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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 4:
The rabbit sends in a little bill, Lewis Carroll, Seite 1 ( von 4 )
It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously
about as it went, as if it had lost something; and she heard it muttering to
itself "The Duchess! The Duchess! Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers!
She'll get me executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where
can I have
dropped them, I wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for
the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she very good-naturedly began
hunting about for them, but they were nowhere to be seen - everything seemed to
have changed since her swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass
table and the little door, had vanished completely.
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out
to her in an angry tone, "Why, Mary Ann, what
are you doing
out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick,
now!" And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the
direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake that it had
made.
"He took me for his housemaid," she said to herself as she ran.
"How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am! But I'd better take
him his fan and gloves - that is, if I can find them." As she said this,
she came upon a neat little house, on the door of which was a bright brass
plate with the name "W. RABBIT" engraved upon it. She went in without
knocking, and hurried upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real
Marry Ann, and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and
gloves.
"How queer it seems," Alice said to herself, "to be going
messages for a rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on messages next!"
And she began fancying the sort of thing that would happen: "'Miss Alice!
Come here directly, and get ready for your walk!' 'Coming in a minute, nurse!
But I've got to watch this mouse-hole till Dinah comes back, and see that the
mouse doesn't get out.' Only I don't think," Alice went on, "that
they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering people about like
that!"
By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with a table in the
window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two or three pairs of tiny white
kid gloves: she took up the fan and a pair of the gloves, and was just going to
leave the room, when her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the
looking-glass. There was no label this time with the words "DRINK
ME," but nevertheless she uncorked it an put it to her lips. "I know
something
interesting is sure to happen," she said to herself, "whenever I eat
or drink anything; so I'll just see what this bottle does. I do hope it'll make
me grow large again, for really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little
thing!"
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected: before she had drunk
half the bottle, she found her head pressing against the ceiling, and had to
stoop to save her neck from being broken. She hastily put down the bottle,
saying to herself "That's quite enough - I hope I shan't grow any more -
As it is, I can't get out at the door - I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so
much!"
Alas! it was too late to wish that! She went on growing, and growing, and very
soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room
for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the
door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and,
as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the
chimney, and said to herself "Now I can do no more, whatever happens. What
will become of
me?"
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