Through the Looking Glass

                        by LEWIS CARROLL

                            CHAPTER 1

                       Looking-Glass house

  One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do
with it: -- it was the black kitten's fault entirely.  For the white
kitten had been having its face washed by the old cat for the last
quarter of an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you
see that it COULDN'T have had any hand in the mischief.

  The way Dinah washed her children's faces was this: first she held
the poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other
paw she rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the
nose: and just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white
kitten, which was lying quite still and trying to purr -- no doubt
feeling that it was all meant for its good.

  But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the
afternoon, and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of
the great arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the
kitten had been having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted
Alice had been trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down
till it had all come undone again; and there it was, spread over the
hearth-rug, all knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its
own tail in the middle.

  `Oh, you wicked little thing!' cried Alice, catching up the kitten,
and giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in
disgrace.  `Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners!
You OUGHT, Dinah, you know you ought!' she added, looking
reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she
could manage -- and then she scrambled back into the arm-chair,
taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the
ball again.  But she didn't get on very fast, as she was talking all
the time, sometimes to the kitten, and sometimes to herself.  Kitty
sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of
the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching
the ball, as if it would be glad to help, if it might.

  `Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began.  `You'd have
guessed if you'd been up in the window with me -- only Dinah was
making you tidy, so you couldn't.  I was watching the boys getting in
stick for the bonfire -- and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty!  Only
it got so cold, and it snowed so, they had to leave off.  Never mind,
Kitty, we'll go and see the bonfire to-morrow.'  Here Alice wound two
or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see
how it would look: this led to a scramble, in which the ball rolled
down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound again.

  `Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' Alice went on as soon as they
were comfortably settled again, `when I saw all the mischief you had
been doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out
into the snow!  And you'd have deserved it, you little mischievous
darling!  What have you got to say for yourself?  Now don't interrupt
me!' she went on, holding up one finger.  `I'm going to tell you all
your faults.  Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing
your face this morning.  Now you can't deny it, Kitty: I heard you!
What that you say?' (pretending that the kitten was speaking.)  `Her
paw went into your eye?  Well, that's YOUR fault, for keeping your
eyes open -- if you'd shut them tight up, it wouldn't have happened.
Now don't make any more excuses, but listen!  Number two: you pulled
Snowdrop away by the tail just as I had put down the saucer of milk
before her!  What, you were thirsty, were you?

How do you know she wasn't thirsty too?  Now for number three: you
unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn't looking!

  `That's three faults, Kitty, and you've not been punished for any
of them yet.  You know I'm saving up all your punishments for
Wednesday week -- Suppose they had saved up all MY punishments!'  she
went on, talking more to herself than the kitten.  `What WOULD they
do at the end of a year?  I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when
the day came.  Or -- let me see -- suppose each punishment was to be
going without a dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should
have to go without fifty dinners at once!  Well, I shouldn't mind
THAT much!  I'd far rather go without them than eat them!

  `Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty?  How nice
and soft it sounds!  Just as if some one was kissing the window all
over outside.  I wonder if the snow LOVES the trees and fields, that
it kisses them so gently?  And then it covers them up snug, you know,
with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till
the summer comes again."  And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty,
they dress themselves all in green, and dance about -- whenever the
wind blows -- oh, that's very pretty!' cried Alice, dropping the ball
of worsted to clap her hands.  `And I do so WISH it was true!  I'm
sure the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting
brown.

  `Kitty, can you play chess?  Now, don't smile, my dear, I'm asking
it seriously.  Because, when we were playing just now, you watched
just as if you understood it: and when I said "Check!"  you purred!
Well, it WAS a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it
hadn't been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my
pieces.  Kitty, dear, let's pretend -- ' And here I wish I could tell
you half the things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite