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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 9:
Queen Alice, Lewis Carroll, Seite 6 ( von 8 )
Alice glanced nervously along the table, as she walked up the large hall, and
noticed that there were about fifty guests, of all kinds: some were animals,
some birds, and there were even a few flowers among them. "I'm glad
they've come without waiting to be asked," she thought: "I should
never have known who were the right people to invite!"
There were three chairs at the head of the table; the Red and White Queens had
already taken two of them, but the middle one was empty. Alice sat down in it,
rather uncomfortable at the silence, and longing for some one to speak.
At last the Red Queen began. "You've missed the soup and fish," she
said. "Put on the joint!" And the waiters set a leg of mutton before
Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never had to carve a joint
before.
"You look a little shy; let me introduce you to that leg of mutton,"
said the Red Queen. "Alice - Mutton; Mutton - Alice." The leg of
mutton got up in the dish and made a little bow to Alice; and Alice returned
the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened or amused.
"May I give you a slice?" she said, taking up the knife and fork, and
looking from one Queen to the other.
"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly: "it isn't
etiquette to cut any one you've been introduced to. Remove the joint!" And
the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place.
"I won't be introduced to the pudding, please," Alice said rather
hastily, "or we shall get no dinner at all. May I give you some?"
But the Red Queen looked sulky, and growled "Pudding - Alice; Alice -
Pudding. Remove the pudding!" and the waiters took it away so quickly that
Alice couldn't return its bow.
However, she didn't see why the Red Queen should be the only one to give
orders, so, as an experiment, she called out "Waiter! Bring back the
pudding!" and there it was again in a moment, like a conjuring-trick. It
was so large that she couldn't help feeling a
little shy with
it, as she had been with the mutton; however, she conquered her shyness by a
great effort, and cut a slice and handed it to the Red Queen.
"What impertinence!" said the Pudding. "I wonder how you'd like
it, if I were to cut a slice out of
you, you
creature!"
It spoke in a thick, suety sort of voice, and Alice hadn't a word to say in
reply: she could only sit and look at it and gasp.
"Make a remark," said the Red Queen: "it's ridiculous to leave
all the conversation to the pudding!"
"Do you know, I've had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me
to-day," Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment she
opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed upon her;
"and it's a very curious thing, I think - every poem was about fishes in
some way. Do you know why they're so fond of fishes, all about here?"
She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a littel wide of the mark.
"As to fishes," she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth
close to Alice's ear, "her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle - all in
poetry - all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?"
"Her Red Majesty's very kind to mention it," the White Queen murmured
into Alice's other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. "It would
be such a treat!
May I?"
"Please do," Alice said very politely.
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