Льюис Кэрролл - Алиса в Стране чудес / Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Алиса в Зазеркалье / Through the Looking-glass, and What Alice Found There

‘Three faults, Kitty! I will punish you some day!’

‘Oh, Kitty, can you play chess? Don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking you seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched as if [169] as if – как будто you understood everything. I said “Check!” and you purred! Kitty, dear, let’s pretend…’

“Let’s pretend…” was Alice’s favourite phrase.

‘Let’s pretend that you’re the Red Queen! I think if you sit like this, you’ll look exactly like her. Try, dear!’ And Alice took the Red Queen and showed it to the kitten. But the kitten couldn’t sit properly. In order to punish it, Alice held it up to the Looking-glass ‘If you’re not good,’ she said, ‘I’ll put you through into Looking-glass House. How would you like that?’

‘Now, Kitty, I’ll tell you everything about Looking-glass House. First, you can see a room through the glass… it’s just the same as our living room, only the things go the other way. I can see all of it when I get upon a chair… all except the bit behind the fireplace. Oh! I wish I could see that bit! I want to know if they have a fire in the winter. Well, the books are like our books, only the words go the wrong way.’

‘Would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they would give you milk there. Perhaps Looking-glass milk isn’t good. Oh, Kitty! How nice it would be if we could only get through into Looking-glass House! I’m sure there are such beautiful things in it! Let’s pretend we can find a way into it, Kitty. Look, it’s turning into a sort of mist! It will be easy to get through… ’.

In another moment Alice was through the glass, and jumped down into the Looking-glass room. First she looked if there was a fire in the fireplace. And she was pleased when she saw a real fire.

Then she began looking about – it was very interesting there! For example, the pictures on the wall were alive, and the clock on the chimney piece had got the face of a little old man, and he smiled at her.

She noticed some chessmen on the floor and thought that it wasn’t very tidy there. But in another moment, she understood that they were alive! The chessmen were walking about!

‘Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,’ Alice whispered, ‘and there are the White King and the White Queen… and here two castles are walking arm in arm. [170] arm in arm – под руку I don’t think they can hear me!’ she went on, as she put her head closer down. ‘And I’m sure they can’t see me. I feel as if I were invisible… ’

Something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and she turned her head and saw that one of the White Pawns fell down.

‘It is the voice of my child!’ the White Queen cried out. ‘My dear Lily!’

Alice wanted to help the White Queen, and she picked up the Queen and set her on the table to her noisy little daughter.

The journey through the air frightened the White Queen and for a minute or two she could do nothing but hug the little Lily in silence. But then she cried, ‘Mind the volcano!’ [171] Mind the volcano! – Берегись вулкана!

‘What volcano?’ said the White King, he looked into the fire, as if he thought there was a volcano.

‘It blew me up,’ said the White Queen, who was still frightened. ‘Come up the regular way!’

Alice watched the White King – he began coming up very slowly. Alice said, ‘I will help you!’ But he couldn’t hear and see her. Alice picked him up very gently, and lifted him. But, before she put him on the table, she began cleaning him – he was very dirty because of ashes. Of course, he was frightened too – he was hanging in the air and something was cleaning him!

Alice set him on the table near the Queen. The White King fell on his back and lay perfectly still. Alice worried about him and started looking for some water for him. However, she found only a bottle of ink, and when she went back the White King had already recovered. He and the Queen were talking together in a frightened whisper… so low, that Alice could hardly hear what they were saying.

The King said: ‘I turned cold to the very ends of my whiskers!’

‘You haven’t got any whiskers,’ the Queen said.

‘This horrible moment,’ the King went on, ‘I will never, never forget!’

‘You will,’ the Queen said, ‘if you don’t make a note of it. [172] to make a note of it – записать, сделать пометку ’

The King took a big note-book out of his pocket, and began writing. A sudden thought came to Alice, and she took the end of his pencil and began writing for him.

The poor King look puzzled and unhappy, and at last he said: ‘My dear! I need another pencil. It writes what I don’t want to write!’

The Queen looked into the book – ‘ The White Knight is sliding down the poker. He balances very badly.’ ‘But these aren’t your thoughts!’

There was a book near Alice on the table, and she opened it and read.

At first she was puzzled vey much, but then she understood everything. ‘It’s a Looking-glass book, of course! And if I hold it up to a glass, the words will all go the right way again.” This was the poem that Alice read.

‘It is very pretty,’ Alice said, ‘but it’s very hard to understand! It seems to fill my head with ideas… only I don’t exactly know what they are!’

‘Oh!’ thought Alice suddenly, ‘I want to see the rest of the house! Let’s start with the garden first!’ and ran downstairs.

‘I will see the garden better,’ said Alice to herself, ‘if I get to the top of that hill. And there is a path that leads straight to it. But… how it twists! Well, this turn goes to the hill, I think… no, it doesn’t! It goes straight back to the house! Well then, I’ll try it the other way.’

And so she did: she followed the path, but always came back to the house.

‘No!’ Alice said, looking up at the house. ‘I don’t want to go in yet. I will come back home through Looking-glass and it will be the end of my adventures!’

However, there was the hill full in sight, [174] there was the hill full in sight – до холма было рукой подать so she started again. This time she passed large flower-bed, with a border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.

‘O Tiger-lily,’ said Alice to one flower that was waving in the wind, ‘ I wish you could talk! [175] I wish you could talk! – Жаль, что вы не умеете разговаривать! ’

‘We can talk,’ said the Tiger-lily: ‘ when there is someone to talk to. [176] when there is someone to talk to – когда есть с кем поговорить ’