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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 5:
Wool and water, Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 6 )
"Oh, don't go on like that!" cried the poor Queen, wringing her hands
in despair. "Consider what a great girl you are. Consider what a long way
you've come to-day. Consider what o'clock it is. Consider anything, only don't
cry!"
Alice could not help laughing at this, even in the midst of her tears.
"Can you
keep from crying by considering things?" she asked.
"That's the way it's done," the Queen said with great decision:
"nobody can do two things at once, you know. Let's consider your age to
begin with - how old are you?"
"I'm seven and a half exactly."
"You needn't say 'exactually,'" the Queen remarked: "I can
believe it without that. Now I'll give
you something to
believe. I'm just one hundred and one, five months and a day."
"I can't believe
that!" said
Alice.
"Can't you?" the Queen said in a pitying tone. "Try again: draw
a long breath, and shut your eyes."
Alice laughed. "There's no use trying," she said: "one
can't believe
impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When
I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've
believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. There goes the
shawl again!"
The brooch had come undone as she spoke, and a sudden gust of wind blew the
Queen's shawl across a little brook. The Queen spread out her arms again, and
went flying after it, and this time she succeeded in catching it for herself.
"I've got it!" she cried in a triumphant tone. "Now you shall
see me pin it on again, all by myself!"
"Then I hope your finger is better now?" Alice said very politely, as
she crossed the little brook after the Queen.
**********
"Oh, much better!" cried the Queen, her voice rising into a squeak as
she went on. "Much be-etter! Be-etter! Be-e-e-etter! Be-e-ehh!" The
last word ended in a long bleat, so like a sheep that Alice quite started.
She looked at the Queen, who seemed to have suddenly wrapped herself up in
wool. Alice rubbed her eyes, and looked again. She couldn't make out what had
happened at all. Was she in a shop? And was that really - was it really a
sheep that was
sitting on the other side of the counter? Rub as she would, she could make
nothing more of it: she was in a little dark shop, leaning with her elbows on
the counter, and opposite to her was an old Sheep, sitting in an arm-chair
knitting, and every now and then leaving off to look at her through a great
pair of spectacles.
"What is it you want to buy?" the Sheep said at last, looking up for
a moment from her knitting.
"I don't quite know
yet," Alice said very gently. "I should like to look all round me
first, if I might."
"You may look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like," said
the Sheep; "but you can't look
all round you -
unless you've got eyes at the back of your head."
But these, as it happened, Alice had
not got: so she
contented herself with turning round, looking at the shelves as she came to
them.
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