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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Chapter 5. Advice from a Caterpillar
The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence.
At last the Caterpillar took the pipe out of its mouth, and spoke in a slow, sleepy voice.
"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.
This wasn't a friendly way to start.
Alice answered, rather shyly, "I."
"I hardly know, sir, just now, at least I know who I was when I got up this morning,"
"But I think I must have been changed many times since then."
"What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar in a strict voice.
"Explain yourself!"
"I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm not myself, you see."
"I don't see," said the Caterpillar.
"I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,"
"Alice replied politely, "I can't understand it at first, being so many sizes in one day is confusing.
"It isn't," said the Caterpillar.
"Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet," said Alice.
"But when you have to change into a chrysalis one day, you know, and then after that into a butterfly."
"I should think you'll feel it a little strange, won't you"?
"Not a bit," said the Caterpillar.
"Well, perhaps your feelings may be different," said Alice.
"All I know is, it would feel very strange to me."
"You!" said the Caterpillar with a look of dislike.
"Who are you?"
This brought them back to the start of the talk.
Alice felt a little angry at the Caterpillar's short words, and she stood up straight and said, very seriously,
"I think you ought to tell me who you're first."
"Why?" said the Caterpillar.
This was another strange question, and Alice did not know how to answer it.
Alice couldn't think of a good reason, and the Caterpillar looked in a bad mood, so she turned away.
"Come back!" the Caterpillar called after her.
"I've something important to say!"
This sounded hopeful, so Alice turned and came back.
"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar.
"Is that all?" said Alice, holding back her anger as well as she could.
"No," said the Caterpillar.
Alice thought she might as well wait, since she had nothing to do, and maybe it would tell her something useful.
It smoked for a few minutes, then put down its arms, took out the pipe, and said,
"So you think you're changed, do you?"
"I'm afraid I'm, sir," said Alice.
"I can't remember things as I used to, and I don't stay the same size for ten minutes at once!"
"Can't remember what things?" said the Caterpillar.
"Well, I've tried to say 'How doth the little busy bee,' but it all came out different!" Alice answered in a sad voice.
"Repeat, 'You're old, Father William,'" said the Caterpillar.
Alice folded her hands, and began,
"You're old, Father William,"
"The young man said, "Your hair is white. You always stand on your head. Do you think that is right?
"In my youth,"
"Father William answered, "I feared it would hurt my brain, now I'm sure I have none, so I do it.
"You're old," said the young man.
"As I said before, And you have grown most very fat."
"Yet you turned a back-somersault through the door."
"Pray, why did you do that?"
"In my youth," said the wise man as he shook his grey hair.
"I kept my limbs very loose By using this ointment, one shilling the box. Shall I sell you a couple?"
"You're old," said the young man.
"And your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than soft fat."
"Yet you finished the goose, bones and beak."
"Pray, how did you do it?"
"In my youth," said his father.
"I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife."
"And the strength of my jaw, which it gave, Has stayed with me all my life."
"You're old," said the young man.
"One would hardly think That your eye was as steady as ever."
"Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose."
"What made you so very clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that's enough," Said his father.
"Don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Go away, or I'll kick you down the stairs!"
"That isn't said right," said the Caterpillar.
"Not quite right, I'm afraid," said Alice, shyly.
"Some of the words have got changed."
"It's wrong from beginning to end," said the Caterpillar strongly, and there was silence for some minutes.
The Caterpillar spoke first, breaking the silence in a slow, sleepy voice.
"What size do you want to be?" it asked.
"Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Alice quickly replied.
"Only one doesn't like changing so often, you know."
"I don't know," said the Caterpillar.
Alice said nothing, feeling upset and looking down at her hands.
She had never been so often told she was wrong, and she felt that she was losing her temper.
"Are you happy now?" said the Caterpillar.
"Well, I should like to be a little larger, sir, if you don't mind," said Alice.
"Three inches is such a wretched height to be."
"It's a very good height indeed!" said the Caterpillar angrily, standing up straight as it spoke.
It was exactly three inches high.
"But I'm not used to it!" pleaded poor Alice in a sad voice.
She thought to herself, "I wish the creatures wouldn't be so easily hurt!"
"You'll get used to it in time," said the Caterpillar, and it put the pipe into its mouth and began smoking again.
Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again.
In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the pipe out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself.
Then it got down from the mushroom and crawled away through the grass, only saying as it went,
"One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter."
"One side of what? The other side of what?" thought Alice.
"Of the mushroom," said the Caterpillar, as if she had asked out loud.
In another moment it was out of sight.
Alice stayed and looked at the mushroom for a minute, trying to find the two sides.
As it was round, it was a hard question.
At last she put her arms round it and broke off a bit from the edge with each hand.
"And now which is which?" she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try it.
The next moment she felt a hard hit under her chin, it had hit her foot!
She was very frightened by the sudden change.
But she felt there was no time to lose, as she was getting smaller fast.
So she began at once to eat some of the other piece.
Her chin was pressed so close to her foot that there was hardly room to open her mouth.
But she did it at last, and swallowed a bit of the left-hand piece.
"Now my head's free at last!" said Alice with joy.
Her joy turned to fear in a moment when she found her shoulders were gone.
All she could see below was a very long neck like a stem rising from a sea of green leaves far under her.
"What can all that green stuff be?" said Alice.
"And where have my shoulders gone?"
"And oh, my poor hands, why can't I see you?"
She moved them as she spoke, but nothing happened except a little shaking in the far green leaves.
She could not get her hands up to her head, so she tried to bring her head down to them.
She was happy to find her neck could bend easily any way like a snake.
She had just bent it down into a fine curve and was going to dive among the leaves.
She saw the leaves were only the tops of the trees she had been walking under.
A loud hiss made her pull back quickly.
A large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her hard with its wings.
"Serpent!" screamed the Pigeon.
"I'm not a serpent!" said Alice angrily.
"Leave me alone!"
"Serpent, I say again!" said the Pigeon more quietly, and with a kind of cry.
"I've tried every way, and nothing seems to please them!"
"I haven't the least idea what you're talking about," said Alice.
"I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried hedges," the Pigeon went on without stopping.
"But those serpents! There's no pleasing them!"
Alice was more and more confused.
But she thought it was no use to speak more until the Pigeon had finished.
"As if it wasn't trouble enough to hatch the eggs," said the Pigeon.
"But I must watch for serpents night and day! Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!"
"I'm very sorry you've been upset," said Alice, who was beginning to see what it meant.
"And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a cry.
"And just as I thought I'd be free at last, they must come wriggling down from the sky!" Ugh, Serpent!""
"But I'm not a serpent, I tell you!" said Alice.
"I'm a. I'm a, "
"Well! What are you?" said the Pigeon.
"I can see you're trying to make something up!"
"I. I'm a little girl," said Alice, rather unsure, as she remembered the many changes that day.
"A likely story indeed!" said the Pigeon with great scorn.
"I've seen many little girls, but never one with such a neck, no, no!"
"You're a serpent, and it's no use saying you are not. I think you'll tell me next you never tasted an egg!"
"I have tasted eggs, certainly," said Alice, who always told the truth.
"But little girls eat eggs as much as serpents do, you know."
"I don't believe it," said the Pigeon.
"But if they do, then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say."
This was a new idea to Alice, and she was quite quiet for a minute or two.
That gave the Pigeon a chance to add, "You're looking for eggs, I know that well enough."
"And what does it matter to me if you're a little girl or a serpent?"
"It matters a good deal to me," said Alice quickly.
"But I'm not looking for eggs, as it happens. And if I was, I wouldn't want yours. I don't like them raw."
"Well, go away, then!" said the Pigeon in a sulky tone as it settled back in its nest.
Alice crouched among the trees as best she could.
Her neck kept getting caught in the branches, so she had to stop and untwist it now and then.
After a while she remembered she still had the pieces of mushroom in her hands.
She began very carefully to nibble first one piece and then the other.
She grew sometimes taller and sometimes shorter until she had brought herself back to her usual height.
It was a long time since she had been near the right size, so it felt strange at first.
She got used to it in a few minutes and began talking to herself as usual.
"Now, half my plan is done!"
"How puzzling all these changes are!"
"I'm never sure what I'll be from one minute to the next!"
"Still, I'm back to my right size."
"The next thing is to get into that beautiful garden."
"How can that be done, I wonder?"
As she said this, she came to an open place with a little house in it about four feet high.
"Whoever lives there," thought Alice.
"It'll never do to meet them at this size."
"I should frighten them out of their minds!"
So she began nibbling the right-hand bit again, and didn't go near the house until she had made herself nine inches high.