Alice began to get bored; she had been sitting with her sister on the shore for a long time and had nothing to do. She did not like the book her sister read; because there were neither pictures norConversations in it. "And what good are books," thought Alice, "without pictures and conversations?"

She was just thinking (as well as she could, for she was sleepy and stupid of the heat), whether it was worth the trouble to get up and pick some daisies to tie a chain with, when suddenly a white rabbit with red eyes was tight ran past her.

That was not very strange at the moment; Alice did not find it very extraordinary that she heard the rabbit say, "Alas, alas! I'll be late! "(When she thought about it later, she remembered that she should have wondered about it, but at the moment everything seemed natural to her.) But when the rabbit pulled his watch out of his waistcoat pocket , after watching time and running away, Alice jumped up; for she had never before seen a rabbit with a vest pocket and a watch inside. Burning with curiosity, she ran after him across the grassy field, and came in time to see it slip into a big hole under the hedge.

The next moment she was after him in the Hole jumped in, not thinking how in the world she could come out again.The entrance to the rabbit hole ran straight ahead, like a tunnel, and then went downhill suddenly; Before Alice could even grasp the thought of holding on fast, she already felt that she was falling, as it seemed, into a deep, deep well. Either the well had to be very deep, or it fell very slowly; because she had time enough to look around at falling and to wonder what would happen now. At first she tried to look down to know where she was going, but it was too dark to see anything. Then she looked at the walls of the well and noticed that they were covered with kitchen cupboards and bookshelves; Here and there she saw maps and pictures hung on hooks. As she passed one of the boards she took a potty with the inscription " Potted Oranges, " but to her great annoyance it was empty. She did not want to drop it, for fear of killing somebody among herself; and she managed to push it into another cupboard she passed. "Well!" Alice thought to herself, "after oneCase I will not mind if I stumble down the stairs. How courageous they will find me at home! I would not talk much if I fell off the rooftop myself! "(Which was very likely).

Down, down, down! Did the case never end? "How many miles I've fallen now!" She said aloud. "I have to be at about the center of the earth. Let it be seen: that would be eight hundred and fifty miles, I believe - "(for you must know that Alice had learned such things in school, and though this was not a very good opportunity to show her knowledge, since no one was there to listen, so she thought to herself) - "yes, that's about the distance; but at which latitude and longitude I may have come? "(Alice did not have the slightest idea what neither length nor latitude was, but the words sounded grand and nice to her.)

Soon she started again. "May I fall through the earth! How strange it will be to get out with the people who are on their heads! the antipathies, I believe. "(This time it was her whole Dear, that no one was listening because the word did not sound right to her.) "But of course I'll have to ask her what the country's called. Please, dear lady, is this New Zealand or Australia? "(And she was trying to knit, - think, pinch, when you fall through the air! Could you get that done?)" But they'll call me an ignorant one hold little girl if I ask! No, it is not possible to ask; maybe I'll see it somewhere. "

Down, down, down! She could do nothing, so Alice started speaking again soon. " Dinah will certainly find me right tonight!" ( Dinah was the cat.) "I hope they will not forget their cup of milk for the hour. Dinah! Bad! I wish you were down here with me. I am only afraid, there are no mice in the air; but you could catch a sparrow; they'll be here in the air, do not you think so? And cats eat sparrows? "Here, Alice was a little sleepy, half talking in a dream. "Do cats like eating sparrows? Do cats like eating sparrows? Do sparrows like eating cats? "And since no one needed to answer them,so it did not matter how she asked the question. She felt that she was falling asleep and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah , asking her earnestly, "Well, Dinah , tell the truth, have you ever eaten a sparrow?" plump! plump! she came to lie on a heap of dry leaves and brushwood, and the case was over.

Alice had not hurt herself. She immediately jumped up and looked up; but it was dark over her. Ahead of her lay a second long corridor, and she could still see the white rabbit running in it. There was not a moment to lose: away, Alice ran like the wind, and just heard it say as it turned a corner: "Oh, ears and mustache, what time it is!" She was close behind him, but as she did Turned around the corner, the rabbit was no longer visible. She was in a long, low corridor, illuminated by a row of lamps hanging from the ceiling.

On either side of the corridor were doors; but they were all locked. Alice tried each door first on one side, then on the other; endshe walked sadly down the middle, considering how she could ever get out. Suddenly she was standing in front of a small three-legged table, all of thick glass . There was nothing on it but a tiny golden key, and Alice's first thought was that this would belong to one of the doors of the Corridor. But alas! either the locks were too big, or the key was too small; in short, he did not fit any one. However, the second time she walked around, she came to a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a door about fifteen inches high. She put the golden key in the keyhole, and to her great joy it fitted.

Alice unlocked the door and found that it led to a small walk, not much larger than a mouse hole. She knelt down and looked through the corridor into the most charming garden imaginable. How did she wish to get out of the dark corridor and wander about among the colorful flowerbeds and cool fountains; but she could hardly bury her head in the doorway. "And even if my head went through," poor Alice thought,"What would it do without the shoulders. Oh, I want to push myself together like a telescope! Surely, if only I knew how to start it. "Because there had been so many strange things about her recently that Alice began to believe that almost nothing was impossible.

It seemed quite useless to wait any longer at the little door. So she went back to the table, half hoping that she would find another key on it, or at any rate a book with instructions on how to put it together as a telescope. This timeshe found a vial on it. "Certainly not here before," said Alice; and around the neck of the vial was a note bound with the words, " Drink me! "Beautifully printed in large letters on it.

It was soon said, "Drink me," but the wise little Alice did not want to rush. "No, I'll look first," she said, "if a deadly head is on it or not." For she had read several pretty stories about children who had burned themselves or been consumed by wild animals, and in other uncomfortable situations just because they did not think of the warnings their friends had given them; for example, that a red-hot iron burns when touched; and thatif you cut your finger with a knife, it usually bleeds. And she had not forgotten that if you drink a lot from a bottle with a death's head on it, you'll get it infallibly bad.

This bottle, however, had no deadly head. Therefore, Alice dared to taste; and since it tasted good to her (it was actually like a mixture of cherry cake, cream sauce, pineapple, roast turkey, noodles, and poor knights), she drank the bottle.

"What a weird feeling!" Said Alice. "I'm certainly going to be like a telescope."And so it was indeed: now she was only ten inches high, and her face shone at the thought that she now had the right height to go through the little door into the beautiful garden. But first she waited a few minutes to see if she would shrink even more. She was somewhat anxious; "For it might stop," said Alice to herself, "that I go out altogether, like a light. I wonder what I would look like? "And she tried to imagine what the flame of a light looks like when the light is blown out; but she could not remember ever having seen this.

After a while, realizing that nothing was going to happen, she decided to go straight to the garden. But, poor Alice! When she came to the door, she had forgotten the golden key. She went back to the table to get it, but found that she could not possibly reach it. She saw it clearly through the glass, and she made every effort to climb one of the table feet, but it was too slippery; and when she had worked very tired, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

"Still, what's the use of crying!" Alice said angrily to herself; "I advise you to stop the moment!" She often gave very good advice (although she seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely that she made herself cry;and once, she remembered, she had tried to slap herself for betraying Croquet when she was playing against herself; for this peculiar child gladly presented two persons. "But now it does not help," poor Alice thought, "to do as if I were two different people. Oh! There's hardly enough left of me to be a decent person! "

Soon her eye fell on a small glass jar, which lay under the table; she opened it and found a very small cake in it, on which the words " Eat me! "Stood beautifully written in small raisins. "Well, I want to eat it," said Alice, "and when I grow up, I can reach the key; but if I become smaller, I can crawl under the door. Well, in any case, I get into the garden, - I do not care how. "

She ate a little, and said curiously to herself, "Up or down?" She held her hand to her head, and was astonished to notice that she was the same size. Of course, this usually happens when eating cake; but Alice was so used to wonderful things that It seemed boring to her, when life went away so naturally. So she started, and ate the cake completely.