Льюис Кэрролл - Алиса в Стране чудес / Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

‘I’m sure I’m very sorry,’ was all Alice could say; for the words of the old song kept ringing through her head like the ticking of a clock, and she could hardly help saying them out loud: –

‘I know what you’re thinking about,’ said Tweedledum: ‘but it isn’t so, nohow.’

‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’

‘I was thinking,’ Alice said very politely, ‘which is the best way out of this wood: it’s getting so dark. Would you tell me, please?’

But the little men only looked at each other and grinned.

They looked so exactly like a couple of great schoolboys, that Alice couldn’t help pointing her finger at Tweedledum, and saying ‘First Boy!’

‘Nohow!’ Tweedledum cried out briskly, and shut his mouth up again with a snap.

‘Next Boy!’ said Alice, passing on to Tweedledee, though she felt quite certain he would only shout out ‘Contrariwise!’ and so he did.

‘You’ve been wrong!’ cried Tweedledum. ‘The first thing in a visit is to say “How d’ye do?” and shake hands!’ And here the two brothers gave each other a hug, and then they held out the two hands that were free, to shake hands with her.

Alice did not like shaking hands with either of them first, for fear of hurting the other one’s feelings; so, as the best way out of the difficulty, she took hold of both hands at once: the next moment they were dancing found in a ring. This seemed quite natural (she remembered afterwards), and she was not even surprised to hear music playing: it seemed to come from the tree under which they were dancing, and it was done (as well as she could make it out) by the branches rubbing one across the other, like fiddles and fiddlesticks.

‘But it certainly was funny,’ (Alice said afterwards, when she was telling her sister the history of all this,) ‘to find myself singing “ Here we go round the mulberry bush .” [64] “Here we go round the mulberry bush” – Эта песенка используется в игре: ее поют, кружась в хороводе. I don’t know when I began it, but somehow I felt as if I’d been singing it a long long time!’

The other two dancers were fat, and very soon out of breath. ‘Four times round is enough for one dance,’ Tweedledum panted out, and they left off dancing as suddenly as they had begun: the music stopped at the same moment.

Then they let go of Alice’s hands, and stood looking at her for a minute: there was a rather awkward pause, as Alice didn’t know how to begin a conversation with people she had just been dancing with. ‘It would never do to say “How d’ye do?” now ,’ she said to herself: ‘we seem to have got beyond that, somehow!’

‘I hope you’re not much tired?’ she said at last.

‘Nohow. And thank you very much for asking,’ said Tweedledum.

‘So much obliged!’ added Tweedledee. ‘You like poetry?’

‘Yees, pretty well – some poetry,’ Alice said doubtfully. ‘Would you tell me which road leads out of the wood?’

‘What shall I repeat to her?’ said Tweedledee, looking round at Tweedledum with great solemn eyes, and not noticing Alice’s question.

‘“ The Walrus and the Carpenter ” is the longest,’ Tweedledum replied, giving his brother an affectionate hug.

Tweedledee began instantly:

‘The sun was shining–’

Here Alice ventured to interrupt him. ‘If it’s very long,’ she said, as politely as she could, ‘would you please tell me first which road –’

Tweedledee smiled gently, and began again:

‘I like the Walrus best,’ said Alice: ‘because he was a little sorry for the poor oysters.’

‘He ate more than the Carpenter, though,’ said Tweedledee. ‘You see he held his handkerchief in front, so that the Carpenter couldn’t count how many he took: contrariwise.’

‘That was mean!’ Alice said indignantly. ‘Then I like the Carpenter best – if he didn’t eat so many as the Walrus.’

‘But he ate as many as he could get,’ said Tweedledum.

This was a puzzler. After a pause, Alice began, ‘Well! They were both very unpleasant characters –’ Here she checked herself in some alarm, at hearing something that sounded to her like the puffing of a large steamengine in the wood near them, though she feared it was more likely to be a wild beast. ‘Are there any lions or tigers about here?’ she asked timidly.

‘It’s only the Red King snoring,’ said Tweedledee.

‘Come and look at him!’ the brothers cried, and they each took one of Alice’s hands, and led her up to where the King was sleeping.

‘Isn’t he a lovely sight?’ said Tweedledum.

Alice couldn’t say honestly that he was. He had a tall red nightcap [65] Nightcap – ночные колпаки использовались в эпоху, когда спальни отапливались каминами. К утру температура в комнате падала, и колпак защищал голову от утреннего холода. on, with a tassel, and he was lying crumpled up into a sort of untidy heap, and snoring loud – ‘fit to snore his head off!’ as Tweedledum remarked.

‘I’m afraid he’ll catch cold with lying on the damp grass,’ said Alice, who was a very thoughtful little girl.

‘He’s dreaming now,’ said Tweedledee: ‘and what do you think he’s dreaming about?’

Alice said ‘Nobody can guess that.’

‘Why, about you !’ Tweedledee exclaimed, clapping his hands triumphantly. ‘And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?’

‘Where I am now, of course,’ said Alice.

‘Not you!’ Tweedledee retorted contemptuously. ‘You’d be nowhere. Why, you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!’

‘If that there King was to wake,’ added Tweedledum, ‘you’d go out – bang! – just like a candle!’

‘I shouldn’t!’ Alice exclaimed indignantly. ‘Besides, if I’m only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you , I should like to know?’

‘Ditto [66] Ditto – точно, полностью согласен. ’ said Tweedledum.

‘Ditto, ditto’ cried Tweedledee.

He shouted this so loud that Alice couldn’t help saying ‘Hush! You’ll be waking him, I’m afraid, if you make so much noise.’

‘Well, it no use your talking about waking him,’ said Tweedledum, ‘when you’re only one of the things in his dream. You know very well you’re not real.’

‘I am real!’ said Alice, and began to cry.

‘You won’t make yourself a bit realler by crying,’ Tweedledee remarked: ‘there’s nothing to cry about.’

‘If I wasn’t real,’ Alice said – halflaughing through her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous – ‘I shouldn’t be able to cry.’

‘I hope you don’t suppose those are real tears?’ Tweedledum interrupted in a tone of great contempt.

‘I know they’re talking nonsense,’ Alice thought to herself: ‘and it’s foolish to cry about it.’ So she brushed away her tears, and went on, as cheerfully as she could. ‘At any rate I’d better be getting out of the wood, for really it’s coming on very dark. Do you think it’s going to rain?’

Tweedledum spread a large umbrella over himself and his brother, and looked up into it. ‘No, I don’t think it is,’ he said: ‘at least – not under here . Nohow.’