Алиса в Зазеркалье / Through the Looking-glass, and What Alice Found There

Адаптация текста, комментарий, упражнения и словарь Д. В. Положенцевой

© Положенцева Д. В., адаптация текста, комментарии, упражнения, словарь

© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2019

Chapter 1
Looking-Glass House

Alice was sitting in the great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep. One of her kittens, Kitty, was playing with a ball of yarn, rolling it up and down on the floor. The whole room was in a mess^[1].

“Oh, you wicked little thing!”^[2] cried Alice and caught the kitten. She gave it a little kiss. “Where are your manners? Dinah has to teach you how to behave!” She sat down and began to wind up the ball again. Kitty sat next to her and watched the process.

“Oh, I was so angry, Kitty,” Alice went on, “when I saw all the mischief you have done! What have you got to say for yourself? ^[3]I will punish you some day!”

After a while Alice talked to the kitten again. “Oh, Kitty, can you play chess? Don’t smile, my dear, I’m asking you seriously. 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? Would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty? I wonder if they would give you milk there. 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.

She began looking about. She noticed some chessmen on the floor and thought that it wasn’t very tidy there. But in another moment, she saw 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 … 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 next to her noisy little daughter.

That 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!”^[4]

“What volcano?” said the White King.

“It blew me up,” said the White Queen, who was still frightened.

Alice watched the White King. She said, “I will help you!” She 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. When the White King recovered, he started talking to the Queen in a frightened whisper. Alice could barely 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!”

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

 
sevot yhtils eht dna ,gillirb sawT‘
ebaw eht ni elbmig dna eryg diD
,sevogorob eht erew ysmim llA
.ebargtuo shtar emom eht dnA
 

At first she was puzzled very 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.

 
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.^[5]
 

“It is very pretty,” Alice said, “but it’s very hard to understand!”

Suddenly, she thought she wanted see the rest of the house. She decided to start with the garden.

Exercises

1. Choose the right variant:

1. Alice was sleeping in the great arm-chair.

2. Alice was talking to herself and to the kitten.

3. Alice was doing her homework.

4. Alice was reading a book.

2. Why was Alice angry with the kitten?

1. The kitten was very noisy.

2. The kitten played with the ball of yarn.

3. The room was in a mess while the kitten was playing with the ball of yarn.

4. The kitten was very dirty.

3. What was Alice’s favourite phrase?

1. Let’s play…

2. Let’s build a snowman!

3. Let’s go for a walk!

4. Let’s pretend…

4. What time of the year was it?

1. Winter

2. Summer

3. Spring

4. Autumn

5. Choose the right variant:

1. Alice was frightened and wanted to come back home.

2. Alice was invisible and chessmen couldn’t see and hear her.

3. Alice made friends with the chessmen.

4. Alice helped the White King and he thanked her.

6. Did Alice understand anything in the poem?

1. Yes, she understood everything.

2. She understood only the part of it.

3. No, she didn’t understand it at all.

4. No, she didn’t understand it, but her head was filled with some ideas.

7. Complete the sentences with these expressions:

say for yourself, make a note of, for its own good, arm in arm

1. The White castles were walking about the room ………….

2. ‘Kitty, what can you …………? I’m going to tell you all your faults!’

3. The White King wanted to ………… what had happened.

4. Dinah washed the face of the kitten, but Snowdrop understood that it was ………….

8. Insert the right prepositions:

out, up, into, on, through

1. She sat back ……… the arm-chair.

2. You can see a room ……… the glass… it’s just the same as our living room.

3. She picked ……… the Queen and set her ……… the table to her noisy little daughter.

4. The King took a big note-book ……… of his pocket, and began writing.

9. Complete the table:

Chapter 2
The Garden of Live Flowers

“I will see the garden better,” said Alice to herself, “if I get to the top of that hill.”

And she followed the path, but it always came back to the house.

“No!” Alice said, looking up at the house. “I don’t want to go in yet!”

She went to the hill again. This time she walked past a large flower-bed.

“O Tiger-lily,” said Alice to one flower, “I wish you could talk!^[6]”

“We can talk,” said the Tiger-lily, “when there is someone to talk to^[7].”

Alice was so surprised that she could not speak for a minute. Then she asked, “And can all the flowers talk?”

“Yes, as well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily.

“Are you frightened that nobody takes care of you^[8]?”

“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose, “what else is it good for?”

“But what can it do, if any danger comes?” Alice asked.

“It can bark^[9],” said the Rose.

“Didn’t you know that?” cried another Daisy.

“How can you talk so well?” Alice asked. “I visited many gardens, but flowers couldn’t talk.”

“Put your hand down, and feel the ground,” said the Tiger-lily. “Then you’ll know why.”

Alice did so. “It’s very hard,” she said.

“In most gardens,” the Tiger-lily said, “the flower-beds are too soft … so that the flowers are always asleep.”

This sounded like a very good reason. “I never thought of that before!” said Alice. “Are there any more people in the garden besides me?”

“There’s one other flower in the garden that can move like you,” said the Rose.

Alice thought there was another little girl in the garden somewhere.

“Does she ever come here?” she asked.

“I think you will see her soon,” said the Rose. “She has thorns.”

“Where does she wear the thorns?” Alice asked with some curiosity.

“All round her head, of course,” the Rose replied. “I wonder why you haven’t got them. Oh, she’s coming! I hear her footsteps!”

Alice looked round, and saw that it was the Red Queen. She decided to talk to her.

“You can’t do that,” said the Rose. “You should walk the other way^[10].”

“Nonsense”, Alice thought, so she said nothing, and went towards the Red Queen.

“Where do you come from?” asked the Red Queen. “And where are you going? Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers!”

Alice explained that she was lost.

“But why did you come here at all? Curtsey while you’re thinking what to say, it saves time^[11].”

“I only wanted to see the garden, your Majesty … and I thought I’d try and find my way to the top of that hill …”

“When you say ‘hill’,” the Queen said, “I can show you hills, in comparison with which you will call that a valley.”

Alice curtseyed again, because she was afraid that the Queen could be offended. And they walked on in silence and reached the top of the little hill.

For some time Alice stood and said nothing, looking out in all directions over the country.

“It is just like a large chess-board!” Alice said at last. “It’s a great huge game of chess. Oh, what fun it is! I would like even to be a Pawn, if only I can join … although, of course, I’d like to be a Queen!”

The Red Queen only smiled, and said, “That’s easy. You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like. You’re in the Second Square: when you get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen … ” Just at this moment they began to run.

They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went very fast and she cried to Alice “Faster! Faster!” Alice felt that she could not go faster.

The most curious thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all!

The Queen kept crying ^[12]“Faster! Faster!”

“Are we nearly there?” Alice asked at last.

“Nearly there!” the Queen said. “Faster! Now! Now!”

And they went so fast that they hardly touched the ground with their feet! Suddenly they stopped.

The Queen said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”

Alice looked round her in great surprise. “We have been under this tree the whole time! Nothing changed!”

“Of course,” said the Queen. “Here we have to run in order to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run faster!”

Alice did not know what to say, but the Queen did not wait for an answer. “You know that a pawn goes two squares in its first move. So you will go very quickly through the Third Square … by train^[13], I think. Well, the Fourth Square belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee^[14]. The Fifth one is covered with water. The Sixth Square belongs to Humpty Dumpty^[15]. The Seventh Square is a forest. One of the Knights will show you the way. And in the Eighth Square we will be Queens together, and have a lot of fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again.

The Red Queen said “good-bye,” and then disappeared.

And Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and soon she would make a move.