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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 1. Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do.
Once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading.
But it had no pictures or conversations in it.
What's the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations?
She was thinking to herself, as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and slow.
She wondered whether the fun of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies.
Then suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very strange in that.
Nor did Alice think it so very odd to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!"
Later she thought she should have wondered, but at the time it all seemed natural.
But when the Rabbit took a watch from its vest pocket, looked at it, and hurried on, Alice jumped up.
She had never before seen a rabbit with a vest pocket or a watch to take out.
Curious, she ran across the field and saw it pop down a large rabbit-hole.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once thinking about how in the world she was to get out again.
The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped down very fast.
So fast that Alice hadn't a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down a very deep well.
Either the well was very deep.
Or she fell very slowly.
She had plenty of time to look about her and to wonder what would happen next.
First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to.
But it was too dark to see anything.
Then she looked at the sides of the well and saw that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves.
Here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.
She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed.
It was labelled ORANGE JAM, but to her great disappointment it was empty.
She didn't like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath.
So she managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it.
"Well!" thought Alice to herself.
"After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of falling down stairs!"
"How brave they'll all think me at home!"
"Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!" Which was very likely true.
Down, down, down, Would the fall never come to an end?
"I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" she said aloud.
"I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth."
"Let me see."
"That would be four thousand miles down, I think,"
For you see, Alice had learnt a few things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom.
This was not a good time to show what she knew, because no one was there to listen.
Still, it was good to say it over.
"Yes, that's about the right distance, but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I've got to?"
Alice had no idea what Latitude was or Longitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.
Soon she began talking again to herself, saying more thoughts aloud.
"I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth!"
"How funny it'll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward!"
"The people on the other side, I think,"
She was rather glad there was no one listening this time, as it didn't sound at all the right word.
"But I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know."
"Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?" And she tried to bow as she spoke.
Fancy bowing as you're falling through the air.
Do you think you could manage it?
"And what a silly little girl she'll think me for asking!"
"No, it'll never do to ask."
"Perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."
Down, down, down, there was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again.
"Dinah'll miss me very much tonight, I should think!" Dinah was the cat.
"I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time."
"Dinah my dear!"
"I wish you were down here with me!"
"There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know."
"But do cats eat bats, I wonder?"
"Alice began to get rather sleepy."
She went on saying to herself in a dreaming way, "Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?"
And sometimes she said, "Do bats eat cats?" because she could not answer either question, so it did not matter.
She felt that she was nodding off.
She had just begun to dream she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very seriously,
"Now, Dinah, tell me the truth."
"Did you ever eat a bat?"
When suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice wasn't hurt a bit, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment.
She looked up, but it was all dark overhead.
Before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight hurrying down it.
There wasn't a moment to be lost.
Away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say as it turned a corner,
"Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!"
She was close behind it when it turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen.
She found herself in a long low hall, which was lit by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked.
Alice had gone down one side and up the other trying every door.
She walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she could ever get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass.
Only a tiny golden key lay on it, and Alice first thought it might open one of the hall doors.
But either the locks were too large or the key too small, in any case it opened none.
On her second try she found a curtain she had not seen, behind it a little door fifteen inches high.
She tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage not much larger than a rat-hole.
She knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
How she longed to get out of that dark hall and walk among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains.
But she couldn't even get her head through the doorway.
"And even if my head would go through," thought poor Alice.
"It would be of very little use without my shoulders."
"Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a telescope!"
"I think I could if I only knew how to begin."
For you see, so many odd things had happened lately that Alice had begun to think that very few things were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table.
She hoped to find another key or a book of rules on making people small like a telescope.
This time she found a little bottle on it, which certainly wasn't there before, said Alice.
Round the neck of the bottle was a paper label with the words "DRINK ME" nicely printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say "Drink me," but the clever little Alice wasn't going to do that at once.
"No, I'll look first,"
She said, "and see whether it's marked poison or not."
"She had read several small stories about children who were burned and eaten by wild animals and other bad things."
They suffered all because they wouldn't remember the simple rules their friends had taught them.
Such as that a red-hot poker will burn you if you hold it too long.
And that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife it usually bleeds.
She remembered that drinking much from a bottle marked "poison" was sure to make you ill.
However, this bottle wasn't marked poison, so Alice tried a little.
Finding it nice, with taste of cherry tart, custard, pineapple, roast turkey, toffee and hot buttered toast, she soon finished.
"What a curious feeling!" said Alice.
"I must be shutting up like a telescope."
And so it was indeed, for Alice had become very small and felt it.
She was now only ten inches high.
Her face looked happy because she was the right size to go through the little door into that lovely garden.
First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to get smaller still.
She felt a little nervous about this.
"For it might end, you know," said Alice to herself.
"In my going out altogether like a candle."
"I wonder what I should be like then?"
She tried to imagine what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out.
She could not remember ever having seen one.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided to go into the garden at once.
But, alas for poor Alice, when she got to the door she found she had forgotten the little golden key.
When she went back to the table for it she found she couldn't possibly reach it.
She could see it quite plainly through the glass.
And she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery.
When she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.
"Come, there's no use in crying like that!" said Alice to herself rather sharply.
"I advise you to leave off this minute!"
She often gave herself good advice, though she seldom followed it, and sometimes scolded herself so hard that she cried.
Once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself.
This curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.
"But it's no use now," thought poor Alice.
"To pretend to be two people! Why there's hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!"
Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table.
She opened it and found in it a very small cake on which the words "EAT ME" were nicely marked in currants.
"Well, I'll eat it," said Alice.
"If it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key."
"If it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door."
"Either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!"
She ate a little bit and said anxiously to herself, "Which way?"
"Which way?" She held her hand on her head to feel how it grew, and was surprised to find she stayed the same size.
To be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake.
But Alice was so used to expecting only odd things to happen
She thought life was dull and silly if it went on in the usual way.
So she set to work and very soon finished off the cake.