Chapter II. The Pool of Tears

“Curiouser and curiouser!” |Страньше и страньше| cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); “now I’m opening out |раскрываюсь| like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!” (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight |почти не видно|, they were getting so far off). “Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able |я не смогу|! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself |Я же теперь буду так далеко, чтобы беспокоиться| about you: you must manage the best way you can |вы должны справляться как можно лучше|; – but I must be kind to them,” thought Alice, “or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.”

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. “They must go by the carrier |Подарки должны будут доставляться курьером|,” she thought; “and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice’s Right Foot, Esq.,

Hearthrug, near the Fender |коврик возле камина|,

(with Alice’s love).

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!”

Just then her head struck against |ударилось о крышу| the roof of the hall: in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

Poor Alice! It was as much as she could do, lying down on one side |лежа на боку|, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get through was more hopeless than ever: she sat down and began to cry again.

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself |Тебе должно быть стыдно|,” said Alice, “a great |здесь – большая| girl like you,” (she might well say this |тут она вероятно была права|), “to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same |все равно продолжила|, shedding |проливая| gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning |обдувала| herself all the time she went on talking: “Dear, dear! How queer |странно| everything is to-day! And yesterday things went on just as usual. I wonder if I’ve been changed |меня подменили| in 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 in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle!” And she began thinking over |обдумывать| all the children she knew that were of the same age as herself, to see if she could have been changed |ее могли бы подменить| for any of them.

“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long ringlets |кольцами|, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and – oh dear, how puzzling 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 shall never get to twenty at that rate! However, the Multiplication Table |таблица умножения| doesn’t signify |ничего еще не означает|: 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 certain! I must have been changed for Mabel! I’ll try and say ‘How doth |дорожит| the little —’” and she crossed her hands on her lap |коленях| as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse |хрипло| and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:

“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 as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all |все-таки|, and I shall have to go and live in that poky |убогом| little house, and have next to no toys |почти без игрушек. Оборот to have next to no/nothing… – почти не иметь чего-либо| to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve made up my mind |я решила| about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall 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 somebody else’ – but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears |потоком слез|, “I do wish they would put their heads down |заглянули бы сюда|! I am so very 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 she was talking. “How can I have done that |Как я так могла сделать|?” she thought. “I must be growing small |уменьшаюсь| again.” She got up and went to the table to measure |измерить| herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly |продолжала стремительно уменьшаться|: she soon found out |поняла| that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

“That was a narrow escape!” |буквально – это был узкий побег. Лучше – едва спаслась!| said Alice, a good deal frightened |сильно напугана. A good deal – большое количество чего-либо| at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence |что до сих пор существует|; “and now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying 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 declare it’s too bad, that it is!”

As she said these words her foot slipped |поскользнулась|, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin |по подбородок| in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by railway |вернусь по железной дороге|,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside |на море| once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines |купальни| in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades |лопатками|, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out |поняла| that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept |наревела| when she was nine feet high.

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned |тем, что утону| in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off |немного в стороне|, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus |морж| or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in |соскользнула в воду| like herself.

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way |необычно| down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying |хуже не будет|.” So she began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen |как видела| in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively |недоуменно|, and seemed to her to wink |как будто подмигнула| with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay |осмелюсь сказать| it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” |Вильгельмом Завоевателем, первым английским правителем| (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion |понимания| how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: “Où est ma chatte?” |Где моя кошка?| which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out |выпрыгнула| of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright |вся затрепетала от страха|. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.”

“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would you like cats if you were me?”

“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry about it. And yet |Но все же| I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d take a fancy |полюбили бы| to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself |продолжила задумчиво|, as she swam lazily about in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face – and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse |поласкать| – and she’s such a capital one for catching mice |как она превосходно ловит мышей| – oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over |вся взъерошилась|, and she felt certain it must be really offended |оскорблена|. “We won’t talk about her any more if you’d rather not.”

“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling |дрожала| down to the end of his tail. “As if I would talk |Как будто это я заговорила| on such a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again!”

“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. “Are you – are you fond – of – of dogs?” The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly |нетерпеливо|: “There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed |блестящие| terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch |ловит| things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg |просит| for its dinner, and all sorts of things – I can’t remember half of them – and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds |фунтов стерлингов|! He says it kills all the rats and – oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, “I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went |волнение в луже от движения|.

So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion |от эмоций|, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.”