wis Carroll
Through the Looking-Glass
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
‘You can be the White Queen’s pawn,’ the Red Queen tells Alice. ‘A pawn goes two squares in its first move. So you’ll go very quickly through the Third Square – by railway, probably. Then in the Fourth Square you’ll meet Tweedledum and Tweedledee. The Fifth Square is mostly water, and the Sixth belongs to Humpty Dumpty. The Seventh Square is all forest – one of the Knights will show you the way.’
And in the Eighth Square Alice will become a Queen. But what a strange game of chess it is! In the looking-glass world all the chess pieces argue with you, and you have to run very fast just to stay in the same place. Here, time runs backwards and the White Queen can remember what happened the week after next.
And whose dream is it, anyway? Is it Alice’s dream, or is she just a part of the Red King’s dream? And if so, what will happen if he wakes up?
THE GAME OF CHESS
Chess is a game for two people, played on a chess-board marked with sixty-four black and white squares. The thirty-two chess pieces – also called chessmen – are black (or red) and white, and are called kings, queens, bishops, knights, castles (or rooks), and pawns. The pawn is the smallest and least important piece.
If a pawn reaches the eighth square on the opposite side of the board, it can be exchanged for a queen. This is what happens to Alice in the story.
CHESSMEN
The White Queen
The Red Queen
The White King
The Red King
The White Knight
The Red Knight
OTHER CHARACTERS
Talking flowers, Tiger-lily, Rose, Daisy
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Humpty Dumpty
The Lion and the Unicorn
Haigha and Hatta, the White King’s messengers
1
Looking-glass house
One thing was certain, it was the black kitten that began it all. The white kitten had been unable to do anything for the last quarter of an hour, because the old cat was washing its face, very slowly and very carefully.
But the black kitten was free to do what it wanted. And so, while Alice was sitting in a corner of the great armchair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten was playing a grand game with a ball of wool. Soon the wool was lying in a terrible tangle all over the carpet, with the kitten running after its own tail in the middle.
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