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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 4:
The rabbit sends in a little bill, Lewis Carroll, Seite 4 ( von 4 )
It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged;
the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about
it; and while she was peering about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp
bark just over her head made her look up in a great hurry.
An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round eyes, and feebly
stretching out one paw, trying to touch her. "Poor little thing!"
said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried hard to whistle to it; but she was
terribly frightened all the time at the thought that it might be hungry, in
which case it would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.
Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of stick, and held it
out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped into the air off all its feet at
once, with a yelp of delight, and rushed at the stick, and made believe to
worry it; then Alice dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being
run over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy made another
rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in its hurry to get hold of it:
then Alice, thinking it was very like having a game of play with a cart-horse,
and expecting every moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the stick, running a
very little way forwards each time and a long way back, and barking hoarsely
all the while, till at last it sat down a good way off, panting, with its
tongue hanging out of its mouth, and its great eyes half shut.
This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape, so she set off
at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out of breath, and till the
puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the distance.
"And yet what a dear little puppy it was!" said Alice, as she leant
against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself with one of the leaves:
"I should have liked teaching it tricks very much, if - if I'd only been
the right size to do it! Oh dear! I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up
again! Let me see - how
is it to be
managed? I suppose I ought to eat or drink something or other; but the great
question is, what?"
The great question certainly was, what? Alice looked all round her at the
flowers and the blades of grass, but she could not see anything that looked
like the right thing to eat or drink under the circumstances. There was a large
mushroom growing near her, about the same height as herself; and when she had
looked under it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her
that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.
She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom,
and her eyes immediatly met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting
on the top with its arms folded quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not
the smallest notice of her or of anything else.
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