The Complete Alice in Wonderland (51 page)

The chief difficulty which Alice found at first was to manage her ostrich: she got its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck straightened out nicely, and was going to give a blow with its head, it
would
twist itself round, and look up into her face, with such a puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing: and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was very confusing to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was generally a ridge or a furrow in her way, wherever she wanted to send the hedgehog to, and as the doubled-up soldiers were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed.

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, and quarrelled all the while at the tops of their voices, and in a very few minutes the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about and shouting “off with his head!” or “off with her head!” about once in a minute. All those whom she sentenced were taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave off being arches to do this, so that, by the end of half an hour or so, there were no arches left, and all the players, except the King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody, and under sentence of execution.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Alice “have you seen the Mock Turtle?”

“No,” said Alice, “I don’t even know what a Mock Turtle is.”

“Come on then,” said the Queen, “and it shall tell you its history.”

As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, “you are all pardoned.”

“Come, that’s a good thing!” thought Alice, who had felt quite grieved at the number of executions which the Queen had ordered.

They very soon came upon a Gryphon, which lay fast asleep in the sun: (if you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture): “up, lazy thing!” said the Queen, “and take this young lady to see the Mock Turtle, and to hear its history. I must go back and see after some executions I ordered,” and she walked off, leaving Alice with the Gryphon. Alice did not quite like the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it quite as safe to stay as to go after that savage Queen: so she waited.

The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes: then it watched the Queen till she was out of sight: then it chuckled. “What fun!” said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.

“What
is
the fun?” said Alice.

“Why,
she
,” said the Gryphon; “it’s all her fancy, that: they never executes nobody, you know: come on!”

“Everybody says “come on!” here,” thought Alice, as she walked slowly after the Gryphon; “I never was ordered about so before in all my life—never!”

They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and, as they came nearer, Alice could hear it sighing as if its heart would break. She pitied it deeply: “what is its sorrow?” she asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the same words as before, “it’s all its fancy, that: it hasn’t got no sorrow, you know: come on!”

So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

“this here young lady,” said the Gryphon, “wants for to know your history, she do.”

“I’ll tell it,” said the Mock Turtle, in a deep, hollow tone, “sit down, and don’t speak till I’ve finished.”

So they sat down, and no one spoke for some minutes: Alice thought to herself “I don’t see how it can
ever
finish, if it doesn’t begin,” but she waited patiently.

“Once,” said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, “I was a real Turtle.”

These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of “hjckrrh!” from the Gryphon, and the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle. Alice was very nearly getting up and saying, “thank you, sir, for your interesting story,” but she could not help thinking there
must
be more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

“When we were little,” the Mock Turtle went on, more calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, “we went to school in the sea. The master was an old Turtle—we used to call him Tortoise—”

“Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn’t one?” asked Alice.

“We called him Tortoise because he taught us,” said the Mock Turtle angrily, “really you are very dull!”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple question,” added the Gryphon, and then they both sat silent and looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth: at last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, “get on, old fellow! Don’t be all day!” and the Mock Turtle went on in these words:

“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said Alice,) “and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” (Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but hastily checked herself, and said “no, never,” instead,) “so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!”

“No, indeed, said Alice, “what sort of a thing is it?”

“Why,” said the Gryphon, “you form into a line along the sea shore—”

“Two lines!” cried the Mock Turtle, “seals, turtles, salmon, and so on—advance twice:—”

“Each with a lobster as partner!” cried the Gryphon.

“Of course,” the Mock Turtle said, “advance twice, set to partners—”

“Change lobsters, and retire in same order—” interrupted the Gryphon.

“Then, you know,” continued the Mock Turtle, “you throw the—”

“The lobsters!” shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

“As far out to sea as you can—”

“Swim after them!” screamed the Gryphon.

“Turn a somersault in the sea!” cried the Mock Turtle, capering wildly about.

“Change lobsters again!” yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice, “and then—”

“That’s all,” said the Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping its voice, and the two creatures, who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

“It must be a very pretty dance,” said Alice timidly.

“Would you like to see a little of it?” said the Mock Turtle.

“Very much indeed,” said Alice.

“Come, let’s try the first figure!” said the Mock Turtle to the Gryphon, “we can do it without lobsters, you know. Which shall sing?”

“Oh!
you
sing!” said the Gryphon, “I’ve forgotten the words.”

So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, ever now and then treading on her toes when they came too close, and waving their fore-paws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle sang, slowly and sadly, these words:

“Beneath the waters of the sea

Are lobsters thick as thick can be—

They love to dance with you and me,

My own, my gentle Salmon!”

The Gryphon joined in singing the chorus, which was:

“Salmon come up! Salmon go down!

Salmon come twist your tail around!

Of all the fishes of the sea

There’s none so good as Salmon!”

“Thank you,” said Alice, feeling very glad that the figure was over.

“Shall we try the second figure?” said the Gryphon, or would you prefer a song?”

“Oh, a song, please!” Alice replied, so eagerly, that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, “Hm! no accounting for tastes! Sing her “Mock Turtle Soup,” will you, old fellow!”