Alice in Wonderland. Книга для чтения на английском языке

As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit’s little white kid gloves while she was talking. “How can I have done that |Как я так могла сделать|?” she thought. “I must be growing small |уменьшаюсь| again.” She got up and went to the table to measure |измерить| herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly |продолжала стремительно уменьшаться|: she soon found out |поняла| that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

“That was a narrow escape!” |буквально – это был узкий побег. Лучше – едва спаслась!| said Alice, a good deal frightened |сильно напугана. A good deal – большое количество чего-либо| at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence |что до сих пор существует|; “and now for the garden!” and she ran with all speed back to the little door: but, alas! the little door was shut again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before, “and things are worse than ever,” thought the poor child, “for I never was so small as this before, never! And I declare it’s too bad, that it is!”

As she said these words her foot slipped |поскользнулась|, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin |по подбородок| in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by railway |вернусь по железной дороге|,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside |на море| once in her life, and had come to the general conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines |купальни| in the sea, some children digging in the sand with wooden spades |лопатками|, then a row of lodging houses, and behind them a railway station.) However, she soon made out |поняла| that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept |наревела| when she was nine feet high.

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned |тем, что утону| in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off |немного в стороне|, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus |морж| or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in |соскользнула в воду| like herself.

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way |необычно| down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying |хуже не будет|.” So she began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen |как видела| in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively |недоуменно|, and seemed to her to wink |как будто подмигнула| with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay |осмелюсь сказать| it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” |Вильгельмом Завоевателем, первым английским правителем| (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion |понимания| how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: “O`u est ma chatte?” |Где моя кошка?| which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out |выпрыгнула| of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright |вся затрепетала от страха|. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.”