon as she had recovered her breath a little, she
called out to the White King, who was sitting sulkily among the ashes,
"Mind the volcano!"
"What volcano?" said the King, looking up anxiously into the fire, as
if he thought that was the most likely place to find one.
"Blew - me - up," panted the Queen, who was still a little out of
breath. "Mind you come up - the regular way - don't get blown up!"
Alice watched the White King as he slowly struggled up from bar to bar, till at
last she said, "Why, you'll be hours and hours getting to the table, at
that rate.
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