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Presently she began again. “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How fu
Down, down, down. There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon began talking again. “Dinah’ll miss me very much to-night, I should think!” (Dinah was the cat.) “I hope they’ll remember her saucer |миску| of milk at tea-time. Dinah my dear! I wish you were down here with me! There are no mice |мышей| in the air, I’m afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that’s very like |очень похожа| a mouse, you know. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?” And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either |любой из| question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it |как бы она это не произносила|. She felt that she was dozing off |засыпала|, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very earnestly |серьезно|, “Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did you ever eat a bat?” when suddenly, thump! thump! |треск| down she came upon a heap of sticks |упала на кучу веток| and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt |совсем не поранилась|, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight |в поле зрения|, hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost: away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time |вовремя| to hear it say, as it turned a corner, “Oh my ears and whiskers |усы|, how late it’s getting!” She was close behind |прямо позади| it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen: she found herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up |подсвечивался| by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other, trying |пробуя открыть| every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of solid |прочного| glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and Alice’s first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors of the hall; but, alas! |увы| either the locks were too large, or the key was too small, but at any rate |в любом случае| it would not open any of them. However, on the second time round |сделав второй круг|, she came upon a low curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen inches |дюймов| high: she tried the little golden key in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down |встала на колени| and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed |Как же ей хотелось| to get out of that dark hall, and wander |побродить| about among those beds of bright flowers |клумб ярких цветов| and those cool |прохладных| fountains, but she could not even get her head through the doorway; “and even if my head would go through,” thought poor Alice, “it would be of very little use without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up |здесь – складываться| like a telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin.” For, you see, so many out-of-the-way |удивительных| things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed |очень мало вещей действительно| were really impossible.
There seemed to be no use |нет смысла| in waiting by the little door, so she went back to the table, half hoping |буквально – надеясь наполовину, лучше – смутно надеясь| she might find another key on it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like telescopes: this time she found a little bottle on it, (“which certainly was not here before,” said Alice,) and round the neck |вокруг горлышка| of the bottle was a paper label, with the words “DRINK ME,” beautifully printed on it in large letters.
It was all very well to say “Drink me,” but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ |яд| or not”; for she had read several nice little histories about children who had got burnt, and eaten up |съеден| by wild beasts and other unpleasant things, all because they would not remember the simple rules their friends had taught them: such as, that a red-hot poker |кочерга| will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds |пойдет кровь|; and she had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked “poison,” it is almost certain to disagree with you |не пойдет на пользу|, sooner or later.
However, this bottle was not marked “poison”, so Alice ventured |осмелилась| to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard |крем|, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished it off |выпила полностью|.
“What a curious feeling!” said Alice; “I must be shutting up like a telescope.”
And so it was indeed: she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up |засияло| at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further |уменьшиться еще сильнее|: she felt a little nervous about this; “for it might end |так я могу вообще исчезнуть|, you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether |исчезну полностью|, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?” And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out |догорела|, for she could not remember ever having seen |что когда-либо видела| such a thing.
After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided on going into the garden at once |сразу же|; but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it, she found she could not possibly reach |добраться| it: she could see it quite plainly |запросто| through the glass, and she tried her best |старалась изо всех сил| to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery |скользко|; and when she had tired herself out |утомила себя| with trying, the poor little thing sat down |здесь – маленькая бедная девочка| and cried.