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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 3:
Looking-glass insects, Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 5 )
But the beard seemed to melt away as she touched it, and she found herself
sitting quietly under a tree - while the Gnat (for that was the insect she had
been talking to) was balancing itself on a twig just over her head, and fanning
her with its wings.
It certainly was a very large Gnat:
"about the size of a chicken," Alice thought. Still, she couldn't
feel nervous with it, after they had been talking together so long.
"- then you don't like all insects?" the Gnat went on, as quietly as
if nothing had happened.
"I like them when they can talk," Alice said. "None of them ever
talk, where I
come from."
"What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where
you come
from?" the Gnat inquired.
"I don't rejoice in insects
at all," Alice explained, "because I'm rather afraid of them - at
least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them."
"Of course they answer to their names?" the Gnat remarked carelessly.
"I never knew them do it."
"What's the use of their having names," the Gnat said, "if they
won't answer to them?"
"No use to them," said
Alice; "but it's useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not,
why do things have names at all?"
"I can't say," the Gnat replied. "Further on, in the wood down
there, they've got no names - however, go on with your list of insects: you're
wasting time."
"Well, there's the Horse-fly," Alice began, counting off the names on
her fingers.
"All right," said the Gnat: "half way up that bush, you'll see a
Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It's made entirely of wood, and gets about by
swinging itself from branch to branch."
"What does it live on?" Alice asked, with great curiostity.
"Sap and sawdust," said the Gnat. "Go on with the list."
Alice looked at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, and made up her mind
that it must have been just repainted, it looked so bright and sticky; and then
she went on.
"And there's the Dragon-fly."
"Look on the branch above your head," said the Gnat, "and there
you'll find a Snap-dragon-fly. Its body is made of plum-pudding, its wings of
holly-leaves, and its head is a raisin burning in brandy."
"And what does it live on?" Alice asked, as before.
"Frumenty and mince-pie," the Gnat replied; "and it makes its
nest in a Christmas-box."
"And then there's the Butterfly," Alice went on, after she had taken
a good look at the insect with its head on fire, and had thought to herself,
"I wonder if that's the reason insects are so fond of flying into candles
- because they want to turn into Snap-dragon-flies!"
"Crawling at your feet," said the Gnat (Alice drew her feet back in
some alarm), "you may observe a Bread-and-butter-fly. Its wings are thin
slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of
sugar."
"And what does it live on?"
"Weak tea with cream in it."
A new difficulty came into Alice's head. "Supposing it couldn't find
any?" she suggested.
"Then it would die, of course."
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