| |
Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 4:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lewis Carroll, Seite 6 ( von 7 )
"Do you see that?" he
said, in a voice choking with passion, and his eyes grew large and yellow all
in a moment, as he pointed with a trembling finger at a small white thing lying
under the tree.
"It's only a rattle," Alice said, after a careful examination of the
little white thing. "Not a rattle-snake, you
know," she added hastily, thinking that he was frightened: "only an
old rattle - quite old and broken."
"I knew it was!" cried Tweedledum, beginning to stamp about wildly
and tear his hair. "It's spoilt, of course!" Here he looked at
Tweedledee, who immediatly sat down on the ground, and tried to hide himself
under the umbrella.
Alice laid her hand upon his arm, and said in a snoothing tone, "You
needn't be so angry about an old rattle."
"But it isn't old!" Tweedledum cried, in a greater fury than ever.
"It's new, I tell you - I bought it yesterday - my nice new RATTLE!"
and his voice rose to a perfect scream.
All this time Tweedledee was trying his best to fold up the umbrella, with
himself in it: which was such an extraordinary thing to do, that it quite took
off Alice's attention from the angry brother. But he couldn't quite succeed,
and it ended in his rolling over, bundled up in the umbrella, with only his
head out: and there he lay, opening and shutting his mouth and his large eyes -
"looking more like a fish than anything else," Alice thought.
"Of course you agree to have a battle?" Tweedledum said in a calmer
tone.
"I suppose so," the other sulkily replied, as he crawled out of the
umbrella: "only she must help us to
dress up, you know."
So the two brothers went off hand-in-hand into the wood, and returned in a
minute with their arms full of things - such as bolsters, blankets,
hearth-rugs, table-cloths, dish-covers, and coal-scuttles. "I hope you're
a good hand at pinning and tying strings?" Tweedledum remarked.
"Every one of those things has got to go on, somehow or other."
Alice said afterwards she had never seen such a fuss made about anything in all
her life - the way those two bustled about - and the quantity of things they
put on - and the trouble they gave her in tying strings and fastening buttons -
"Really they'll be more like bundles of old clothes than anything else, by
the time they're ready!" she said to herself, as she arranged a bolster
round the neck of Tweedledee, "to keep his head from being cut off,"
as he said.
"You know," he added very gravely," it's one of the most serious
things that can possibly happen to one in a battle - to get one's head cut
off."
Alice laughed loud: but she managed to turn it into a cough, for fear of
hurting his feelings.
"Do I look very pale?" said Tweedledum, coming up to have his helmet
tied on. (He called it a helmet,
though it certainly looked much more like a saucepan.)
"Well - yes - a little," Alice
replied gently.
"I'm very brave generally," he went on in a low voice: "only
to-day I happen to have a headache."
"And I've
got a toothache!" said Tweedledee, who had overheard the remark. "I'm
far worse than you!"
"Then you'd better not fight to-day," said Alice, thinking it a good
opportunity to make peace.
"We must
have a bit of a fight, but I don't care about going on long," said
Tweedledum. "What's the time now?"
Tweedledee looked at his watch, and said "Half-past four."
|
|
