CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Story of the Mock Turtle

Alice didn't like the look of the Gryphon, but she reasoned it was safer to stay with the Gryphon than to run after the angry Queen. She sat down on a rock and looked at the Gryphon.

The Gryphon had woken up from its nap when the Queen shouted at him. Now it rubbed its eyes and watched the Queen leaving. "What fun," it laughed, when the Queen was out of sight.

"What do you mean by that—fun?" asked Alice.

It's really all the Queen's imagination," said the Gryphon. "They never executes nobody, you know. Come on then." "Well, the Gryphon may have watchfulness and courage," Alice thought, "but he certainly doesn't have very good grammar."

"Why is it that everybody says, 'Come on!' here," thought Alice, walking slowly after the creature. "I've never been ordered about so much before in my life!"

Soon they came upon the Mock Turtle, who was sitting sad and lonely on a little rock. Getting close to him, Alice could hear him sighing so sadly that it sounded like his heart would break.

She suddenly felt very sorry for him. "How come he is so unhappy?" she asked.

And the Gryphon used almost the same words he had said before, "It's all his imagination really. He hasn't got no sorrow, you know. Come on!"

"There's that order again," thought Alice. But she forgot her complaint when she saw that the Mock Turtle was sitting there with large eyes full of tears.

"This here young lady," announced the Gryphon, "she wants to know the story of your life, she do."

"Then I'll tell it to her," said the Mock Turtle in a tone that was deep and hollow. "Sit down, both of you, and please don't speak anything until I've finished."

So they sat down, but nobody said anything for several minutes. Alice thought, "I don't see how he can finish if he doesn't ever begin." Still she waited patiently, sitting in a very lady-like way with her hands folded on her lap.

"Once upon a time," said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, "I was a real turtle."

Again there was a silence, broken only by a sound of "Hjckrrh" from the Gryphon and the crying and the sighing from the Mock Turtle.

Alice was quite ready to get up and say, "Thank you, Sir, for your interesting story." But she thought it would be very impolite indeed, so she continued to sit still and say nothing.

"When we were young children," the Mock Turtle started at last. He spoke more calmly, but he still sobbed every now and then. "We would go to school in the sea. The teacher was an old turtle. We used to call him Tortoise."

"But why did you call him Tortoise if he wasn't a tortoise but a turtle?" Alice asked.

"We called him Tortoise because he taught us," the Mock Turtle answered. It seemed he believed himself quite correct over this matter. "Really, you are a little slow in the head," He added.

"You ought to feel quite ashamed for asking such a simple question," added the Gryphon. He was moving his tail back and forth angrily. Alice almost remarked that it reminded her of her cat Dinah, but she fell silent and when they stared at her. She wished that she could be covered up by the earth.

The Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, "Do continue, old fellow. Don't be all day about it."

"Yes, even though it's hard to believe, we did indeed go to school in the sea," the Mock Turtle said.

"I never said you didn't," interrupted Alice.

"You most certainly did," insisted the Mock Turtle.

"Be quiet!" cried the Gryphon angrily before Alice could speak again.

"We all had the best of educations," continued the Mock Turtle. "In fact, we went to school every day."

"I've also been to day school as well," Alice spoke up. "It's nothing to be so proud of."

"Were there extras?" anxiously asked the Mock Turtle.

"Yes, there were extras," said Alice, "like French and music class."

"And washing?" asked the Mock Turtle.

"Certainly not," said Alice, who had never heard of washing as a class but was quite proud she didn't have to take it in school.

"Ah! Then yours wasn't really a good school," said the Mock Turtle, greatly relieved. "Now, at our school, they had French, music, and washing for the extras."

"I don't think anyone would need or want washing as a class," said Alice, "especially since you lived at the bottom of the sea."

"Well, I didn't have enough money to take the class," said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. "You see, I could only take the regular course."

"What was in the regular course?" inquired Alice. She moved closer to the Mock Turtle to try to understand everything he was saying.

"Reeling and Writhing, to begin with," the Mock Turtle replied, "and then we had the different branches of Arithmetic—Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Disrespect."

"I don't know what Uglification is," said Alice. She couldn't understand this.

The Gryphon stood on his legs and threw both his paws over his head in surprise. "Never heard of uglifying?" it said. "You know what it is to beautify, right?"

"Yes," said Alice slowly, "it means to—make—anything—prettier."

"Well, then," the Gryphon went on, "you should know what it means to uglify. If you don't, then you really are too simple."

The Gryphon's mean remarks stopped Alice from asking any more questions. She turned quickly to the Mock Turtle and asked, "What else did you learn?"

"Well, there was Mystery," the Mock Turtle replied. He started to count off subjects on his flappers. "Mystery, ancient and modern, Seaography, then Drawling, Stretching and Fainting in Coils."

"What were those like?" asked Alice.

"Well, I'm not able to show you myself," the Mock Turtle said. "My body's too stiff, and the Gryphon never learned those in school."

"Didn't have the time," the Gryphon explained. "I took the Classics course instead. The teacher was an old crab, he was."

"I never went to his class," the Mock Turtle sighed. "He taught the classes Laughing and Grief."

"That he did. That he did," said the monster, who was also now sighing. This time both he and the Mock Turtle covered their faces with their paws.

"So how many hours did you go to school in a day, then?" Alice asked.

"It was ten hours the first day," answered the Mock Turtle, "then nine hours the next, and so on."

"What a strange schedule for lessons," said Alice. She never stopped being surprised at what they told her.

That's why they're called lessons," explained the Gryphon, "because they lessen from day to day."

This was a new idea to Alice. She thought about it for a while before speaking again. "So, then the eleventh day must have been a day off?"

"Of course it was," said the Mock Turtle.

"And what did you do on the twelfth day?" Alice eagerly asked.

"I think that's enough about those lessons," the Gryphon interrupted. "You're going to make the Mock Turtle very upset."

"Oh, I'm so sorry, dear Turtle," apologized Alice.

But the Mock Turtle only sighed deeply, smoothing his forehead with the back of one of his flappers. He sadly looked at Alice, trying to speak, but his voice was too soft from crying.

"It's like he has a bone in his throat," said the Gryphon. He started to shake and hit the poor sad Turtle on the back.

Finally the Mock Turtle's voice returned and with tears running down his face, he continued, "Even though you may not have lived under the sea—"

"I haven't," said Alice.

"Maybe you've never been introduced to a lobster."

Alice started to say, "I once tasted one," but thought better of it and instead answered, "No, never."

"Well, too bad, but I can tell you I mean what I say," the Mock Turtle replied.

"I see," said Alice, who didn't see at all in fact. She was just trying to figure out what a lobster had to do with the Turtle's story when the Gryphon suddenly said, sitting down beside Alice, "Come, let's hear some of your adventures."

"I guess I could start with my adventures this morning," said Alice. "There's no point in starting from yesterday because I was a different person then."

Alice began her story when she first came upon the White Rabbit. At first she was a little nervous, but the two creatures came and sat beside her, listening with great interest. Soon she became more brave and continued.

"It's a very strange story indeed," said the Gryphon when Alice had finished. "Could you repeat because I'm not sure I follow you completely?"

"How these creatures here like to order me around," thought Alice. However, she started to repeat her story, but her head was so full of lobsters for some reason that she hardly knew what she was saying and her words came out in a very strange way:

"Tis the voice of the Lobster: I heard him declare

'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.'

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

And will talk in hateful tones of the Shark:

But, when the tide rises and sharks are around

His voice has a timid and shaky sound."

"Sounds like nonsense to me," said the Mock Turtle. Alice said nothing. She just sat down in the grass with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen again like it was supposed to.

"I think you'd better stop now," said the Gryphon, and Alice was only too glad to do so. "Shall we try another story?" the Gryphon asked next, "or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you a song?"

"Oh, a song please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind," Alice replied.

"Hmm. I guess it would be too much to think you had any taste," said the Gryphon. He seemed hurt by Alice's request. "Will you sing her 'Turtle Soup', old fellow?"

Just then, they heard a cry in the distance of "The trial's beginning!"

"We'd better hurry," cried the Gryphon. He grabbed Alice's hand and rushed off with her. Softly behind them they could hear The Mock Turtle beginning the first chorus of his sad, tearful song:

"Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot bowl!

Who for such food would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful, beautiful Soup!"

But Alice was already thinking about what was going to happen next, and she didn't pay any attention to the poor Turtle's complaint. It was pretty hard to pay attention to what was happening before something else completely different would happen.

Soon, poor Alice wasn't even able to think. She had to use all her energy to keep up with the Gryphon as he pulled her along at top speed.

(end of section)