Alice in Wonderland. Книга для чтения на английском языке - страница 5



|дорожит| the little —’” and she crossed her hands on her lap |коленях| as if she were saying lessons, and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse |хрипло| and strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:

“How doth the little crocodile


Improve his shining tail,


And pour the waters of the Nile


On every golden scale!


“How cheerfully he seems to grin,


How neatly spread his claws,


And welcome little fishes in


With gently smiling jaws!”

“I’m sure those are not the right words,” said poor Alice, and her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, “I must be Mabel after all |все-таки|, and I shall have to go and live in that poky |убогом| little house, and have next to no toys |почти без игрушек. Оборот to have next to no/nothing… – почти неиметьчего-либо| to play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No, I’ve made up my mind |ярешила| about it; if I’m Mabel, I’ll stay down here! It’ll be no use their putting their heads down and saying ‘Come up again, dear!’ I shall only look up and say ‘Who am I then? Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up: if not, I’ll stay down here till I’m somebody else’ – but, oh dear!” cried Alice, with a sudden burst of tears |потокомслез|, “I do wish they would put their heads down |заглянулибысюда|! I am so very tired of being all alone here!”

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 могласделать|?” 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 |продолжаластремительноуменьшаться|: 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. Лучшеедваспаслась!| said Alice, a good deal frightened |сильнонапугана. A good deal – большоеколичествочего-либо| at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence |чтодосихпорсуществует|; “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 железнойдороге|,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside |наморе| 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