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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 2:
The garden of live flowers, Lewis Carroll, Seite 5 ( von 5 )
"While you're refreshing yourself," said the Queen, "I'll just
take the measurements." And she took a ribbon out of her pocket, marked in
inches, and began measuring the ground, and sticking little pegs in here and
there.
"At the end of two yards," she said, putting in a peg to mark the
distance, "I shall give you your directions - have another biscuit?"
"No, thank you," said Alice: "one's
quite
enough!"
"Thirst quenched, I hope?" said the Queen.
Alice did not know what to say to this, but luckily the Queen did not wait for
an answer, but went on. "At the end of
three yards I
shall repeat them - for fear of your forgetting them. At the end of
four, I shall
say good-bye. And at the end of
five, I shall
go!"
She had got all the pegs put in by this time, and Alice looked on with great
interest as she returned to the tree, and then began slowly walking down the
row.
At the two-yard peg she faced round, and said, "A pawn goes two squares in
its first move, you know. So you'll go
very quickly
through the Third Square - by railway, I should think - and you'll find
yourself in the Fourth Square in no time. Well,
that square
belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee - the Fifth is mostly water - the Sixth
belongs to Humpty Dumpty - But you make no remark?"
"I - I didn't know I had to make one - just then," Alice faltered
out.
"You should
have said," the Queen went on in a tone of grave reproof, "'It's
extremely kind of you to tell me all this' - however, we'll suppose it said -
the Seventh Square is all forest - however, one of the Knights will show you
the way - and in the Eighth Square we shall be Queens together, and it's all
feasting and fun!" Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again.
At the next peg the Queen turned again, and this time she said, "Speak in
French when you can't think of the English for a thing - turn out your toes as
you walk - and remember who you are!" She did not wait for Alice to
curtsey this time, but walked on quickly to the next peg, where she turned for
a moment to say "good-bye," and then hurried on to the last.
How it happened, Alice never knew, but exactly as she came to the last peg, she
was gone. Whether she vanished into the air, or whether she ran quickly into
the wood ("and she
can run very
fast!" thought Alice), there was no way of guessing, but she was gone, and
Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and that it would soon be time for
her to move.
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