Explore Chapter 2 of "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" with the original English text, English translation, detailed IELTS vocabulary and explanations, and audio of the English original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
"Stranger and stranger!" cried Alice (she was so surprised that she forgot how to speak proper English for a moment); "now I'm stretching out like the biggest telescope ever! Goodbye, feet!" (because when she looked down at her feet, they seemed almost out of sight, as they were getting so far away). "Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I'm sure I won't be able! I'll be too far away to worry about you: you must do your best;—but I must be kind to them," thought Alice, "or they might not walk where I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them new boots every Christmas." And she kept planning how to do it. "They must be sent by mail," she thought; "and how silly it will seem, sending gifts to my own feet! And how strange the address will look!
ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ. HEARTHRUG, NEAR THE FENDER, (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).
Oh dear, what silly things I'm saying!"
Just then, her head hit the roof of the hall: she was now over nine feet tall, and she quickly picked up the little golden key and rushed to the garden door.
Poor Alice! She could only lie on her side and peek into the garden with one eye; but getting through was even more impossible than before: she sat down and started crying again.
"You should be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a big girl like you," (she could say this), "to keep crying like this! Stop right now, I tell you!" But she kept crying, shedding lots of tears, until there was a large pool all around her, about four inches deep and reaching halfway down the hall.
After a while, she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she quickly dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, dressed finely, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in a hurry, muttering to himself, "Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she be angry if I've kept her waiting!" Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask anyone for help; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, sir—" The Rabbit jumped, dropped the gloves and fan, and ran away into the darkness as fast as he could.
Alice picked up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself while she talked: "Dear, dear! How strange everything is today! And yesterday things were normal. I wonder if I've been changed during 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 am I? Ah, THAT'S the big puzzle!"
And she began thinking over all the children she knew who were her age, to see if she could have been changed for any of them.
"I'm sure I'm not Ada," she said, "for her hair is in long curls, and mine isn't curly at all; and I'm sure I can't be Mabel, for I know many things, and she, oh! she knows very little! Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I, and—oh dear, how confusing 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'll never get to twenty that way! However, the Multiplication Table doesn't matter: 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 sure! I must have been changed for Mabel!"
"I'll try to say 'How doth the little—'" and she crossed her hands on her lap as if reciting lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange, and the words didn't come out as before:—
"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, "I must be Mabel after all, and I'll have to go and live in that tiny house, with almost no toys to play with, and oh! so many lessons to learn! No, I've decided; if I'm Mabel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use for them to put their heads down and say 'Come up again, dear!' I'll 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 someone else'—but, oh dear!" cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so 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 talking.
"How can I have done that?" she thought.
She got up and went to the table to measure herself, and found that, as best she could guess, she was now about two feet tall, and was shrinking quickly: she soon found that the cause was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away completely.
"That was a close call!" said Alice, very frightened by the sudden change, but glad to be alive; "and now for the garden!"
and she ran back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was 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 say it's too bad!"
As she said these words, her foot slipped, and splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.
Her first idea was that she had 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, and thought that on the English coast you always see bathing machines in the sea, children digging in the sand, a row of houses, and a railway station behind them.)
However, she soon realized she was in the pool of tears she had cried when she was nine feet tall.
"I wish I hadn't cried so much!" said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. "I'll be punished for it now, I suppose, by drowning in my own tears! That will be a strange thing, for sure! But everything is strange today."
Just then she heard something splashing in the pool a little way off, and she swam closer to see what it was: at first she thought it was a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was, and she soon saw it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
"Would it be any use," thought Alice, "to talk to this mouse? Everything is so odd here, that it might be able to talk: at least, 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 here, O Mouse!" (Alice thought this was the right way to speak to a mouse: she had never done it before, but remembered from her brother's Latin book, "A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!") The Mouse looked at her curiously, and seemed to wink with one eye, but it said nothing.
"Perhaps it doesn't understand English," thought Alice; "I guess it's a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror." (For, with all her history knowledge, Alice had no clear idea how long ago things happened.)
So she began again: "Où est ma chatte?" which was the first sentence in her French book. The Mouse jumped out of the water, and seemed to shake all over with fright. "Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice quickly, afraid she had hurt its feelings. "I forgot you don't like cats." "Not like cats!" cried the Mouse, in a sharp, angry voice. "Would you like cats if you were me?" "Well, perhaps not," said Alice in a calming tone: "don't be angry. And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you'd like cats if you saw her. She is such a dear quiet thing," Alice went on, half to herself, as she swam lazily, "and she sits purring by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face—and she is nice to hold—and she's good at catching mice—oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Alice again, for the Mouse was bristling, and she felt it was offended. "We won't talk about her if you don't want to." "We indeed!" cried the Mouse, trembling to the end of his tail. "As if I would talk about that! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, common things! Don't let me hear the name again!" "I won't indeed!" said Alice, hurrying to change the subject. "Are you—are you fond of dogs?" The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly: "There's a nice little dog near our house I'd like to show you! A bright-eyed terrier, with long curly brown hair! And it fetches things, sits up and begs, and does many things—I can't remember half—and it belongs to a farmer, who says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds! He says it kills all the rats and—oh dear!" cried Alice sadly, "I'm afraid I've offended it again!" For the Mouse was swimming away as fast as it could, making a stir in the pool. So she called softly after it, "Mouse dear! Do come back, and we won't talk about cats or dogs, if you don't like them!" When the Mouse heard this, it turned and swam slowly back: its face was pale (with anger, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, "Let us get to the shore, and then I'll tell you my story, and you'll understand why I hate cats and dogs." It was high time to go, for the pool was getting crowded with birds and animals that had fallen in: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other strange creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole group swam to the shore.