Complete Alice in Wonderland - L. Carroll [94]
...and she was just going to spring over, when she heard a deep sigh, which seemed to come from the wood behind her.
“There’s somebody very unhappy there,” she thought, looking anxiously back to see what was the matter. Something like a very old man (only that his face was more like a wasp) was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree, all huddled up together, and shivering as if he were very cold.
“I don’t think I can be of any use to him,” was Alice’s first thought, as she turned to spring over the brook:—“but I’ll just ask him what’s the matter,” she added, checking herself on the very edge. “If I once jump over, everything will change, and then I ca’n’t help him.”
So she went back to the Wasp—rather unwillingly, for she was very anxious to be a queen.
“Oh, my old bones, my old bones!” he was grumbling as Alice came up to him.
“It’s rheumatism, I should think,” Alice said to herself, and she stooped over him, and said very kindly, “I hope you’re not in much pain?”
The Wasp only shook his shoulders, and turned his head away. “Ah deary me!” he said to himself.
“Can I do anything for you?” Alice went on. “Aren’t you rather cold here?”
“How you go on!” the Wasp said in a peevish tone. “Worrity, worrity! There never was such a child!”
Alice felt rather offended at this answer, and was very nearly walking on and leaving him, but she thought to herself “Perhaps it’s only pain that makes him so cross.” So she tried once more.
“Wo’n’t you let me help you round to the other side? You’ll be out of the cold wind there.”
The Wasp took her arm, and let her help him round the tree, but when he got settled down again he only said, as before, “Worrity, worrity! Ca’n’t you leave a body alone?”
“Would you like me to read you a bit of this?” Alice went on, as she picked up a newspaper which had been lying at his feet.
“You may read it if you’ve a mind to,” the Wasp said, rather sulkily. “Nobody’s hindering you, that I know of.”
So Alice sat down by him, and spread out the paper on her knees, and began. “Latest News. The Exploring Party have made another tour in the Pantry, and have found five new lumps of white sugar, large and in fine condition. In coming back—”
“Any brown sugar?” the Wasp interrupted.
Alice hastily ran her eyes down the paper and said “No. It says nothing about brown.”
“No brown sugar!” grumbled the Wasp. “A nice exploring party!”
“In coming back,” Alice went on reading, “they found a lake of treacle. The banks of the lake were blue and white, and looked like china. While tasting the treacle, they had a sad accident: two of their party were engulphed—”
“Were what?” the Wasp asked in a very cross voice.
“En-gulph-ed,” Alice repeated, dividing the word in syllables.
“There’s no such word in the language!” said the Wasp.
“It’s in the newspaper, though,” Alice said a little timidly.
“Let’s stop it here!” said the Wasp, fretfully turning away his head.
Alice put down the newspaper. “I’m afraid you’re not well,” she said in a soothing tone. “Ca’n’t I do anything for you?”
“It’s all along of the wig,” the Wasp said in a much gentler voice.
“Along of the wig?” Alice repeated, quite pleased to find that he was recovering his temper.
“You’d be cross too, if you’d a wig like mine,” the Wasp went on. “They jokes, at one. And they worrits one. And then I gets cross. And I gets cold. And I gets under a tree. And I gets a yellow handkerchief. And I ties up my face—as at the present.”
Alice looked pityingly at him. “Tying up the face is very good for the toothache,” she said.
“And it’s very good for the conceit,” added the Wasp.
Alice didn’t catch the word exactly. “Is that a kind of toothache?” she asked.
The Wasp considered a little. “Well, no,” he said: “it’s when you hold up your head—so—without bending your neck.”
“Oh, you mean stiff-neck,” said Alice.
The Wasp said “that’s a new-fangled name. They called it conceit in my time.