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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 6:
Pig and pepper, Lewis Carroll, Seite 4 ( von 5 )
Alice was just beginning to think to herself, "Now, what am I to do with
this creature when I get it home?" when it grunted again, so violently,
that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be
no mistake about
it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be
quite absurd for her to carry it any further.
So she sat the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot
away quietly into the wood. "If it had grown up," she said to
herself, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes rather
a handsome pig, I think." And she began thinking over other children she
knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, "if
one only knew the right way to change them -" when she was a little
startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards
off.
The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought:
still it had very long claws and
a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.
"Cheshire Puss," she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all
know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider.
"Come, it's pleased so far," thought Alice, and she went on.
"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where -" said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"- so long as I get
somewhere,"
Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk
long enough."
Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question.
"What sort of people live about here?"
"In that
direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a
Hatter: and in that
direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either
you like: they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here.
I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come
here."
Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on: "And how
do you know that you're mad?"
"To begin with," said the Cat, "a dog's not mad. You grant
that?"
"I suppose so," said Alice.
"Well, then," the Cat went on, "you see a dog growls when it's
angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now
I growl when I'm
pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad."
"I call it
purring, not growling," said Alice.
"Call it what you like," said the Cat. "Do you play croquet with
the Queen to-day?"
"I should like it very much," said Alice, "but I haven't been
invited yet."
"You'll see me there," said the Cat, and vanished.
Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so well used to queer
things happening. While she was still looking at the place where it had been,
it suddenly appeared again.
"By-the-bye, what became of the baby?" said the Cat. "I'd nearly
forgotten to ask."
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