Prevod
Te zanima, kaj se je zgodilo z Alice, potem ko je ušla Kužku? Veš, bil je veliko prevelik, da bi se lahko igrala z njim. (Saj se najbrž tudi ti ne bi prav rad igral z mladim povodnim konjem, kajne? Ves čas bi te bilo strah, da te bo s svojimi velikimi, težkimi nogami poteptal, da boš ploščat kakor palačinka!) Zato je bila Alice zelo vesela, da je lahko pobegnila, ko je gledal proč.
No, tavala je sem in tja in nikakor ni vedela, kaj naj stori, da bi spet zrasla do svoje prave velikosti. Seveda je vedela, da mora nekaj pojesti ali popiti: takšno je bilo pač pravilo, veš. Ni pa mogla uganiti, kaj.
Kmalu pa je prišla do velike gobe, ki je bila tako visoka, da ni mogla videti čez njen klobuk, ne da bi stopila na prste. In kaj misliš, da je zagledala? Nekaj, s čimer zagotovo še nikoli v življenju nisi govoril!
Bila je velika modra Gosenica. Kmalu ti povem, o čem sta se pogovarjali Alice in Gosenica, najprej pa si dobro oglejva sliko.
Tista nenavadna reč, ki stoji pred Gosenico, se imenuje »nargila« in se uporablja za kajenje. Dim prihaja skozi tisto dolgo cev, ki se zvija in vije kakor kača.
In ali vidiš njen dolgi nos in brado? Vsaj videti sta natanko kakor nos in brada, kajne? V resnici pa sta to dve njeni nogi. Veš, gosenica ima cel kup nog: še nekaj jih lahko vidiš malo niže.
Kako nadležno mora biti za gosenico, da mora vsak večer prešteti tolikšno množico nog in se prepričati, da ni katere izgubila! Pa tudi to mora biti hudo nadležno, da se mora odločiti, katero nogo naj najprej premakne. Mislim, da bi se, če bi imel štirideset ali petdeset nog in bi hotel na sprehod, tako dolgo odločal, s katero nogo naj začneš, da sploh nikoli ne bi šel na sprehod!
Le o čem sta se pogovarjali Alice in Gosenica? No, Alice ji je povedala, kako zelo zmedeno je, če si zdaj ene velikosti, zdaj pa druge.
Gosenica jo je vprašala, ali ji je všeč velikost, ki jo ima prav tedaj. Alice pa je rekla, da bi bila rada samo malce večja — biti visok le tri palce je bilo res bedno! (Na steni si označi tri palce, približno toliko, kolikor je dolg tvoj sredinec, pa boš videl, kako velika je bila.)
In Gosenica ji je povedala, da bo zaradi ene strani gobe zrasla, zaradi druge pa se bo zmanjšala. Zato je Alice vzela s seboj dva majhna koščka, da ju bo grizljala, in se ji je posrečilo zrasti do prav prijetne velikosti, preden je odšla naprej obiskat Vojvodinjo.
VIII.
Izvirnik
Would you like to know what happened to Alice, after she had got away from the Puppy? It was far too large an animal, you know, for her to play with. (I don’t suppose you would much enjoy playing with a young Hippopotamus, would you? You would always be expecting to be crushed as flat as a pancake under its great heavy feet!) So Alice was very glad to run away, while it wasn’t looking.
Well, she wandered up and down, and didn’t know what in the world to do, to make herself grow up to her right size again. Of course she knew that she had to eat or drink something: that was the regular rule, you know: but she couldn’t guess what thing.
However, she soon came to a great mushroom, that was so tall that she couldn’t see over the top of it without standing on tip-toe. And what do you think she saw? Something that I’m sure you never talked to, in all your life!
It was a large Blue Caterpillar.
I’ll tell you, soon, what Alice and the Caterpillar talked about: but first let us have a good look at the picture.
That curious thing, standing in front of the Caterpillar, is called a “hookah”: and it’s used for smoking. The smoke comes through that long tube, that winds round and round like a serpent.
And do you see its long nose and chin? At least, they look exactly like a nose and chin, don’t they? But they really are two of its legs. You know a Caterpillar has got quantities of legs: you can see some more of them, further down.
What a bother it must be to a Caterpillar, counting over such a lot of legs, every night, to make sure it hasn’t lost any of them!
And another great bother must be, having to settle which leg it had better move first. I think, if you had forty or fifty legs, and if you wanted to go a walk, you’d be such a time in settling which leg to begin with, that you’d never go a walk at all!
And what did Alice and the Caterpillar talk about, I wonder?
Well, Alice told it how very confusing it was, being first one size and then another.
And the Caterpillar asked her if she liked the size she was, just then.
And Alice said she would like to be just a little bit larger----three inches was such a wretched height to be! (Just mark off three inches on the wall, about the length of your middle finger, and you’ll see what size she was.)
And the Caterpillar told her one side of the mushroom would make her grow taller, and the other side would make her grow shorter.
So Alice took two little bits of it with her to nibble, and managed to make herself quite a nice comfortable height, before she went on to visit the Duchess.
VIII.
