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Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland
Kapitel 10:
The lobster quadrille, Lewis Carroll, Seite 3 ( von 4 )
"They were obliged to have him with them," the Mock Turtle said:
"no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise."
"Wouldn't it really?" said Alice in a tone of great surprise.
"Of course not," said the Mock Turtle: "why, if a fish came to
me, and told me
he was going a journey, I should say, 'With what porpoise?'"
"Don't you mean 'purpose?'" said Alice.
"I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied in an offended tone. And
the Gryphon added, "Come, let's hear some of
your
adventures."
"I could tell you my adventures - beginning from this morning," said
Alice a little timidly: "but it's no use going back to yesterday, because
I was a different person then."
"Explain all that," said the Mock Turtle.
"No, no! the adventures first," said the Gryphon in an impatient
tone: "explanations take such a dreadful time."
So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the
White Rabbit: she was a little nervous about it just at first, the two
creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and
mouths so very
wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet
till she got to the part about her repeating "You are old, Father
William," to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming different, and
then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said, "That's very
curious."
"It's all about as curious as it can be," said the Gryphon.
"It all came different!" the Mock Turtle repeated thoughtfully.
"I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to
begin." He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of
authority over Alice.
"Stand up and repeat ''Tis the voice of the
sluggard,'" said the Gryphon.
"How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!"
thought Alice; "I might just as well be at school at once." However,
she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Lobster
Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very
queer indeed: -
"'Tis the voice
of the lobster; I heard him declare,
'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'
As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes."
"That's different from what
I used to say
when I was a child," said the Gryphon.
"Well, I never heard it before," said the Mock Turtle; "but it
sounds uncommon nonsense."
Alice said nothing: she had sat down again with her face in her hands,
wondering if anything would
ever happen in a
natural way again.
"I should like to have it explained," said the Mock Turtle.
"She can't explain it," said the Gryphon hastily. "Go on with
the next verse."
"But about his toes?" the Mock Turtle persisted. "How
could he turn
them out with his nose, you know?"
"It's the first position in dancing," Alice said; but she was
dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject.
"Go on with the next verse," the Gryphon repeated impatiently:
"it begins 'I
passed by his garden.'"
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