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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 9:
Queen Alice, Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 8 )
"She's all right again now," said the Red Queen. "Do you know
Languages? What's the French for fiddle-de-dee?"
"Fiddle-de-dee's not English," Alice replied gravely.
"Who ever said it was?" said the Red Queen.
Alice thought she saw a way out of the difficulty this time. "If you'll
tell me what language 'fiddle-de-dee' is, I'll tell you the French for
it!" she exclaimed triumphantly.
But the Red Queen drew herself up rather stiffly, and said "Queens never
make bargains."
"I wish Queens never asked questions," Alice thought to herself.
"Don't let us quarrel," the White Queen said in an anxious tone.
"What is the cause of lightning?"
"The cause of lightning," Alice said very decidedly, for she felt
quite certain about this, "is the thunder - no, no!" she hastily
corrected herself. "I meant the other way."
"It's too late to correct it," said the Red Queen: "when you've
once said a thing, that fixes it, and you must take the consequences."
"Which reminds me -" the White Queen said, looking down and nervously
clasping and unclasping her hands, "we had
such a
thunderstorm last Tuesday - I mean one of the last set of Tuesdays, you
know."
Alice was puzzled. "In
our
country," she remarked, "there's only one day at a time."
The Red Queen said "That's a poor thin way of doing things. Now
here, we mostly
have days and nights two or three at a time, and sometimes in the winter we
take as many as five nights together - for warmth, you know."
"Are five nights warmer than one night, then?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Five times as warm, of course."
"But they should be five times as
cold, by the
same rule -"
"Just so!" cried the Red Queen. "Five times as warm,
and five times
as cold - just as I'm five times as rich as you are,
and five times
as clever!"
Alice sighed and gave it up. "It's exactly like a riddle with no
answer!" she thought.
"Humpty Dumpty saw it too," the White Queen went on in a low voice,
more as if she were talking to herself. "He came to the door with a
corksrcew in his hand -"
"What did he want?" said the Red Queen.
"He said he would come
in," the White Queen went on, "because he was looking for a
hippopotamus. Now, as it happened, there wasn't such a thing in the house, that
morning."
"Is there generally?" Alice asked in an astonished tone.
"Well, only on Thursdays," said the Queen.
"I know what he came for," said Alice: "he wanted to punish the
fish, because -"
Here the White Queen began again. "It was
such a
thunderstorm, you can't think!" ("She
never could, you
know," said the Red Queen.) "And part of the roof came off, and ever
so much thunder got in - and it went rolling round the room in great lumps -
and knocking over the tables and things - till I was so frightened, I couldn't
remember my own name!"
Alice thought to herself, "I never should
try to remember
my name in the middle of an accident! Where would be the use of it?" but
she did not say this aloud, for fear of hurting the poor Queen's feelings.
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