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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 2. The Pool of Tears
"More and more curious!" cried Alice, she was so surprised that for a moment she forgot how to speak good English.
"Now I'm opening out like the biggest telescope ever! Good-bye, feet!" When she looked down at her feet they seemed almost out of sight.
They were getting so far away.
"Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?"
"I'm sure I won't be able."
"I'll be a great deal too far away to trouble myself about you."
"You must manage the best way you can."
"But I must be kind to them," Thought Alice.
"Or perhaps they won't walk the way I want to go. Let me see. I'll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas."
And she went on planning to herself how she'd manage it.
"They must go by the carrier," she thought.
"How funny it'll seem to send presents to your own feet".
And how odd the directions will look.
Alice's Right Foot, Esq, Hearthrug, near the Fender, with Alice's love.
"Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!"
Just then her head hit the roof of the hall.
In fact she was now more than nine feet high.
She at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice. She felt so sad and tired, lying alone in the big pool.
It was all she could do, lying down on one side, to look through into the garden with one eye.
But to get through was more hopeless than ever.
She sat down and began to cry again.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice.
"A great girl like you,"
She could well say that, "to go on crying in this way. Stop this moment, I tell you!".
She kept crying a lot until there was a large pool all around her.
The pool was about four inches deep and reached halfway down the hall.
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance.
She dried her eyes quickly to see what was coming.
The White Rabbit returned, neatly dressed, holding white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.
He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, "Oh, the Duchess, the Duchess."
"Oh, won't she be savage if I've kept her waiting!" Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone.
So when the Rabbit came near her she began in a low, timid voice, "If you please, sir."
The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan, and ran away into the darkness as fast as he could.
Alice took the fan and gloves, and because the hall was hot she kept fanning herself while she talked.
"Dear, dear, how strange everything is today."
"Yesterday things went on as usual, but I wonder if I changed in the night and if I felt different this morning."
"If I am not the same, who in the world am I, ah that is the great puzzle".
She began thinking about all the children she knew who were the same age as herself.
She wanted to know if she had been changed for any of them.
"I'm sure I'm not Ada,"
She said, "for her hair goes in such long curls and mine does not."
"And I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know many things and she knows very little."
"Besides, she's she and I'm I and, oh dear, how strange it all is."
"I'll try if I know all the things I used to know."
"Let me see."
"Four times five is twelve and six is thirteen, seven is, oh dear, I will never reach twenty".
She crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons and began to repeat it.
But her voice sounded hoarse and strange and the words didn't come the same as they used to.
"How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale"!
"How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws!"
"I'm sure those aren't the right words," said poor Alice and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on.
I must be Mabel after all.
"I shall have to go and live in that small house."
"I will have almost no toys to play with, and many lessons to learn".
No, I've made up my mind about it.
If I'm Mabel I'll stay down here.
Their putting their heads down and saying 'Come up again, dear' will be no use. I'll ask, 'Who am I?
Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I'll come up.
"If not, I'll stay down here till I'm somebody else.' Oh dear!" cried Alice with a sudden burst of tears.
"I do wish they'd put their heads down".
"I'm so very tired of being all alone here."
As she said this she looked down at her hands.
She was surprised to see she had put on one of the Rabbit's little white kid gloves while talking.
"How can I have done that?" she thought.
"I must be growing small again."
She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it.
As near as she could guess, she was now about two feet high and was getting smaller quickly.
She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding.
She dropped it quickly, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.
"That was a narrow escape," said Alice, much frightened at the sudden change but very glad to find herself still here.
"And now for the garden." She ran with all speed back to the little door.
But alas, the little door was shut again and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before.
"Things are worse than ever," thought the poor child.
"I never was so small as this before, never. And I declare it's too bad, that it's."
As she said these words her foot slipped and in another moment splash.
She was up to her chin in salt water.
Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea.
"In that case I can go back by railway," she said to herself.
Alice had been to the seaside once in her life.
She had the general view that wherever you go on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea.
She thought there would be some children digging in the sand with wooden spades.
Then a row of lodging houses and, behind them, a railway station.
However she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had cried when she was nine feet high.
"I wish I hadn't cried so much," said Alice as she swam about trying to find her way out.
"I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears."
"That'll be a strange thing, to be sure."
"However, everything is strange today."
Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off.
She swam nearer to see what it was.
At first she thought it must be a walrus or a hippopotamus.
Then she remembered how small she was now.
She soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
"Would it be of any use now," thought Alice.
"To speak to this mouse?"
"Everything is so odd down here that I think very likely it can talk."
"At any rate there's no harm in trying."
So she began, "O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool?"
"I'm very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse," she said, and Alice thought this must be right.
She had never done such a thing before but she remembered having seen in her brother's Latin Grammar,
"A mouse, of a mouse, to a mouse, a mouse, O mouse."
The Mouse looked at her rather curious and seemed to wink with one of its little eyes but it said nothing.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice.
"I daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror."
With all her knowledge of history Alice had no clear idea how long ago things had happened.
So she began again, "Ou est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French lesson book.
The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water and seemed to shake all over with fright.
"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice quickly, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal's feelings.
"I quite forgot you didn't like cats."
"Not like cats!" cried the Mouse in a high, passionate voice.
"Would you like cats if you were me?"
"Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a soft tone.
"Don't be angry about it."
"And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah."
"I think you'd like cats if you could only see her."
"She's such a dear quiet thing," Alice said to herself as she swam slowly in the pool.
"She sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face".
She's such a nice soft thing to nurse, and she's such a good one for catching mice.
" Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was standing all on end and she felt sure it must be really offended.
"We won't talk about her any more if you'd rather not."
"We indeed!" cried the Mouse who was trembling down to the end of his tail.
"As if I'd talk on such a subject. Our family always hated cats. Nasty low vulgar things. Don't let me hear the name again."
"I won't indeed," said Alice in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation.
"Are you, are you fond of dogs?" The Mouse didn't answer, so Alice went on eagerly.
"There's such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you."
"A little bright eyed terrier, you know, with oh such long curly brown hair."
"And it'll fetch things when you throw them and it'll sit up and beg for its dinner and all sorts of things."
"I can't remember half of them."
"It belongs to a farmer you know and he says it's so useful it's worth a hundred pounds."
"He says it kills all the rats and, oh dear!" Cried Alice in a sad tone.
"I'm afraid I've offended it again."
For the Mouse was swimming away from her as fast as it could and making a stir in the pool.
So she called softly after it,
"Mouse dear, do come back and we won't talk about cats or dogs either if you don't like them."
When the Mouse heard this it turned round and swam slowly back to her.
Its face was quite pale with passion, Alice thought.
It said in a low trembling voice.
"Let us get to the shore. Then I'll tell you my history, and you'll understand why I hate cats and dogs."
It was high time to go for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it.
There were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures.
Alice led the way and the whole party swam to the shore.