Extraído de: http://www.gasl.org/refbib/Carroll__Wonderland.pdf

CHAPTER I

Down the Rabbit-Hole

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on thebank, and of having nothing to do : once or twice she had peeped intothe book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversationsin it, “ and what is the use of a book, ” thought Alice, “ without picturesor conversations ? ”

So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, forthe hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasureof making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ranclose by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that ; nor did Alice think itso very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “ Oh dear !Oh dear ! I shall be too late ! ” (when she thought it over afterwards, itoccurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the timeit all seemed quite natural) ; but, when the Rabbit actually took a watchout of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alicestarted to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had neverbefore seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to takeout of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it,and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under thehedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once consider-ing how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, andthen dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a momentto think about stopping herself before she found herself falling downwhat seemed to be a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she hadplenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonderwhat was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and makeout what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything : thenshe looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filledwith cupboards and book-shelves : here and there she saw maps andpictures hung upon pegs. She took down a jar from one of the shelvesas she passed : it was labeled “ ORANGE MARMALADE, ” but toher great disappointment it was empty : she did not like to drop the jar,for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into oneof the cupboards as she fell past it.

“ Well ! ” thought Alice to herself. “ After such a fall as this, I shallthink nothing of tumbling down-stairs ! How brave they’ll all think meat home ! Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the topof the house ! ” (Which was very likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end ? “ I won-der how many miles I’ve fallen by this time ? ” she said aloud. “ I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see : thatwould be four thousand miles down, I think— ” (for, you see, Alice hadlearnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the school-room, andthough this was not a very good opportunity for showing off herknowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good prac-tice to say it over) “ —yes, that’s about the right distance—but then Iwonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to ? ” (Alice had not theslightest idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but she thoughtthey were nice grand words to say.)

Presently she began again. “ I wonder if I shall fall right through theearth ! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walkwith their heads downwards ! The antipathies, I think— ” (she wasrather glad there was no one listening, this time, as it didn’t sound at allthe right word) “ —but I shall have to ask them what the name of thecountry is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand ? Or Aus-tralia ? ” (and she tried to curtsey as she spoke—fancy, curtseying as you’refalling through the air ! Do you think you could manage it ?) “ And whatan ignorant little girl she’ll think me for asking ! No, it’ll never do toask : perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere. ”

Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soonbegan talking again. “ Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I shouldthink ! ” (Dinah was the cat.) “ I hope they’ll remember her saucer ofmilk at tea-time. Dinah, my dear ! I wish you were down here with me !There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, andthat’s very like a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder ? ”And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to her-self, in a dreamy sort of way, “ Do cats eat bats ? Do cats eat bats ? ” andsometimes “ Do bats eat cats ? ”, for, you see, as she couldn’t answereither question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it. She feltthat she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walk-ing hand in hand with Dinah, and was saying to her, very earnestly,“ Now, Dinah, tell me the truth : did you ever eat a bat ? ”, when sud-denly, thump ! thump ! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dryleaves, and the fall was over.

Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in amoment : she looked up, but it was all dark overhead : before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurryingdown it. There was not a moment to be lost : away went Alice like thewind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “ Oh myears and whiskers, how late it’s getting ! ” She was close behind it whenshe turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen : shefound herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lampshanging from the roof.

There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked ; andwhen Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, try-ing every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how shewas ever to get out again.

Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solidglass : there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first ideawas that this might belong to one of the doors of the hall ; but, alas ! eitherthe locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate it wouldnot open any of them. However, on the second time round, she cameupon a low curtainshe had not noticedbefore, and behind itwas a little doorabout fifteen incheshigh : she tried thelittle golden key inthe lock, and to hergreat delight it fitted !

Alice opened thedoor and found thatit led into a small pas-sage, not much larg-er than a rat-hole : sheknelt down andlooked along the pas-

sage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get outof that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowersand those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head throughthe doorway ; “ and even if my head would go through, ” thought poor Alice, “ it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how Iwish I could shut up like a telescope ! I think I could, if I only knew howto begin. ” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things had happenedlately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed werereally impossible.

There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she wentback to the table, half hoping she might find another key on it, or atany rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes : this timeshe found a little bottle on it (“ which certainly was not here before, ”said Alice), and tied round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, withthe words “ DRINK ME ” beautifully printed on it in large letters.

It was all very well to say“ Drink me, ” but the wiselittle Alice was not going todo that in a hurry. “ No, I’lllook first, ” she said, “ and seewhether it’s marked ‘ poison ’or not ” ; for she had readseveral nice little storiesabout children who had gotburnt, and eaten up by wildbeasts, and other unpleasantthings, all because theywould not remember thesimple rules their friendshad taught them : such as,that a red-hot poker willburn you if you hold it toolong ; and that, if you cutyour finger very deeply witha knife, it usually bleeds ; andshe had never forgottenthat, if you drink much from a bottle marked “ poison, ” it is almost cer-tain to disagree with you, sooner or later.

However, this bottle was not marked “ poison, ” so Alice ventured totaste it, and, finding it very nice (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffy, and hot butteredtoast), she very soon finished it off.

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“ What a curious feeling ! ” said Alice. “ I must be shutting up like atelescope ! ”

And so it was indeed : she was now only ten inches high, and her facebrightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for goingthrough the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, shewaited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further :she felt a little nervous about this ; “ for it might end, you know, ” saidAlice to herself, “ in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonderwhat I should be like then ? ” And she tried to fancy what the flame ofa candle looks like after the candle is blown out, for she could notremember ever having seen such a thing.

After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided ongoing into the garden at once ; but, alas for poor Alice ! when she gotto the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, andwhen she went back to the table for it, she found she could not pos-sibly reach it : she could see it quite plainly through the glass, and shetried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was tooslippery ; and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor littlething sat down and cried.

“ Come, there’s no use in crying like that ! ” said Alice to herself rathersharply. “ I advise you to leave off this minute ! ” She generally gave her-self very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and some-times she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes ; andonce she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheatedherself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for thiscurious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. “ But it’sno use now, ” thought poor Alice, “ to pretend to be two people ! Why,there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person ! ”

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table :she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words“ EAT ME ” were beautifully marked in currants. “ Well, I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “ and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key ; and ifit makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door : so either way I’llget into the garden, and I don’t care which happens !”

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself “ Which way ? Whichway ? ”, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way itwas growing ; and she was quite surprised to find that she remained thesame size. To be sure, this is what generally happens when one eatscake ; but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing butout-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupidfor life to go on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

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