CHAPTER II

The Pool of Tears


`Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that
ever was! Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her
feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so
far off). `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure _I_ shan't
be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself
about you: you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be
kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the
way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a new pair of
boots every Christmas.'

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
`They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll
seem, sending presents to one's own feet! And how odd the
directions will look!

ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
HEARTHRUG,
NEAR THE FENDER,
(WITH ALICE'S LOVE).

Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'

Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall: in
fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took
up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get
through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to
cry again.

`You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in
this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!' But she went on all
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool
all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the
hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a
pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the
other: he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to
himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she
be savage if I've kept her waiting!' Alice felt so desperate
that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit
came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please,
sir--' The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid
gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard
as he could go.

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking:
`Dear, dear! How queer everything is to-day! And yesterday
things went on just as usual. I wonder if I've been changed in
the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this
morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little
different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in
the world am I? Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!' And she began
thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age
as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
them.

`I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm
sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I,
and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I'll try if I know all the
things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve,
and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
I shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the
Multiplication Table doesn't signify: let's try Geography.
London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome,
and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been
changed for Mabel! I'll try and say "How doth the little--"'
and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons,
and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:--

`How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!

`How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spread his claws,
And welcome little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!'

`I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel
after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so
many lessons to learn! No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm
Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their putting their
heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!" I shall only look
up and say "Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I
like being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down
here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a
sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads
down! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!'

As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was
surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
white kid gloves while she was talking. `How CAN I have done
that?' she thought. `I must be growing small again.' She got up
and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that,
as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
and was going on shrinking rapidly: she soon found out that the
cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

`That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at
the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in
existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed
back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut
again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as
before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child,
`for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare
it's too bad, that it is!'

As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another
moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first
idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that
case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself. (Alice had
been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find
a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in
the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out that
she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
feet high.

`I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
trying to find her way out. `I shall be punished for it now, I
suppose, by being drowned in my own tears! That WILL be a queer
thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.'

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at
first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then
she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that
it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

`Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should
think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there's no harm in
trying.' So she began: `O Mouse, do you know the way out of
this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'
(Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse:
she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having
seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a
mouse--a mouse--O mouse!') The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little
eyes, but it said nothing.

`Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I
daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the
Conqueror.' (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had
no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.) So she
began again: `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in
her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the
water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright. `Oh, I beg
your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the
poor animal's feelings. `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'

`Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
voice. `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'

`Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone: `don't be
angry about it. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah:
I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself,
as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so
nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and
she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital
one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again,
for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt
certain it must be really offended. `We won't talk about her any
more if you'd rather not.'

`We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end
of his tail. `As if I would talk on such a subject! Our family
always HATED cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don't let me hear
the name again!'

`I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
subject of conversation. `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?'
The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: `There is
such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you!
A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly
brown hair! And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and
it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I
can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!
He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a
sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!' For the
Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear! Do come back
again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
like them!' When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam
slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice
thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, `Let us get to
the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll
understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.'

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a
Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious
creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the
shore.