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“That was a narrow escape!” |буквально – это был узкий побег. Лучше – едва спаслась!| said Alice, a good deal frightened |сильно напугана. A good deal – большое количество чего– либо| at the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in existence |что до сих пор существует|; “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 железной дороге|,” she said to herself. (Alice had been to the seaside |на море| 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 had wept |наревела| when she was nine feet high.

“I wish I hadn’t cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned |тем, что утону| in my own tears! That will be a queer thing, to be sure! However, everything is queer to-day.”

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off |немного в стороне|, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus |морж| or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in |соскользнула в воду| like herself.

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse? Everything is so out-of-the-way |необычно| down here, that I should think very likely it can talk: at any rate, there’s no harm in trying |хуже не будет|.” So she began: “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool? I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!” (Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse: she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having seen |как видела| in her brother’s Latin Grammar, “A mouse—of a mouse—to a mouse—a mouse—O mouse!”) The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively |недоуменно|, and seemed to her to wink |как будто подмигнула| with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay |осмелюсь сказать| it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.” |Вильгельмом Завоевателем, первым английским правителем| (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had no very clear notion |понимания| how long ago anything had happened.) So she began again: “O`u est ma chatte?” |Где моя кошка?| which was the first sentence in her French lesson-book. The Mouse gave a sudden leap out |выпрыгнула| of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright |вся затрепетала от страха|. “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feelings. “I quite forgot you didn’t like cats.”

“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice. “Would you like cats if you were me?”

“Well, perhaps not,” said Alice in a soothing tone: “don’t be angry about it. And yet |Но все же| I wish I could show you our cat Dinah: I think you’d take a fancy |полюбили бы| to cats if you could only see her. She is such a dear quiet thing,” Alice went on, half to herself |продолжила задумчиво|, as she swam lazily about in the pool, “and she sits purring so nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face – and she is such a nice soft thing to nurse |поласкать| – and she’s such a capital one for catching mice |как она превосходно ловит мышей| – oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice again, for this time the Mouse was bristling all over |вся взъерошилась|, and she felt certain it must be really offended |оскорблена|. “We won’t talk about her any more if you’d rather not.”

“We indeed!” cried the Mouse, who was trembling |дрожала| down to the end of his tail. “As if I would talk |Как будто это я заговорила| on such a subject! Our family always hated cats: nasty, low, vulgar things! Don’t let me hear the name again!”

“I won’t indeed!” said Alice, in a great hurry to change the subject of conversation. “Are you – are you fond – of – of dogs?” The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly |нетерпеливо|: “There is such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you! A little bright-eyed |блестящие| terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly brown hair! And it’ll fetch |ловит| things when you throw them, and it’ll sit up and beg |просит| for its dinner, and all sorts of things – I can’t remember half of them – and it belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it’s so useful, it’s worth a hundred pounds |фунтов стерлингов|! He says it kills all the rats and – oh dear!” cried Alice in a sorrowful tone, “I’m afraid I’ve offended it again!” For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making quite a commotion in the pool as it went |волнение в луже от движения|.

So she called softly after it, “Mouse dear! Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her: its face was quite pale (with passion |от эмоций|, Alice thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.”

It was high time |Было самое время| to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded |перенаселен| with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet |птица додо, попугай и орленок|, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way |поплыла вперед|, and the whole party swam to the shore.

They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank |собрались на берегу| – the birds with draggled feathers |с взъерошенными перьями|, the animals with their fur clinging |прилипшим мехом| close to them, and all dripping wet, cross | промокшим, спутанным|, and uncomfortable.

The first question of course was, how to get dry again: they had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly |непринужденно общаясь| with them, as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a long argument with the Lory |спор с попугаем Лори|, who at last turned sulky |в конце концов надулся|, and would only say, “I am older than you, and must know better;” and this Alice would not allow |буквально – не позволяла. Лучше – не принимала в расчет| without knowing how old it was, and, as the Lory positively |решительно| refused to tell its age, there was no more to be said.

At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority |авторитетной личностью| among them, called out, “Sit down, all of you, and listen to me! I’ll soon make you dry enough!” They all sat down at once, in a large ring, with the Mouse in the middle. Alice kept her eyes anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she did not get dry |высохнет| very soon.

“Ahem!” |звук откашливания| said the Mouse with an important air, “are you all ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you please! ‘William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest |Вильгельм Завоеватель с благословения Папы добился подчинения англичан, которые нуждались в лидерах, и были не понаслышке знакомы с узурпацией и завоеваниями|. Edwin and Morcar, the earls |графы| of Mercia and Northumbria —’”