“Of course one couldn’t!” echoed Arthur. “Any more than something that should have some meaning in it. “Is it about one could argue with a potato. It would be altogether—ex-the potato?”
cuse the ancient pun—infra dig.!”
“I doubt it,” said I. “Even a pun doesn’t quite convince me.”
CHAPTER 21
“Well, if that is not the reason,” said Lady Muriel, “what reason would you give?”
THROUGH THE IVORY DOOR
I tried hard to understand the meaning of this question: but the persistent humming of the bees confused me, and
“I don’t know,” said Sylvie. “Hush! I must think. I could there was a drowsiness in the air that made every thought go to him, by myself, well enough. But I want you to come stop and go to sleep before it had got well thought out: so all too.”
I could say was “That must depend on the weight of the
“Let me go with you,” I pleaded. “I can walk as fast as you 132
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll can, I’m sure.”
human animal—says she hasn’t been teasing him—the kind Sylvie laughed merrily. “What nonsense!” she cried. “Why, that’s called Boy—”
you ca’n’t walk a bit! You’re lying quite flat on your back!
“Ask her which Boy,” said a new voice. The Professor came You don’t understand these things.” out again.
“I can walk as well as you can,” I repeated. And I tried my
“Which Boy is it that you haven’t been teasing?” best to walk a few steps: but the ground slipped away back-Sylvie looked at me with twinkling eyes. “You dear old wards, quite as fast as I could walk, so that I made no progress thing!” she exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to kiss him, while at all. Sylvie laughed again.
he gravely stooped to receive the salute. “How you do puzzle
“There, I told you so! You’ve no idea how funny you look, me! Why, there are several boys I haven’t been teasing!” moving your feet about in the air, as if you were walking!
The Professor returned to his friend: and this time the Wait a bit. I’ll ask the Professor what we’d better do.” And voice said “Tell her to bring them here—all of them!” she knocked at his study-door.
“I ca’n’t, and I won’t! “Sylvie exclaimed, the moment he The door opened, and the Professor looked out. “What’s reappeared. “It’s Bruno that’s crying: and he’s my brother: that crying I heard just now?” he asked. “Is it a human ani-and, please, we both want to go: he ca’n’t walk, you know: mal?”
he’s—he’s dreaming, you know” (this in a whisper, for fear
“It’s a boy,” Sylvie said.
of hurting my feelings). “Do let’s go through the Ivory Door!”
“I’m afraid you’ve been teasing him?”
“I’ll ask him,” said the Professor, disappearing again. He
“No, indeed I haven’t!” Sylvie said, very earnestly. “I never returned directly. “He says you may. Follow me, and walk tease him!”
on tip-toe.”
“Well, I must ask the Other Professor about it.” He went The difficulty with me would have been, just then, not to back into the study, and we heard him whispering “small walk on tip-toe. It seemed very hard to reach down far enough 133
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll to just touch the floor, as Sylvie led me through the study.
stinged my finger!” Poor Bruno sobbed again. The complete The Professor went before us to unlock the Ivory Door. I list of woes was too much for his feelings. “And it knewed I had just time to glance at the Other Professor, who was sit-didn’t mean to trod on it!” he added, as the climax.
ting reading, with his back to us, before the Professor showed
“That Bee should be ashamed of itself!” I said severely, us out through the door, and locked it behind us. Bruno and Sylvie hugged and kissed the wounded hero till all tears was standing with his hands over his face, crying bitterly.
were dried.
“What’s the matter, darling?” said Sylvie, with her arms
“My finger’s quite unstung now!” said Bruno. “Why doos round his neck.
there be stones? Mister Sir, doos oo know?”
“Hurted mine self welly much!” sobbed the poor little fel-
“They’re good for something,” I said: “even if we don’t low.
know what. What’s the good of dandelions, now?”
“I’m so sorry, darling! How ever did you manage to hurt
“Dindledums?” said Bruno. “Oh, they’re ever so pretty!
yourself so?”
And stones aren’t pretty, one bit. Would oo like some
“Course I managed it!” said Bruno, laughing through his dindledums, Mister Sir?”
tears. “Doos oo think nobody else but oo ca’n’t manage
“Bruno!” Sylvie murmured reproachfully. “You mustn’t say things?”
‘Mister’ and ‘Sir,’ both at once! Remember what I told you!” Matters were looking distinctly brighter, now Bruno had
“You telled me I were to say Mister’ when I spoked about begun to argue. “Come, let’s hear all about it!” I said.
him, and I were to say ‘Sir’ when I spoked to him!”
“My foot took it into its head to slip—” Bruno began.
“Well, you’re not doing both, you know.”
“A foot hasn’t got a head!” Sylvie put in, but all in vain.
“Ah, but I is doing bofe, Miss Praticular!” Bruno exclaimed
“I slipted down the bank. And I tripted over a stone. And triumphantly. “I wishted to speak about the Gemplun—and the stone hurted my foot! And I trod on a Bee. And the Bee I wishted to speak to the Gemplun. So a course I said ‘Mis-134
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll ter Sir’!”
“Then you didn’t find your way back to Outland?” I said
“That’s all right, Bruno,” I said.
to the Professor.
“Course it’s all right!” said Bruno. “Sylvie just knows nuffin
“Oh yes, I did!” he replied, “We never got to Queer Street; at all!”
but I found another way. I’ve been backwards and forwards
“There never was an impertinenter boy!” said Sylvie, frown-several times since then. I had to be present at the Election, ing till her bright eyes were nearly invisible.
you know, as the author of the new Money-act. The Em-
“And there never was an ignoranter girl!” retorted Bruno.
peror was so kind as to wish that I should have the credit of
“Come along and pick some dindledums. That’s all she’s fit it. ‘Let come what come may,’ (I remember the very words for!” he added in a very loud whisper to me.
of the Imperial Speech) ‘if it should turn out that the War-
“But why do you say ‘Dindledums,’ Bruno? Dandelions is den is alive, you will bear witness that the change in the the right word.”
coinage is the Professor’s doing, not mine!’ I never was so
“It’s because he jumps about so,” Sylvie said, laughing.
glorified in my life, before!” Tears trickled down his cheeks
“Yes, that’s it,” Bruno assented. “Sylvie tells me the words, at the recollection, which apparently was not wholly a pleas-and then, when I jump about, they get shooken up in my ant one.
head—till they’re all froth!”
“Is the Warden supposed to be dead?” I expressed myself as perfectly satisfied with this explana-
“Well, it’s supposed so: but, mind you, I don’t believe it!
tion. “But aren’t you going to pick me any dindledums, after The evidence is very weak—mere hear-say. A wandering all?”
Jester, with a Dancing-Bear (they found their way into the
“Course we will!” cried Bruno. “Come along, Sylvie!” And Palace, one day) has been telling people he comes from Fairy-the happy children raced away, bounding over the turf with land, and that the Warden died there. I wanted the Vice-the fleetness and grace of young antelopes.
Warden to question him, but, most unluckily, he and my 135
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll Lady were always out walking when the Jester came round.
deeply.
Yes, the Warden’s supposed to be dead!” And more tears trick-
“How far is it to Outland?” I asked, to change the subject.
led down the old man’s cheeks.
“About five days’ march. But one must go back—occa-
“But what is the new Money-Act?”
sionally. You see, as Court-Professor, I have to be always in The Professor brightened up again. “The Emperor started attendance on Prince Uggug. The Empress would be very the thing,” he said. “He wanted to make everybody in Out-angry if I left him, even for an hour.” land twice as rich as he was before just to make the new
“But surely, every time you come here, you are absent ten Government popular. Only there wasn’t nearly enough days, at least?”
money in the Treasury to do it. So I suggested that he might
“Oh, more than that!” the Professor exclaimed. “A fort-do it by doubling the value of every coin and bank-note in night, sometimes. But of course I keep a memorandum of Outland. It’s the simplest thing possible. I wonder nobody the exact time when I started, so that I can put the Court-ever thought of it before! And you never saw such universal time back to the very moment!”
joy. The shops are full from morning to night. Everybody’s
“Excuse me,” I said. “I don’t understand.” buying everything!”
Silently the Professor drew front his pocket a square gold
“And how was the glorifying done?” watch, with six or eight hands, and held it out for my in-A sudden gloom overcast the Professor’s jolly face. “They spection. “This,” he began, “is an Outlandish Watch—” did it as I went home after the Election,” he mournfully
“So I should have thought.”
replied. “It was kindly meant but I didn’t like it! They waved
“—which has the peculiar property that, instead of its go-flags all round me till I was nearly blind: and they rang bells ing with the time, the time goes with it. I trust you under-till I was nearly deaf: and they strewed the road so thick with stand me now?”
flowers that I lost my way!” And the poor old man sighed
“Hardly,” I said.
136
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll
“Permit me to explain. So long as it is let alone, it takes its down his cheeks, just as I had seen him a quarter of an hour own course. Time has no effect upon it.” ago; and there was Sylvie with her arms round his neck!
“I have known such watches,” I remarked.
I had not the heart to make the dear little fellow go through
“It goes, of course, at the usual rate. Only the time has to his troubles a second time, so hastily begged the Professor to go with it. Hence, if I move the hands, I change the time.
push the hands round into their former position. In a mo-To move them forwards, in advance of the true time, is im-ment Sylvie and Bruno were gone again, and I could just see possible: but I can move them as much as a month back-them in the far distance, picking ‘dindledums.’
wards—that is the limit. And then you have the events all
“Wonderful, indeed!” I exclaimed.
over again—with any alterations experience may suggest.”
“It has another property, yet more wonderful,” said the
“What a blessing such a watch would be,” I thought, “in Professor. “You see this little peg? That is called the ‘Rever-real life! To be able to unsay some heedless word—to undo sal Peg.’ If you push it in, the events of the next hour hap-some reckless deed! Might I see the thing done?” pen in the reverse order. Do not try it now. I will lend you
“With pleasure!” said the good natured Professor. “When the Watch for a few days, and you can amuse yourself with I move this hand back to here,” pointing out the place, “His-experiments.”
tory goes back fifteen minutes!”
“Thank you very much!” I said as he gave me the Watch.
Trembling with excitement, I watched him push the hand
“I’ll take the greatest care of it—why, here are the children round as he described.
again!”
“Hurted mine self welly much!”
“We could only but find six dindledums,” said Bruno, put-Shrilly and suddenly the words rang in my ears, and, more ting them into my hands, “‘cause Sylvie said it were time to startled than I cared to show, I turned to look for the speaker.
go back. And here’s a big blackberry for ooself! We couldn’t Yes! There was Bruno, standing with the tears running only find but two!”
137
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll
“Thank you: it’s very nice,” I said. And I suppose you ate Let me come and help you, I said. I can reach higher up the other, Bruno?”
than you can.
“No, I didn’t,” Bruno said, carelessly. “Aren’t they pretty Yes, please, said Sylvie, putting her hand into mine: and dindledums, Mister Sir?”
we walked off together.
“Yes, very: but what makes you limp so, my child?” Bruno loves blackberries, she said, as we paced slowly along
“Mine foot’s come hurted again!” Bruno mournfully re-by a tall hedge, that looked a promising place for them, and plied. And he sat down on the ground, and began nursing it.
it was so sweet of him to make me eat the only one!
The Professor held his head between his hands—an atti-Oh, it was you that ate it, then? Bruno didn’t seem to like tude that I knew indicated distraction of mind. “Better rest to tell me about it.
a minute,” he said. “It may be better then—or it may be No; I saw that, said Sylvie. He’s always afraid of being worse. If only I had some of my medicines here! I’m Court-praised. But he made me eat it, really! I would much rather Physician, you know,” he added, aside to me.
he —oh, what’s that? And she clung to my hand, half-fright-
“Shall I go and get you some blackberries, darling?” Sylvie ened, as we came in sight of a hare, lying on its side with legs whispered, with her arms round his neck; and she kissed stretched out just in the entrance to the wood.
away a tear that was trickling down his cheek.
It’s a hare, my child. Perhaps it’s asleep.
Bruno brightened up in a moment. “That are a good plan!” No, it isn’t asleep, Sylvie said, timidly going nearer to look he exclaimed. “I thinks my foot would come quite unhurted, at it: it’s eyes are open. Is it—is it—her voice dropped to an if I eated a blackberry—two or three blackberries—six or awestruck whisper, is it dead, do you think?” seven blackberries—”
“Yes, it’s quite dead,” I said, after stooping to examine it.
Sylvie got up hastily. “I’d better go she said, aside to me,
“Poor thing! I think it’s been hunted to death. I know the before he gets into the double figures!
harriers were out yesterday. But they haven’t touched it. Per-138
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll haps they caught sight of another, and left it to die of fright but in vain, that this would satisfy her, and that she would and exhaustion.”
ask no more questions.
“Hunted to death?” Sylvie repeated to herself, very slowly
“They hunt foxes,” Sylvie said, thoughtfully. “And I think and sadly. “I thought hunting was a thing they played at like they kill them, too. Foxes are very fierce. I daresay men don’t a game. Bruno and I hunt snails: but we never hurt them love them. Are hares fierce?”
when we catch them!”
“No,” I said. “A hare is a sweet, gentle, timid animal—
“Sweet angel!” I thought. “How am I to get the idea of almost as gentle as a lamb.”
Sport into your innocent mind?” And as we stood, hand-in-
“But, if men love hares, why—why—” her voice quiv-hand, looking down at the dead hare, I tried to put the thing ered, and her sweet eyes were brimming over with tears.
into such words as she could understand. “You know what
“I’m afraid they don’t love them, dear child.” fierce wild-beasts lions and tigers are?” Sylvie nodded. “Well,
“All children love them,” Sylvie said. “All ladies love them.” in some countries men have to kill them, to save their own
“I’m afraid even ladies go to hunt them, sometimes.” lives, you know.”
Sylvie shuddered. ‘“Oh, no, not ladies!’ she earnestly
“Yes,” said Sylvie: “if one tried to kill me, Bruno would pleaded. “Not Lady Muriel!”
kill it if he could.”
“No, she never does, I’m sure—but this is too sad a sight
“Well, and so the men—the hunters—get to enjoy it, you for you, dear. Let’s try and find some—” know: the running, and the fighting, and the shouting, and But Sylvie was not satisfied yet. In a hushed, solemn tone, the danger.”
with bowed head and clasped hands, she put her final ques-
“Yes,” said Sylvie. “Bruno likes danger.” tion. “Does GOD love hares?”
“Well, but, in this country, there aren’t any lions and ti-
“Yes!” I said. “I’m sure He does! He loves every living thing.
gers, loose: so they hunt other creatures, you see.” I hoped, Even sinful men. How much more the animals, that cannot 139
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll sin!”
Sylvie rose to her feet, and looked calmly at me, though
“I don’t know what ‘sin’ means,” said Sylvie. And I didn’t tears were still streaming down her cheeks.
try to explain it.
I did not dare to speak again, just yet; but simply held out
“Come, my child,” I said, trying to lead her away. “Wish my hand to her, that we might quit the melancholy spot.
good-bye to the poor hare, and come and look for blackber-Yes, I’ll come now, she said. Very reverently she kneeled ries.”
down, and kissed the dead hare; then rose and gave me her
“Good-bye, poor hare!” Sylvie obediently repeated, look-hand, and we moved on in silence.
ing over her shoulder at it as we turned away. And then, all A child’s sorrow is violent but short; and it was almost in in a moment, her self-command gave way. Pulling her hand her usual voice that she said after a minute “Oh stop stop!
out of mine, she ran back to where the dead hare was lying, Here are some lovely blackberries!” and flung herself down at its side in such an agony of grief as We filled our hands with fruit and returned in all haste to I could hardly have believed possible in so young a child.
where the Professor and Bruno were seated on a bank await-
“Oh, my darling, my darling!” she moaned, over and over ing our return.
again. “And God meant your life to be so beautiful!” Just before we came within hearing-distance Sylvie checked Sometimes, but always keeping her face hidden on the me. “Please don’t tell Bruno about the hare!” she said.
ground, she would reach out one little hand, to stroke the Very well, my child. But why not?
poor dead thing, and then once more bury her face in her Tears again glittered in those sweet eyes and she turned hands, and sob as if her heart would break.
her head away so that I could scarcely hear her reply. “He’s—
I was afraid she would really make herself ill: still I thought he’s very fond of gentle creatures you know. And he’d—he’d it best to let her weep away the first sharp agony of grief: be so sorry! I don’t want him to be made sorry.” and, after a few minutes, the sobbing gradually ceased, and And your agony of sorrow is to count for nothing, then, 140
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll sweet unselfish child! I thought to myself. But no more was one under fifteen stone!”
said till we had reached our friends; and Bruno was far too With a great effort I recovered the thread of my thoughts.
much engrossed, in the feast we had brought him, to take
“We lapse very quickly into nonsense!” I said.
any notice of Sylvie’s unusually grave manner.
“I’m afraid it’s getting rather late, Professor?” I said.
“Yes, indeed,” said the Professor. “I must take you all CHAPTER 22
through the Ivory Door again. You’ve stayed your full time.”
“Mightn’t we stay a little longer!” pleaded Sylvie.
CROSSING THE LINE
“Just one minute!” added Bruno.
But the Professor was unyielding. “It’s a great privilege,
“Let us lapse back again,” said Lady Muriel. “Take an-coming through at all,” he said. “We must go now.” And we other cup of tea? I hope that’s sound common sense?” followed him obediently to the Ivory Door, which he threw
“And all that strange adventure,” I thought, “has occupied open, and signed to me to go through first.
the space of a single comma in Lady Muriel’s speech! A single
“You’re coming too, aren’t you?” I said to Sylvie.
comma, for which grammarians tell us to ‘count one’!” (I
“Yes,” she said: “but you won’t see us after you’ve gone felt no doubt that the Professor had kindly put back the through.”
time for me, to the exact point at which I had gone to sleep.)
“But suppose I wait for you outside?” I asked, as I stepped When, a few minutes afterwards, we left the house, Arthur’s through the doorway.
first remark was certainly a strange one. “We’ve been there
“In that case,” said Sylvie, “I think the potato would be just twenty minutes,” he said, “and I’ve done nothing but quite justified in asking your weight. I can quite imagine a listen to you and Lady Muriel talking: and yet, somehow, I really superior kidney-potato declining to argue with any feel exactly as if I had been talking with her for an hour at 141
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll least!”
I fancied we were talking about him. The Earl told me he And so he had been, I felt no doubt: only, as the time had comes tonight, though to-morrow is the day when he will been put back to the beginning of the tete-a-tete he referred know about the Commission that he’s hoping for. I wonder to, the whole of it had passed into oblivion, if not into noth-he doesn’t stay another day to hear the result, if he’s really so ingness! But I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly anxious about it as the Earl believes he is.” to venture on explaining to him what had happened.
“He can have a telegram sent after him,” I said: “but it’s For some cause, which I could not at the moment divine, not very soldier-like, running away from possible bad news!” Arthur was unusually grave and silent during our walk home.
“He’s a very good fellow,” said Arthur: “but I confess it It could not be connected with Eric Lindon, I thought, as he would be good news for me, if he got his Commission, and had for some days been away in London: so that, having his Marching Orders, all at once! I wish him all happiness—
Lady Muriel almost ‘all to himself ’—for I was only too glad with one exception. Good night!” (We had reached home to hear those two conversing, to have any wish to intrude by this time.) “I’m not good company to-night—better be any remarks of my own—he ought, theoretically, to have alone.”
been specially radiant and contented with life. “Can he have It was much the same, next day. Arthur declared he wasn’t heard any bad news?” I said to myself. And, almost as if he fit for Society, and I had to set forth alone for an afternoon-had read my thoughts, he spoke.
stroll. I took the road to the Station, and, at the point where
“He will be here by the last train,” he said, in the tone of the road from the ‘Hall’ joined it, I paused, seeing my friends one who is continuing a conversation rather than beginning in the distance, seemingly bound for the same goal.
one.
“Will you join us?” the Earl said, after I had exchanged
“Captain Lindon, do you mean?”
greetings with him, and Lady Muriel, and Captain Lindon.
“Yes—Captain Lindon,” said Arthur: “I said ‘he,’ because
“This restless young man is expecting a telegram, and we are 142
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll going to the Station to meet it.” be staying at.”
“There is also a restless young woman in the case,” Lady
“Some day I may be able to enlighten her: but just at Muriel added.
present—”
“That goes without saying, my child,” said her father.
“Thanks. She must bear it as best she can. I tell her it’s a
“Women are always restless!”
grand opportunity for practising patience. But she hardly
“For generous appreciation of all one’s best qualities,” his sees it from that point of view. Why, there are the children!” daughter impressively remarked, “there’s nothing to com-So indeed they were: waiting (for us, apparently) at a stile, pare with a father, is there, Eric?” which they could not have climbed over more than a few
“Cousins are not ‘in it,’” said Eric: and then somehow the moments, as Lady Muriel and her cousin had passed it with-conversation lapsed into two duologues, the younger folk out seeing them. On catching sight of us, Bruno ran to meet taking the lead, and the two old men following with less us, and to exhibit to us, with much pride, the handle of a eager steps.
clasp-knife—the blade having been broken off—which he
“And when are we to see your little friends again?” said the had picked up in the road.
Earl. “They are singularly attractive children.”
“And what shall you use it for, Bruno?” I said.
“I shall be delighted to bring them, when I can,” I said!
“Don’t know,” Bruno carelessly replied: “must think.”
“But I don’t know, myself, when I am likely to see them
“A child’s first view of life,” the Earl remarked, with that again.”
sweet sad smile of his, “is that it is a period to be spent in
“I’m not going to question you,” said the Earl: “but there’s accumulating portable property. That view gets modified as no harm in mentioning that Muriel is simply tormented with the years glide away.” And he held out his hand to Sylvie, curiosity! We know most of the people about here, and she who had placed herself by me, looking a little shy of him.
has been vainly trying to guess what house they can possibly But the gentle old man was not one with whom any child, 143
Sylvie and Bruno - Lewis Carroll human or fairy, could be shy for long; and she had very soon friend.
deserted my hand for his—Bruno alone remaining faithful
“Oo’re not a Servant!” Bruno scornfully exclaimed. “Oo’re to his first friend. We overtook the other couple just as they a Gemplun!”
reached the Station, and both Lady Muriel and Eric greeted
“Servant, I assure your Royal Highness!” Eric respectfully the children as old friends—the latter with the words “So insisted