Chapter 3. Looking-Glass Insects

Of course the first thing to do was to explore the country that Alice was going to travel through. ‘It’s something like learning geography,’ thought Alice. ‘Main rivers… there are none. Main mountains… I’m on the only one, but I don’t think it’s got any name. Main towns… oh, what are those creatures that are making honey down there? They can’t be bees… but nobody can see bees from here, you know… ’ and for some time she stood silent, watching one of them that was flying among the flowers. ‘It looks like a simple bee,’ thought Alice.

But in fact it was an elephant… as Alice soon found out. ‘And how enormous these flowers can be!’ she thought. ‘Something like houses! I think I’ll go down and… or, no… I can’t go without a long branch to brush them away… and how funny it’ll be when they ask me at home how I like my walk. I’ll say… “Oh, I liked it very much… Only it was very dusty and hot, and the elephants were flying around!”’

‘Maybe I may visit the elephants later. Besides, I want to get into the Third Square!’

So she ran down the hill and jumped over the first of the six little brooks…

‘Tickets, please!’ said the Guard. In a moment everybody showed their tickets. There were a lot of people, animals and insects in the carriage.

‘Now then! Show your ticket, child!’ the Guard went on, looking angrily at Alice. And many voices all said together (‘like the chorus of a song,’ thought Alice), ‘Don’t keep him waiting, child! Time is worth a thousand pounds a minute!’

‘I haven’t got a ticket,’ Alice said, ‘there wasn’t a ticket-office where I came from.” And again the chorus of voices went on. ‘There wasn’t room for a ticket office where she came from. The land there is worth a thousand pounds an inch!’

‘Don’t make excuses,’ said the Guard.

He was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last he said, ‘You’re travelling the wrong way,’ and went away.

‘A child,’ said the gentleman sitting next to her (he was dressed in white paper),‘should know which way she’s going, even if she doesn’t know her own name!’

A Goat, that was sitting next to the gentleman in white, said in a loud voice, ‘She has to know her way to the ticket-office, even if she doesn’t know her alphabet!’

There was a Beetle who was sitting next to the Goat and he said ‘She has to go back from here as luggage!’

And after that other voices went on, ‘She must go by post…’ ‘She must be sent as a message by the telegraph… ’ and so on.

But the gentleman dressed in white paper whispered in her ear, ‘Never mind what they all say, my dear, but take a return-ticket every time the train stops.”

‘But I didn’t want…’ Alice began. ‘I was in a wood just now, and I wish I could get back there.’

‘You might make a joke on that, said the little voice close to her ear: ‘something about “you would if you could,” you know. I know you are a friend,’ the little voice went on. ‘And you won’t hurt me, although I am an insect.’

‘What kind of insect?’ Alice asked. She wanted to know if it could sting or not, she thought it wouldn’t be polite to ask such questions. But at that moment there was a shrill scream from the engine, and everybody jumped up.

The Horse said, ‘It’s only a brook and we have to jump it over.’ Everybody were satisfied with this, although Alice was nervous. ‘However, it’ll take us into the Fourth Square, that’s great!’ she said to herself. In another moment the carriage rose up into the air…

And the next moment she was sitting under a tree… with the Gnat (it was that insect in the train). It was sitting on a branch over her head and fanning her with its wings.

It was an enormous Gnat: ‘about the size of a chicken,’ Alice thought.

‘…then you don’t like all insects? the Gnat asked.

‘I like them when they can talk,’ Alice said. ‘They don’t talk, where I come from.’

‘What kind of insects do you like from where you come from?’ the Gnat asked.

‘I don’t like them at all,’ Alice explained, ‘because I’m afraid of them… at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them.”

‘Do they answer to their names?’ the Gnat asked.

‘I don’t know…’

‘What’s the use of having names’ the Gnat said, ‘if they won’t answer to them?’

‘It’s useful to the people who name them. If not, why do things have names at all?’

‘I can’t say,’ the Gnat said. ‘Here they’ve got no names… however, go on with your list of insects: you’re wasting time.’

‘Well, there’s the Horse-fly,’ Alice began.

‘All right,’ said the Gnat: ‘here you’ll see a Rocking-horse-fly, if you look. It’s made of wood.’

‘What does it eat?’ Alice asked with curiosity.

‘Sawdust,’ said the Gnat. ‘Go on with the list.’

Alice looked at the Rocking-horse-fly with great interest, then she went on.

‘And then there’s the Butterfly,’ Alice said.

‘At your feet,’ said the Gnat, ‘you’ll see a Bread-and-Butterfly. Its wings are thin slices of bread-and-butter, its body is a crust, and its head is a lump of sugar.’

‘And what does it eat?’

‘Weak tea with cream.’

After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two. The Gnat asked, ‘I think you don’t want to lose your name.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Alice said. She was a little nervous.

‘And I don’t know,’ the Gnat went on: ‘only think how convenient it would be if you could go home without a name! For example, if the governess wanted to call you to your lessons, she would say “come here…,” and there she would have to stop, because she didn’t know your name, and of course you wouldn’t have to go, you know.’

‘That would never happen, I’m sure,’ said Alice: ‘If she couldn’t remember my name, she’d call me “Miss!”.’

‘Well, if she said “Miss,” and didn’t say anything more,’ the Gnat said, ‘of course you’d miss your lessons. That’s a joke.’

‘It’s a bad joke,’ said Alice.

But the Gnat only sighed, and two large tears came rolling down its cheeks.

‘You shouldn’t make jokes,’ Alice said, ‘if it makes you so unhappy.’

Alice looked up, but the Gnat wasn’t there! Alice got up and walked on.

Soon she came to an open field, with a wood on the other side: it looked much darker than the last wood, and Alice was a little afraid. However, she decided to go on: ‘I certainly won’t go back’, she thought to herself, ‘and this was the only way to the Eighth Square.’

‘Maybe this is the wood’, she said to herself, ‘where things have no names. I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in? I don’t want to lose it… because someone will give me another, and it would be ugly, of course.’

She reached the wood: it was very cool there. ‘Well, anyway it’s good,’ she said and stopped under the trees, ‘not to be so hot, to get into the… into what?’ she went on, she was very much surprised because she couldn’t think of the word. ‘I mean to get under the… under the… under this!’ she touched trunk of the tree.

She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly said, ‘Then it really has happened! And now, who am I? I can’t remember!’

Just then a Fawn came out: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes. It wasn’t frightened. ‘Here then! Here then!’ Alice said, she raised her hand and tried to stroke it.

‘What’s your name?’ the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!

‘I wish I knew!’ thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, ‘I don’t know.’

‘Think again,’ it said, ‘that won’t do.’

Alice thought, but nothing came of it. ‘Please, would you tell me what is your name?’ she said. ‘I think it can help me.’

‘I’ll tell you, but not here,’ the Fawn said. ‘I can’t remember.’

So they walked on together through the wood. They came out into another field, and here the Fawn said, ‘I’m a Fawn! And you’re a human child!’ and in another moment it ran away.

Alice stood looking after it, she was ready to cry because she lost her dear friend so suddenly. ‘However, I know my name now.’ she said, ‘Alice… Alice… I won’t forget it again! And now, which way should I go?’

It was not very difficult, because there was only one road through the wood. She went on and on, but then she saw two finger-posts which were pointing the same way, one was marked ‘To Tweedledum’s house and the other ‘To the house of Tweedledee. ‘I think,’ said Alice at last, ‘that they live in the same house! But I can’t stay there very long. I’ll just call and say “how do you do?” and ask them which way I should go. If I could only get the Eighth Square before it gets dark!’ So she went on, till she saw two fat little men. It was so suddenly! But in another moment she understood that they were Tweedledum and Tweedledee.