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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 9:
Queen Alice, Lewis Carroll, Seite 2 ( von 8 )
"We gave you the opportunity of doing it," the Red Queen remarked:
"but I daresay you've not had many lessons in manners yet?"
"Manners are not taught in lessons," said Alice. "Lessons teach
you to do sums, and things of that sort."
"Can you do Addition?" the White Queen asked. "What's one and
one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?"
"I don't know," said Alice. "I lost count."
"She can't do Addition," the Red Queen interrupted. "Can you do
Substraction? Take nine from eight."
"Nine from eight I can't, you know," Alice replied very readily:
"but -"
"She can't do Substraction," said the White Queen. "Can you do
Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what's the answer to that?"
"I suppose -" Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen answered for
her. "Bread-and-butter, of course. Try another Substraction sum. Take a
bone from a dog: what remains?"
Alice considered. "The bone wouldn't remain, of course, if I took it - and
the dog wouldn't remain; it would come to bite me - and I'm sure
I shouldn't
remain!"
"Then you think nothing would remain?" said the Red Queen.
"I think that's the answer."
"Wrong, as usual," said the Red Queen: "the dog's temper would
remain."
"But I don't see how -"
"Why, look here!" the Red Queen cried. "The dog would lose its
temper, wouldn't it?"
"Perhaps it would," Alice replied cautiously.
"Then if the dog went away, its temper would remain!" the Queen
exclaimed triumphantly.
Alice said, as gravely as she could, "They might go different ways."
But she couldn't help thinking to herself, "What dreadful nonsense we
are
talking!"
"She can't so sums a
bit!" the
Queens said together, with great emphasis.
"Can you do
sums?" Alice said, turning suddenly on the White Queen, for she didn't
like being found fault with so much.
The Queen gasped and shut her eyes. "I can do Addition," she said,
"if you give me time - but I can't do Substraction under
any
circumstances!"
"Of course you know your ABC?" said the Red Queen.
"To be sure I do," said Alice.
"So do I," the White Queen whispered: "we'll often say it over
together, dear. And I'll tell you a secret - I can read words of one letter!
Isn't that
grand? However, don't be discouraged. You'll come to it in time."
Here the Red Queen began again. "Can you answer useful questions?"
she said. "How is bread made?"
"I know that!" Alice
cried eagerly. "You take some flour -"
"Where do you pick the flower?" the White Queen asked. "In a
garden, or in the hedges?"
"Well, it isn't picked at
all," Alice explained: "it's
ground -"
"How many acres of ground?" said the White Queen. "You mustn't
leave out so many things."
"Fan her head!" the Red Queen anxiously interrupted. "She'll be
feverish after so much thinking." So they set to work and fanned her with
bunches of leaves, till she had to beg them to leave off, it blew her hair
about so.
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