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Through
the Looking-Glass
and what Alice
found there
Kapitel 5:
Wool and water, Lewis Carroll, Seite 1 ( von 6 )
She caught the shawl as she spoke, and looked about for the owner: in another
moment the White Queen came running wildly through the wood, with both arms
stretched out wide, as if she were flying, and Alice very civilly went to meet
her with the shawl.
"I'm very glad I happened to be in the way," Alice said, as she
helped her to put on her shawl again.
The White Queen only looked at her in a helpless frightened sort of way, and
kept repeating something in a whisper to herself that sounded like
"Bread-and-butter, bread-and-butter," and Alice felt that if there
was to be any conversation at all, she must manage it herself. So she began
rather timidly: "Am I addressing the White Queen?"
"Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing," the Queen said. "It
isn't my notion
of the thing, at all."
Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very beginning of
their conversation, so she smiled and said, "If your Majesty will only
tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I can."
"But I don't want it done at all!" groaned the poor Queen. "I've
been a-dressing myself for the last two hours."
It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had got some
one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy. "Every single thing's
crooked," Alice thought to herself, "and she's all over pins! - May I
put your shawl straight for you?" she added aloud.
"I don't know what's the matter with it!" the Queen said, in a
melancholy voice. "It's out of temper, I think. I've pinned it here, and
I've pinned it there, but there's no pleasing it!"
"It can't
go straight, you know, if you pin it all on one side," Alice said, as she
gently put it right for her; "and, dear me, what a state your hair is
in!"
"The brush has got entangled in it!" the Queen said with a sigh.
"And I lost the comb yesterday."
Alice carefully released the brush, and did her best to get the hair into
order. "Come, you look rather better now!" she said, after altering
most of the pins. "But really you should have a lady's-maid!"
"I'm sure I'll take you with pleasure!" the Queen said.
"Twopence a week, and jam every other day."
Alice couldn't help laughing, as she said, "I don't want you to hire
me - and I don't
care for jam."
"It's very good jam," said the Queen.
"Well, I don't want any
to-day, at any
rate."
"You couldn't have it if you
did want
it," the Queen said. "The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday -
but never jam to-day."
"It must
come sometimes to 'jam to-day,'" Alice objected.
"No, it can't," said the Queen. "It's jam every
other day:
to-day isn't any other day, you
know."
"I don't understand you," said Alice. "It's dreadfully
confusing!"
"That's the effect of living backwards," the Queen said kindly:
"it always makes one a little giddy at first -"
"Living backwards!" Alice repeated in great astonishment. "I
never heard of such a thing!"
"- but there's one great advantage in it, that one's memory works both
ways."
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