Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Penguin) - Lewis Carroll [88]
She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. “Then it really has happened, after all! And now, who am I? I will remember, if I can! I’m determined to do it!” But being determined didn’t help her much, and all she could say, after a great deal of puzzling, was “L, I know it begins with L!”16
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.
“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly “Nothing, just now.”
“Think again,” it said: “that wo’n’t do.”
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please would you tell me what you call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a little.”
“I’ll tell you, if you’ll come a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I ca’n’t remember here.”
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arm. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight. “And, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed.
Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveler so suddenly. “However, I know my name now,” she said: “that’s some comfort. Alice—Alice—I wo’n’t forget it again. And now, which of these finger-posts ought I to follow, I wonder?”
It was not a very difficult question to answer, as there was only one road through the wood, and the two finger-posts both pointed along it. “I’ll settle it,” Alice said to herself, “when the road divides and they point different ways.”
But this did not seem likely to happen. She went on and on, a long way, but, wherever the road divided, there were sure to be two fingerposts pointing the same way, one marked ‘TO TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE,’ and the other ‘TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLE DEE.’
“I do believe,” said Alice at last, “that they live in the same house! I wonder I never thought of that before—But I ca’n’t stay there long. I’ll just call and say ‘How d’ye do?’ and ask them the way out of the wood. If I could only get to the Eighth Square before it gets dark!” So she wandered on, talking to herself as she went, till, on turning a sharp corner
she came upon two fat little men, so suddenly that she could not help starting back, but in another moment she recovered herself, feeling sure that they must be17
CHAPTER IV:
TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE.
They were standing under a tree,1 each with an arm round the other’s neck, and Alice knew which was which in a moment, because one of them had ‘DUM’ embroidered on his collar, and the other ‘DEE.’ “I suppose they’ve each got ‘TWEEDLE’ round at the back of the collar,” she said to herself.
They stood so still that she quite forgot they were alive, and she was just going round to see if the word ‘TWEEDLE’ was written at the back of each collar, when she was startled by a voice coming from the one marked ‘DUM.’
“If you think we’re wax-works,” he said, “you ought to pay, you know. Wax-works weren’t made to be looked at for nothing. Nohow!”
“Contrariwise,” added the one marked ‘DEE,’ “if you think we’re alive, you ought to speak.”
“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” was all Alice could say; for the words of the old song2 kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she could hardly help saying them out loud: —
“Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Agreed to have a battle;
For