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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 4:
Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Lewis Carroll, Seite 1 ( von 7 )
They were standing under a tree, each with an arm round the other's neck, and
Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had 'DUM'
embroidered on his collar, and the other 'DEE.' "I suppose they've each
got 'TWEEDLE' round at the back of the collar," she said to herself.
They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just
looking round to see if the word 'TWEEDLE' was written at the back of each
collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked 'DUM.'
"If you think we're wax-works," he said, "you ought to pay, you
know. Wax-works weren't made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow!"
"Contrariwise," added the one marked 'DEE,' "if you think we're
alive, you ought to speak."
"I'm sure I'm very sorry," was all Alice could say; for the words of
the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she
could hardly help saying them out loud: -
"Tweedledum and
Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For Tweedledum said Tweedledee
Had spoiled his nice new rattle.
Just then flew down a monstrous crow,
As black as a tar-barrel;
Which frightened both the heroes so,
They quite forgot their quarrel."
"I know what you're thinking about," said Tweedledum: "but it
isn't so, nohow."
"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might
be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's
logic."
"I was thinking," Alice said very politely, "which is the best
way out of this wood: it's getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?"
But the fat little men only looked at each other and grinned.
They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice couldn't
help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying "First Boy!"
"Nohow!" Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again
with a snap.
"Next Boy!" said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt
quite certain he would only shout out "Contrariwise!" and so he did.
"You've begun wrong!" cried Tweedledum. "The first thing in a
visit is to say 'How d'ye so?' and shake hands!" And here the two brothers
gave each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were free, to
shake hands with her.
Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting
the other one's feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took
hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing round in a ring.
This seemed quite natural (she remembered afterwards), and she was not even
surprised to hear music playing: it seemed to come from the tree under which
they were dancing, and it was done (as well as she could make it out) by the
branches rubbing one across the other, like fiddles and fiddle-sticks.
"But it certainly
was funny,"
(Alice said afterwards, when she was telling her sister the history of all
this,) "to find myself singing 'Here we go round the
mulberry bush.' I don't know when I began it, but somehow I felt as if I'd
been singing it a long long time!"
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