Chapter I
Down the Rabbit-Hole
Alice[1] was boring. She was sitting by her sister on the bank of the river, and doing nothing. Once or twice she looked at the book that her sister held in her hands, but there were no pictures in it. “What is the use of a book[2],” thought Alice “without pictures or conversations?”
She decided to get up and pick some flowers, when suddenly a White Rabbit[3] with pink eyes ran nearby. There was nothing remarkable in that; but the Rabbit said, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I am late!” Then the Rabbit took a watch out of its pocket, and looked at it. Alice stood up. How strange! A rabbit has pockets, and a watch! She ran across the field after it. The Rabbit jumped into a large rabbit-hole[4] under the hedge.
Alice went after it. The rabbit-hole was like a tunnel. Alice began to fall down a deep well. The well was very deep, and she was falling very slowly. Down, down, down. Where is the end?
It took her a long time to go down, and as she went she had time to look at the strange things around her. First she tried to look down, but it was too dark to see. Then she looked at the sides of the well and saw many book-shelves; here and there she saw different maps. She took a jar from one of the shelves as she passed. On it was a label “ORANGE MARMALADE”, but there was no marmalade in it, so she put it back on one of the shelves.
“I’m sure I am going to the centre of the earth,” Alice said aloud. “It is four thousand miles down, I think. But maybe I am falling right through the earth[5]! How funny! The people there walk with their heads downward! I shall ask them what the name of the country is, you know. Please, Ma’am, is this New Zealand or Australia?”
Down, down, down. Nothing to do. Alice soon began to talk again. “Dinah[6] will miss me very much tonight, I think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll give her milk. Dinah my dear! Where are you? Why not with me down here? There are no mice in the air, I’m afraid, but you can catch a bat. But do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Dinah, tell me the truth: do you eat bats?”
Suddenly, thump! thump![7] she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves. Alice jumped up on to her feet very fast: she looked up, but it was dark there. Before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit went down it. Alice went like the wind. The Rabbit was saying, “Oh my ears and whiskers, how late, how late!” And he disappeared.
Alice stood in a long, low hall, a row of lamps was hanging from the roof. There were many doors on all sides, but they were all locked. She walked back and forth and tried to think how to get out. Suddenly she saw a little glass table; there was a tiny golden key on it. Alice thought that this was the key to one of the doors of the hall, but when she tried the key in each lock, she found that the locks were too large or the key was too small.
Then Alice noticed a little door about fifteen inches high[8]. She tried the key in the lock, and to her great joy it fitted. Alice opened the door and found a small passage, not larger than a rat-hole[9]. But how to get there? She was too big for that passage. She knelt down and looked through it into a garden of flowers.
Alice went back to the table: this time she found a little bottle on it, which was not there before, and round the neck of the bottle[10] was a paper label with the words “DRINK ME” in large letters.
It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice said, “No, I’ll look first. Is it marked “poison” or not?” She knew: if you drink much from a bottle marked “poison,” it will certainly make you sick.
However, this bottle was not marked “poison,” so Alice decided to taste it, and found it very nice (it had a taste of a cherry-cake, ice-cream, pine-apple, roast turkey, and hot toast).
“How strange I feel” said Alice; “I am sure I am not so large as I was.”
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high. She was now the right size to go through the small door and get out to that beautiful garden. So she decided to enter; but, alas for poor Alice! she forgot the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she could not reach it: she was too little. Poor little Alice sat down and cried.
Soon she saw a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which she noticed the words “EAT ME”. “Well, I’ll eat it,” said Alice, “and if I grow larger, I can reach the key; and if I grow smaller, I can creep under the door!”
She soon ate all the cake.
