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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 2:
The garden of live flowers, Lewis Carroll, Seite 2 ( von 5 )
"Didn't you know
that?"
cried another Daisy, and here they all began shouting together, till the air
seemed quite full of little shrill voices. "Silence, every one of
you!" cried the Tiger-lily, waving itself passionately from side to side,
and trembling with excitement. "They know I can't get at them!" it
panted, bending its quivering head towards Alice, "or they wouldn't dare
to do it!"
"Never mind!" Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the
daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, "If you don't hold
your tongues, I'll pick you!"
There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned white.
"That's right!" said the Tiger-lily. "The daisies are worst of
all. When one speaks, they all begin together, and it's enough to make one
wither to hear the way they go on!"
"How is it you can all talk so nicely?" Alice said, hoping to get it
into a better temper by a compliment. "I've been in many gardens before,
but none of the flowers could talk."
"Put your hand down, and feel the ground," said the Tiger-lily.
"Then you'll know why."
Alice did so. "It's very hard," she said, "but I don't see what
that has to do with it."
"In most gardens," the Tiger-lily said, "they make the beds too
soft - so that the flowers are always asleep."
This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know it.
"I never thought of that before!" she said.
"It's my
opinion that you never think
at all,"
the Rose said in a rather severe tone.
"I never saw anybody that looked stupider," a Violet said, so
suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn't spoken before.
"Hold your
tongue!" cried the Tiger-lily. "As if
you ever saw
anybody! You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there, till you
know no more what's going on in the world, than if you were a bud!"
"Are there any more people in the garden besides me?" Alice said, not
choosing to notice the Rose's last remark.
"There's one other flower in the garden that can move about like
you," said the Rose. "I wonder how you do it -" ("You're
always wondering," said the Tiger-lily), "but she's more bushy than
you are."
"Is she like me?" Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her
mind, "There's another little girl in the garden, somewhere!"
"Well, she has the same awkward shape as you," the Rose said,
"but she's redder - and her petals are shorter, I think."
"Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia," the Tiger-lily
interrupted: "not tumbled about anyhow, like yours."
"But that's not your fault,"
the Rose added kindly: "you're beginning to fade, you know - and then one
can't help one's petals getting a little untidy."
Alice didn't like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she asked
"Does she ever come out here?"
"I daresay you'll see her soon," said the Rose. "She's one of
the thorny kind."
"Where does she wear the thorns?" Alice asked with some curiosity.
"Why, all round her head, of course," the Rose replied. "I was
wondering you
hadn't got some too. I thought it was the regular rule."
"She's coming!" cried the Larkspur. "I hear her footstep, thump,
thump, along the gravel-walk!"
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