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Chapter V Mirror Writing “How curious!” Alice exclaimed at the scene she met, as she followed the music into a cozy little parlour. “I do believe they are trying to play musical chairs!” And something of that sort was indeed going on, although it was the strangest game of musical chairs that the girl had ever seen. It was being played by a number of creatures who danced around the room in the most garish fashion to the strains of a waltz. Alice was not entirely sure that they were following the rules. “For one thing,” she said, “they cannot agree which way to run round, and they seem to hit each other a great deal. And I am almost certain that the chairs are meant to be placed in a circle in the centre of the room, rather than running around also.” As far as she could work out, the game seemed to consist of chasing a particular piece of furniture in a clockwise direction, and then trying to sit on it to stop it from moving. However, the chairs were feeling particularly frisky, and insisted on running away at the last moment, or even carrying their screeching occupants at breakneck speed out of the game and into the drawing room. “Join the game! Join the game!” called a teapot, as it careered after a wheel-back which was dancing merrily in the opposite direction. Alice needed no further encouragement, since it looked most enjoyable and she had always been willing to try new games. She immediately ran towards a deck-chair, which was galloping towards the fireplace, and pounced; but the chair was too quick and dodged her grasp. She tried again, and this time managed to just touch it’s striped cloth, but once again it evaded her. “Oh, bother!” the girl said crossly, for her least favourite games were those in which she didn’t win. “I do wish they would hold still for one.” She was about to start in the opposite direction after a chaise-longue (which appeared to be a much slower fitting altogether), when her feet were pushed from under her. She fell backwards with a cry, and was caught by the deck-chair, which had run up behind her unawares. “Why, thank you,” Alice said, and the chair tried to bow in return, since it couldn’t speak, but only succeeded in squashing the girl in it’s folds. “What do we do next?” Alice asked, and as if in reply the chair started in its jerky gait, at a speed much greater than she would have expected, towards the doorway so that she was thrown up and down and left and right in a most irregular fashion. Alice would rather have like to play the game some more (she was beginning to feel that she was getting the hang of it), but decided that the deck-chair probably knew best. It ran around the room a couple more times, before throwing itself and its contents through the door to the drawing room. It dropped Alice in a heap on the floor, and then ran back to the game before she had a chance to complain. “Well, really,” she thought. “It could be a little more considerate to its partner.” * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The drawing room was large and warm, with a hearth holding a blazing fire against one wall. Across the room a number of creatures, having been deposited by their chairs after the game, were picking themselves off the floor and trying to hold a more civilised kind of party. Beside an occasional table stood a Wyvern, discussing politics with a Samovar; and to their left was the teapot once more, dancing with a small candle1. Having used up most of their energy in the game, these two were now involved in a leisurely waltz (the music was still playing in the background), and seemed to be engrossed in a conversation of some kind. Certainly, the teapot was doing most of the talking - it was describing in detail the problems of a process called ‘Cold Infusion’ - but Alice couldn’t help thinking that it was actually the candle which led the dance. Just at that moment the music stopped, and the creatures started to applaud. Alice turned to look for the musician who had been playing, but to begin with she could not find any such person. Apart from those creatures which had been involved earlier in the musical chairs, the room seemed to be empty. However, soon she saw at whom the applause had been directed. There on the mantelpiece, just below a large mirror and at either end of a long row of books, were two book-ends2. They were both bowing. The left book-end had been carved from a rich grained wood (“Probably olive,” Alice later told her sister, “from the Mediterranean,”) into the shape of a beautiful, tall Ballerina wearing a wide tutu. The other was made of a much lighter wood (“English oak,” Alice’s sister suggested), and was in the form of a short man with wild hair, sitting at a piano. The books on the mantel between the two figures all had dark, forbidding covers, but their titles were varied and quite curious. On the left, by the Ballerina, were such works as ‘The Language of the Sea,’ while towards the Pianist’s end could be found a large (and seemingly endless) tome entitled ‘Abuse and Debase Your Friends.’ 
Alice walked up to the book-ends, and curtseyed before them. “Thank you for playing so,” she said. “The game was most enjoyable.” “I hope my dance was to your satisfaction also,” said the Ballerina, with a lovely, lilting accent. (Alice could only assume that it was speaking in italic.) “I’m sorry,” Alice replied, “but I’m afraid I have only just arrived here. I didn’t see your dance.” “No matter, no matter,” replied the Ballerina. “You shall have many a chance to see it again, I’m sure.” 
“I’m glad you enjoyed my music,” said the Pianist. “It took me such a long time to prepare. Why, would you believe,” - and it beckoned Alice forward here, as if to pass on a confidence - “would you believe that the waltz I have just played took me several minutes to write?” “I’m sure it can’t have been minutes,” Alice replied, since the waltz had already played for more than that. “Oh, many of my pieces take even longer,” the Pianist said, bowing to the other book-end, which smiled shyly back. “For example, I once spent almost an entire lunchtime on a particularly fine song for the Ballerina!” “Of course,” it continued, “I was involved in other things at the same time. As I remember, it was during that particular lunchtime that I wrote my best-selling novel ‘Sink the Titanic,’ made a very entertaining visual piece about a small fluffy rabbit, and invented sawdust.” “But,” the Ballerina said, “the song was very beautiful. Oh, it made me so glad to come home at the end of a long day, to find that the Pianist had remembered to get up.” Alice was about to ask whether the other book-end usually forgot such things, when the Pianist itself suddenly demanded: “would you care to read a poem?” before dropping its head to the keyboard to play a few notes of a tune it had just thought up. “Oh yes, do,” said the Ballerina. “It would be such fun. Take it from the book directly between the two of us.” And it, in turn, danced a little dance (very daintily, the girl thought) to the Pianist’s music. Alice counted along the books to find the one directly between the two book-ends. It was a volume with a picture of a large airship on the front, and it was called ‘The Voyage of the Pwmgraf.’ “What a strange title,” she said to herself. “Why, one can hardly pronounce the words at all!” As Alice took the book from the shelf, a sheet of paper fell from its leaves, so she picked it up and unfolded it, to see what it held. There was obviously writing on it, and also the most interesting pictures, but as hard as she might try Alice could decipher neither the words nor the illustrations. “It’s as if I’ve forgotten what it is to be able to read,” she said crossly, and stamped her foot. “There, there. Don’t take on so,” said the Ballerina. “Try to look at the reflection of the verse in the mirror here.” Alice did as she was asked, and turned the sheet of paper so that it faced the glass. Now she could quite easily make out the characters of the poem, and she read the following verse3: Des coups peuts danses terres, á froid; On “Is that better?” asked the Ballerina. “It would be, perhaps,” answered Alice, “if only I understood a little French. As it is, it means no more to me now than when I could not read it at all.” The Pianist turned its wooden head slowly towards Alice. “Try over here,” it said. “Look in this half of the mirror.” “Well, I don’t suppose it will do any good,” Alice thought to herself, but so as not to offend the ornament she obediently turned the sheet towards the mirror, to see what would be revealed: Die kuh Pohlt ein sterz affreitung. “Just as I suspected,” said Alice. “I still can’t understand a word of it, and now it appears to be in German! It looks a little familiar, however.” She frowned, and then continued: “If only someone were writing my adventures down, all I should have to do would be to wait for the translations into French and German. For, surely, the French translation of a French poem must be in English.” “That’s no solution,” said the Pianist, “since it would almost certainly miss the point.” “Indeed,” said the Ballerina. “The poem has simply been translated from a language you don’t understand, is all.” “From a language I don’t understand?” asked Alice. “Surely, you mean into.” “No, no,” replied the Pianist. “Let me explain. Most translators, you will allow, translate the words but keep the meaning?” “I would suppose that they do,” Alice agreed. “I cannot think of many other reasons for which one would wish to translate a piece.” “Well, that is not the case when we translate something,” the book-end said. “I, for example, do the exact reverse. I translate the meanings, and leave the words spoken just as they were.” “While I am more clever again,” the Ballerina said. “I translate both meaning and words, so that neither bears relation to the original. How do you like that?” “I’m not sure that I do,” Alice replied. “How would one cope in such a situation?” “Why not try?” said the Ballerina. “Come, don’t be shy. Ask me to translate something.” “So I shall,” declared Alice, and she put her hand to her chin to ponder a particularly difficult sentence. Eventually she said, “all right then! Translate ‘two racehorses were sitting at a bar,’ if you please!4” “‘Japon est un petit nation situé dans l’Ocean Pacifique,’” the Ballerina replied promptly. “There! Both words and meaning translated!” “Whereas,” the other book-end sadly said, “I should merely translate it as ‘Tout resort, ce soir, c’est un étai bas.’ Roughly speaking, it is very bad French for ‘all resistance is useless,’ which, when everything is said and done, makes hardly any sense at all.” And it dipped its head in a sad little way, and quickly wrote a mournful Requiem for Orchestra and Fish-Slice. By now Alice had become a little worried about the time, since she was certain that the pantomime would be starting very soon, and she was still no nearer finding the White Rabbit’s fob. “If it please you,” she asked the book-ends, “would you be able to help me? I am looking for a pocket-watch. Would you have seen one recently?” “Why, no,” the Ballerina replied. “I am afraid that we don’t use any form of time-piece, since the Pianist is so good at counting.” “That’s right,” continued the Pianist. “I count the seconds as they go past, one, two, three, and so I am constantly aware of the time. No need for a watch.5” “But don’t you lose track?” Alice asked. “Not at all,” the Pianist replied. “I make a point of counting in such a way that no second is as long as any other. Then, if ever I do forget where I am, I can simply start again. It makes no odds.” “It is an extremely useful method,” the Ballerina said, “since it means that we can decide what o’clock it is whenever we wish. If we are hungry, the Pianist simply counts faster for a little bit, and it is dinner time.” “Just so,” said the Pianist. “And if we are tired in the mornings, even if the sun is at its zenith, why, I just check the count I have made in my sleep. More often than not it is the sun which has got it wrong, so we just turn over and go to sleep again.” As interesting as the method was, Alice could see that this would take her no nearer to the end of her mission. “Oh, come,” she said to herself, “there must be somebody here who can help me,” and she was just about to ask the book-ends’ advice one more when she felt a sharp tap on her shoulder. It was the Wyvern6. It was wearing a bright tartan waistcoat and breeches, and a monocle in one eye, and it held its mouth in the such an unconvincing impression of a smile that Alice was not at all sure she should trust it. It bowed low, (“The creatures are so polite today,” thought Alice,) and handed her a calling card, which simply read:
“How do you do?” the Wyvern asked. “I couldn’t help but overhear your dilemma, and I wondered if I might offer my services. Are you, may I enquire, searching for the White Rabbit’s pocket-watch?” “Why, yes, I am,” Alice replied, wondering how it could know such a thing. “Tsk, tsk,” the Wyvern said. “It is always losing the blessed thing. It is a wonder it even knows what month it is.” And with that it smiled its gruesome smile again, and swapped its monocle from one eye to the other. “I think you may find a helping hand,” it continued, “in the book you are holding.” And it pointed with one of its talons towards the volume that Alice had taken from the book shelf. Although she was not entirely sure that it would lead her anywhere, she was eager to get on, so she opened it to its first page, remembering to face it towards the mirror, and began to read: Let me tell you the tale of a voyage I made It starts, anyway, on the morn of a day Whilst Alice was enjoying the story, she was not really sure how it would help her to find the pocket-watch, so rather than continue she turned back to the Wyvern to ask it exactly for what she should be looking. To her surprise it was nowhere to be seen. This would not have caused her undue concern, since she was growing quite accustomed to creatures coming and going without so much as a by-your-leave. However, when she noticed that the Ballerina and the Pianist were no longer there either, and then that the drawing-room had disappeared also, she began to wonder exactly what had happened. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * It was a few moments before she realised that she had come to be standing on a small platform in a large open field. Tied to the platform was an enormous, cigar-shaped balloon, and just along, beneath a basket hanging from the airship, an Earwig was beckoning her over. Chapter IV - The Whether-House Chapter IV - The Whether-House | Chapter VI - The Voyage of the Pwmgraf Chapter VI - The Voyage of the Pwmgraf |
