Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass - Lewis Carroll [52]
She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked very cool and shady. “Well, at any rate it’s a great comfort,” she said as she stepped under the trees, “after being so hot, to get into the—into the—into what?” she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. “I mean to get under the—under the—under this, you know!” putting her hand on the trunk of the tree. “What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it’s got no name—why, to be sure it hasn’t!”
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!”
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 won’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 can’t remember here.”
So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft 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—Atice—I won’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 finger-posts pointing the same way, one marked “TO TWEEDLEDUM’S HOUSE,” and the other “TO THE HOUSE OF TWEEDLEDEE.”
“I do believe,” said Alice at last, “that they live in the same house! I wonder I never thought of that before—But I can’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 be.
IV
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
THEY WERE STANDING under a tree, 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,