Subtitles section Play video
Chapter VII. A Mad Tea-Party
There was a table set out under a tree in
front of the house, and the March Hare and
the Hatter were having tea at it: a
Dormouse was sitting between them, fast
asleep, and the other two were using it as
a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and
talking over its head.
'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,'
thought Alice; 'only, as it's asleep, I
suppose it doesn't mind.'
The table was a large one, but the three
were all crowded together at one corner of
it: 'No room!
No room!' they cried out when they saw
Alice coming.
'There's PLENTY of room!' said Alice
indignantly, and she sat down in a large
arm-chair at one end of the table.
'Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an
encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there
was nothing on it but tea.
'I don't see any wine,' she remarked.
'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.
'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer
it,' said Alice angrily.
'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down
without being invited,' said the March
Hare.
'I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said
Alice; 'it's laid for a great many more
than three.'
'Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter.
He had been looking at Alice for some time
with great curiosity, and this was his
first speech.
'You should learn not to make personal
remarks,' Alice said with some severity;
'it's very rude.'
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on
hearing this; but all he SAID was, 'Why is
a raven like a writing-desk?'
'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought
Alice.
'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.
--I believe I can guess that,' she added
aloud.
'Do you mean that you think you can find
out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.
'Exactly so,' said Alice.
'Then you should say what you mean,' the
March Hare went on.
'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least--
at least I mean what I say--that's the same
thing, you know.'
'Not the same thing a bit!' said the
Hatter.
'You might just as well say that "I see
what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
what I see"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the
March Hare, 'that "I like what I get" is
the same thing as "I get what I like"!'
'You might just as well say,' added the
Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his
sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is
the same thing as "I sleep when I
breathe"!'
'It IS the same thing with you,' said the
Hatter, and here the conversation dropped,
and the party sat silent for a minute,
while Alice thought over all she could
remember about ravens and writing-desks,
which wasn't much.
The Hatter was the first to break the
silence.
'What day of the month is it?' he said,
turning to Alice: he had taken his watch
out of his pocket, and was looking at it
uneasily, shaking it every now and then,
and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said
'The fourth.'
'Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.
'I told you butter wouldn't suit the
works!' he added looking angrily at the
March Hare.
'It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare
meekly replied.
'Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as
well,' the Hatter grumbled: 'you shouldn't
have put it in with the bread-knife.'
The March Hare took the watch and looked at
it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup
of tea, and looked at it again: but he
could think of nothing better to say than
his first remark, 'It was the BEST butter,
you know.'
Alice had been looking over his shoulder
with some curiosity.
'What a funny watch!' she remarked.
'It tells the day of the month, and doesn't
tell what o'clock it is!'
'Why should it?' muttered the Hatter.
'Does YOUR watch tell you what year it is?'
'Of course not,' Alice replied very
readily: 'but that's because it stays the
same year for such a long time together.'
'Which is just the case with MINE,' said
the Hatter.
Alice felt dreadfully puzzled.
The Hatter's remark seemed to have no sort
of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly
English.
'I don't quite understand you,' she said,
as politely as she could.
'The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the
Hatter, and he poured a little hot tea upon
its nose.
The Dormouse shook its head impatiently,
and said, without opening its eyes, 'Of
course, of course; just what I was going to
remark myself.'
'Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the
Hatter said, turning to Alice again.
'No, I give it up,' Alice replied: 'what's
the answer?'
'I haven't the slightest idea,' said the
Hatter.
'Nor I,' said the March Hare.
Alice sighed wearily.
'I think you might do something better with
the time,' she said, 'than waste it in
asking riddles that have no answers.'
'If you knew Time as well as I do,' said
the Hatter, 'you wouldn't talk about
wasting IT.
It's HIM.'
'I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.
'Of course you don't!' the Hatter said,
tossing his head contemptuously.
'I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'
'Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied:
'but I know I have to beat time when I
learn music.'
'Ah! that accounts for it,' said the
Hatter.
'He won't stand beating.
Now, if you only kept on good terms with
him, he'd do almost anything you liked with
the clock.
For instance, suppose it were nine o'clock
in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time,
and round goes the clock in a twinkling!
Half-past one, time for dinner!'
('I only wish it was,' the March Hare said
to itself in a whisper.)
'That would be grand, certainly,' said
Alice thoughtfully: 'but then--I shouldn't
be hungry for it, you know.'
'Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter:
'but you could keep it to half-past one as
long as you liked.'
'Is that the way YOU manage?'
Alice asked.
The Hatter shook his head mournfully.
'Not I!' he replied.
'We quarrelled last March--just before HE
went mad, you know--' (pointing with his
tea spoon at the March Hare,) '--it was at
the great concert given by the Queen of
Hearts, and I had to sing
| "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
| How I wonder what you're at!"
You know the song, perhaps?'
'I've heard something like it,' said Alice.
'It goes on, you know,' the Hatter
continued, 'in this way:--
| "Up above the world you fly,
| Like a tea-tray in the sky.
| Twinkle, twinkle--"'
Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began
singing in its sleep 'Twinkle, twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long
that they had to pinch it to make it stop.
'Well, I'd hardly finished the first
verse,' said the Hatter, 'when the Queen
jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering
the time!
Off with his head!"'
'How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.
'And ever since that,' the Hatter went on
in a mournful tone, 'he won't do a thing I
ask!
It's always six o'clock now.'
A bright idea came into Alice's head.
'Is that the reason so many tea-things are
put out here?' she asked.
'Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a
sigh: 'it's always tea-time, and we've no
time to wash the things between whiles.'
'Then you keep moving round, I suppose?'
said Alice.
'Exactly so,' said the Hatter: 'as the
things get used up.'
'But what happens when you come to the
beginning again?'
Alice ventured to ask.
'Suppose we change the subject,' the March
Hare interrupted, yawning.
'I'm getting tired of this.
I vote the young lady tells us a story.'
'I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice,
rather alarmed at the proposal.
'Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried.
'Wake up, Dormouse!'
And they pinched it on both sides at once.
The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes.
'I wasn't asleep,' he said in a hoarse,
feeble voice: 'I heard every word you
fellows were saying.'
'Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.
'Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.
'And be quick about it,' added the Hatter,
'or you'll be asleep again before it's
done.'
'Once upon a time there were three little
sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great
hurry; 'and their names were Elsie, Lacie,
and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of
a well--'
'What did they live on?' said Alice, who
always took a great interest in questions
of eating and drinking.
'They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse,
after thinking a minute or two.
'They couldn't have done that, you know,'
Alice gently remarked; 'they'd have been
ill.'
'So they were,' said the Dormouse; 'VERY
ill.'
Alice tried to fancy to herself what such
an extraordinary ways of living would be
like, but it puzzled her too much, so she
went on: 'But why did they live at the
bottom of a well?'
'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said
to Alice, very earnestly.
'I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an
offended tone, 'so I can't take more.'
'You mean you can't take LESS,' said the
Hatter: 'it's very easy to take MORE than
nothing.'
'Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.
'Who's making personal remarks now?' the
Hatter asked triumphantly.
Alice did not quite know what to say to
this: so she helped herself to some tea and
bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
Dormouse, and repeated her question.
'Why did they live at the bottom of a
well?'
The Dormouse again took a minute or two to
think about it, and then said, 'It was a
treacle-well.'
'There's no such thing!'
Alice was beginning very angrily, but the
Hatter and the March Hare went 'Sh! sh!'
and the Dormouse sulkily remarked, 'If you
can't be civil, you'd better finish the
story for yourself.'
'No, please go on!'
Alice said very humbly; 'I won't interrupt
again.
I dare say there may be ONE.'
'One, indeed!' said the Dormouse
indignantly.
However, he consented to go on.
'And so these three little sisters--they
were learning to draw, you know--'
'What did they draw?' said Alice, quite
forgetting her promise.
'Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without
considering at all this time.
'I want a clean cup,' interrupted the
Hatter: 'let's all move one place on.'
He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse
followed him: the March Hare moved into the
Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
unwillingly took the place of the March
Hare.
The Hatter was the only one who got any
advantage from the change: and Alice was a
good deal worse off than before, as the
March Hare had just upset the milk-jug into
his plate.
Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse
again, so she began very cautiously: 'But I
don't understand.
Where did they draw the treacle from?'
'You can draw water out of a water-well,'
said the Hatter; 'so I should think you
could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--
eh, stupid?'
'But they were IN the well,' Alice said to
the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this
last remark.
'Of course they were', said the Dormouse;
'--well in.'
This answer so confused poor Alice, that
she let the Dormouse go on for some time
without interrupting it.
'They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse
went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for
it was getting very sleepy; 'and they drew
all manner of things--everything that
begins with an M--'
'Why with an M?' said Alice.
'Why not?' said the March Hare.
Alice was silent.
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this
time, and was going off into a doze; but,
on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up
again with a little shriek, and went on: '-
-that begins with an M, such as mouse-
traps, and the moon, and memory, and
muchness--you know you say things are "much
of a muchness"--did you ever see such a
thing as a drawing of a muchness?'
'Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very
much confused, 'I don't think--'
'Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice
could bear: she got up in great disgust,
and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep
instantly, and neither of the others took
the least notice of her going, though she
looked back once or twice, half hoping that
they would call after her: the last time
she saw them, they were trying to put the
Dormouse into the teapot.
'At any rate I'll never go THERE again!'
said Alice as she picked her way through
the wood.
'It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at
in all my life!'
Just as she said this, she noticed that one
of the trees had a door leading right into
it.
'That's very curious!' she thought.
'But everything's curious today.
I think I may as well go in at once.'
And in she went.
Once more she found herself in the long
hall, and close to the little glass table.
'Now, I'll manage better this time,' she
said to herself, and began by taking the
little golden key, and unlocking the door
that led into the garden.
Then she went to work nibbling at the
mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her
pocket) till she was about a foot high:
then she walked down the little passage:
and THEN--she found herself at last in the
beautiful garden, among the bright flower-
beds and the cool fountains.