“Nonsense”, Alice thought, so she said nothing, and went towards the Red Queen.
“Where do you come from?” asked the Red Queen. “And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers!”
Alice explained that she was lost.
“But why did you come here at all? Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say, it saves time[11].”
“I only wanted to see the garden, your Majesty … and I thought I’d try and find my way to the top of that hill …”
“When you say ‘hill’,” the Queen said, “I can show you hills, in comparison with which you will call that a valley.”
Alice curtseyed again, because she was afraid that the Queen could be offended. And they walked on in silence and reached the top of the little hill.
For some time Alice stood and said nothing, looking out in all directions over the country.
“It is just like a large chess-board!” Alice said at last. “It’s a great huge game of chess. Oh, what fun it is! I would like even to be a Pawn, if only I can join … although, of course, I’d like to be a Queen!”
The Red Queen only smiled, and said, “That’s easy. You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like. You’re in the Second Square: when you get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen … ” Just at this moment they began to run.
They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went very fast and she cried to Alice “Faster! Faster!” Alice felt that she could not go faster.
The most curious thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all!
The Queen kept crying [12]“Faster! Faster!”
“Are we nearly there?” Alice asked at last.
“Nearly there!” the Queen said. “Faster! Now! Now!”
And they went so fast that they hardly touched the ground with their feet! Suddenly they stopped.
The Queen said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”
Alice looked round her in great surprise. “We have been under this tree the whole time! Nothing changed!”
“Of course,” said the Queen. “Here we have to run in order to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run faster!”
Alice did not know what to say, but the Queen did not wait for an answer. “You know that a pawn goes two squares in its first move. So you will go very quickly through the Third Square … by train[13], I think. Well, the Fourth Square belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee[14]. The Fifth one is covered with water. The Sixth Square belongs to Humpty Dumpty[15]. The Seventh Square is a forest. One of the Knights will show you the way. And in the Eighth Square we will be Queens together, and have a lot of fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again.
The Red Queen said “good-bye,” and then disappeared.
And Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and soon she would make a move.
Exercises
1. Why could the flowers talk?
1. The flowers were magical.
2. The flowers learnt a lot from the books.
3. People talked to them very often.
4. The ground was hard, so the flowers were not asleep all the time.
2. What flowers were the noisiest?
1. Daisies
2. Roses
3. Violets
4. Lilies
3. Point out what directions the Red Queen gave to Alice.
1. Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers!
2. Don’t be so shy and speak first!
3. Curtsey while you‘re thinking what to say, it saves time.
4. Call me Madam!
5. Turn out your toes as you walk… and remember who you are!
4. What chessman did Alice want to be?
1. A castle
2. A pawn
3. A queen
4. A knight
5. What were Alice and the Queen doing to stay under the tree?
1. They were jumping.
2. They were running.
3. They were counting.
4. They were crawling.
6. What would be in the Eighth Square?
1. Alice would meet a Knight.
2. Alice would return home.
3. Humpty-Dumpty would have a conversation with her.
4. Alice would be a Queen too, and all the Queens would have a lot of fun.
7. Complete the sentences with these expressions:
takes care of, by train, kept crying, vanished into the air, I wish
1. ‘Are you frightened that nobody ……………… you?
2. So you will go very quickly through the Third Square. ………………, I think.
3. The Queen …………… ‘Faster! Faster!’.
4. ‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice to one flower, ‘………………you could talk!’
5. Alice …………… that she was a Pawn, and soon she would make a move.
8. Complete the table:
Chapter 3
Looking-Glass Insects
Alice wanted to go to the Third Square. So she ran down the hill and got on a train.
“Tickets, please!” said the Guard. “Now then! Show your ticket, child!” the Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice.
“I haven’t got a ticket,” Alice said, “there wasn’t a ticket-office [16]where I came from.”
“Don’t make excuses[17],” said the Guard.
He was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass[18]. At last he said, “You’re travelling the wrong way,” and went away.
“A child,” said the gentleman sitting next to her (he was dressed in white paper), “should know which way she’s going, even if she doesn’t know her own name!”
A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman, said in a loud voice, “She has to know her way to the ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her alphabet!”
And after that other voices went on, “She must go by post …”, “She must be sent as a message by the telegraph …” and so on.
Alice began. “I was in a wood just now, and I wish I could get back there.”
But at that moment there was a shrill scream from the engine[19], and everybody jumped up.
The Horse said, “It’s only a brook and we have to jump it over.” Alice was nervous. In another moment the carriage rose up into the air …
And the next moment she was sitting under a tree with the Gnat [20]from the train. It was sitting on a branch over her head. It was an enormous Gnat. “About the size of a chicken,” Alice thought.
“You don’t like insects?” the Gnat asked.
“I like them when they can talk,” Alice said. “They don’t talk, where I come from.”
“What kind of insects do you like from where you come from?” the Gnat asked.
“I don’t like them at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m afraid of them … at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them.”
“Do they answer to their names?” the Gnat asked.
“I don’t know …”
“What’s the use of having names[21]” the Gnat said, “if they won’t answer to them?”
“It’s useful to the people who name them. If not, why do things have names at all?”
“I can’t say,” the Gnat said. “Here they’ve got no names.”
After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two. The Gnat asked, “I think you don’t want to lose your name.”
“No, I don’t,” Alice said. She was a little nervous.
“Only think how nice it would be if you could go home without a name! For example, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, she would say “come here … ,” and there she would have to stop, because she didn’t know your name, and of course you wouldn’t have to go, you know.”
“That would never happen, I’m sure,” said Alice. “If she couldn’t remember my name, she’d call me ‘Miss!’.”
“Well, if she said ‘Miss,’ and didn’t say anything more,” the Gnat said, “of course you’d miss [22]your lessons. That’s a joke.”
Alice looked up, but the Gnat wasn’t there! Alice got up and walked on.
Soon she came to an open field, with a wood on the other side: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice was a little afraid. However, she decided to go on. This was the only way to the Eighth Square.
“Maybe this is the wood,” she said to herself, “where things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in?”
She reached the wood. It was very cool there. Once in the wood, she suddenly realized that she forgot her name!
Just then a Fawn [23]came out. It looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes. It wasn’t frightened.
“What’s your name?” the Fawn said at last.
“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, “I don’t know.”
“Think again,” it said, “that won’t do[24].”
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what is your name?” she said. “I think it can help me.”
“I’ll tell you, but not here,” the Fawn said. “I can’t remember.”
So they walked on together through the wood. They came out into another field, and here the Fawn said, “I’m a Fawn! And you’re a human child!” and in another moment it ran away.