At last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and addressed
Alice in a languid, sleepy voice.
"Who are _you_?" said the Caterpillar.
[Illustration]
Alice replied, rather shyly, "I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--at
least I know who I _was_ when I got up this morning, but I think I must
have changed several times since then."
"What do you mean by that?" said the Caterpillar, sternly. "Explain
yourself!"
"I can't explain _myself_, I'm afraid, sir," said Alice, "because I'm
not myself, you see--being so many different sizes in a day is very
confusing." She drew herself up and said very gravely, "I think you
ought to tell me who _you_ are, first."
"Why?" said the Caterpillar.
As Alice could not think of any good reason and the Caterpillar seemed
to be in a _very_ unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.
"Come back!" the Caterpillar called after her. "I've something important
to say!" Alice turned and came back again.
"Keep your temper," said the Caterpillar.
"Is that all?" said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as she
could.
"No," said the Caterpillar.
It unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth again, and said,
"So you think you're changed, do you?"
"I'm afraid, I am, sir," said Alice. "I can't remember things as I
used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!"
"What size do you want to be?" asked the Caterpillar.
"Oh, I'm not particular as to size," Alice hastily replied, "only one
doesn't like changing so often, you know. I should like to be a _little_
larger, sir, if you wouldn't mind," said Alice. "Three inches is such a
wretched height to be."
"It is a very good height indeed!" said the Caterpillar angrily, rearing
itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three inches high).
In a minute or two, the Caterpillar got down off the mushroom and
crawled away into the grass, merely remarking, as it went, "One side
will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow
shorter."
"One side of _what_? The other side of _what_?" thought Alice to
herself.
"Of the mushroom," said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it
aloud; and in another moment, it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying
to make out which were the two sides of it. At last she stretched her
arms 'round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge
with each hand.
"And now which is which?" she said to herself, and nibbled a little of
the right-hand bit to try the effect. The next moment she felt a violent
blow underneath her chin--it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, as she was
shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other
bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot that there was
hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last and managed to
swallow a morsel of the left-hand bit....
"Come, my head's free at last!" said Alice; but all she could see, when
she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which seemed to rise
like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay far below her.
"Where _have_ my shoulders got to? And oh, my poor hands, how is it I
can't see you?" She was delighted to find that her neck would bend
about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in
curving it down into a graceful zigzag and was going to dive in among
the leaves, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry--a large
pigeon had flown into her face and was beating her violently with its
wings.
[Illustration]
"Serpent!" cried the Pigeon.
"I'm _not_ a serpent!" said Alice indignantly. "Let me alone!"
"I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've tried
hedges," the Pigeon went on, "but those serpents! There's no pleasing
them!"
Alice was more and more puzzled.
"As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs," said the Pigeon,
"but I must be on the look-out for serpents, night and day! And just as
I'd taken the highest tree in the wood," continued the Pigeon, raising
its voice to a shriek, "and just as I was thinking I should be free of
them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh,
Serpent!"
"But I'm _not_ a serpent, I tell you!" said Alice. "I'm a--I'm a--I'm a
little girl," she added rather doubtfully, as she remembered the number
of changes she had gone through that day.
"You're looking for eggs, I know _that_ well enough," said the Pigeon;
"and what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a
serpent?"
"It matters a good deal to _me_," said Alice hastily; "but I'm not
looking for eggs, as it happens, and if I was, I shouldn't want
_yours_--I don't like them raw."
"Well, be off, then!" said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it settled
down again into its nest. Alice crouched down among the trees as well as
she could, for her neck kept getting entangled among the branches, and
every now and then she had to stop and untwist it. After awhile she
remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and
she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the
other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.
It was so long since she had been anything near the right size that it
felt quite strange at first. "The next thing is to get into that
beautiful garden--how _is_ that to be done, I wonder?" As she said this,
she came suddenly upon an open place, with a little house in it about
four feet high. "Whoever lives there," thought Alice, "it'll never do to
come upon them _this_ size; why, I should frighten them out of their
wits!" She did not venture to go near the house till she had brought
herself down to nine inches high.