Алиса в Зазеркалье / Through the Looking-glass, and What Alice Found There

You can be the White Queen’s Pawn, if you like. You’re in the Second Square: when you get to the Eighth Square you’ll be a Queen … ” Just at this moment they began to run.

They were running hand in hand, and the Queen went very fast and she cried to Alice “Faster! Faster!” Alice felt that she could not go faster.

The most curious thing was, that the trees and the other things round them never changed their places at all!

The Queen kept crying [12 - kept crying – продолжала кричать]“Faster! Faster!”

“Are we nearly there?” Alice asked at last.

“Nearly there!” the Queen said. “Faster! Now! Now!”

And they went so fast that they hardly touched the ground with their feet! Suddenly they stopped.

The Queen said kindly, “You may rest a little now.”

Alice looked round her in great surprise. “We have been under this tree the whole time! Nothing changed!”

“Of course,” said the Queen. “Here we have to run in order to stay in the same place.

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run faster!”

Alice did not know what to say, but the Queen did not wait for an answer. “You know that a pawn goes two squares in its first move. So you will go very quickly through the Third Square … by train[13 - by train – поездом], I think. Well, the Fourth Square belongs to Tweedledum and Tweedledee[14 - Tweedledum and Tweedledee – Труляля и Траляля (персонажи книги)]. The Fifth one is covered with water.

The Sixth Square belongs to Humpty Dumpty[15 - Humpty Dumpty – Шалтай-Болтай (персонаж книги)]. The Seventh Square is a forest. One of the Knights will show you the way. And in the Eighth Square we will be Queens together, and have a lot of fun!” Alice got up and curtseyed, and sat down again.

The Red Queen said “good-bye,” and then disappeared.

And Alice began to remember that she was a Pawn, and soon she would make a move.

Exercises

1.

Why could the flowers talk?

1. The flowers were magical.

2. The flowers learnt a lot from the books.

3. People talked to them very often.

4. The ground was hard, so the flowers were not asleep all the time.

2. What flowers were the noisiest?

1. Daisies

2. Roses

3. Violets

4. Lilies

3. Point out what directions the Red Queen gave to Alice.

1. Look up, speak nicely, and don’t twiddle your fingers!

2.