sleepy’s reflexions

Once upon a time…Je serais Alice…

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, and where is the use of a book, thought Alice, without pictures or conversations? So she was considering in her own mind, (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid,) whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain was worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when a white rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing very remarkable in that, nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the rabbit say to itself “dear, dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but when the rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket or a watch to take out of it, and, full of curiosity, she hurried across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge. In a moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again. The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly, that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself, before she found herself falling down what seemed a deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then, she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there were maps and pictures hung on pegs. She took a jar down off one of the shelves as she passed: it was labelled “Orange Marmalade”, but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupbards as she fell past it.

Mais le monde qui s’ouvre à elle n’est pas forcément celui du repos et de l’éternelle jeunesse. Elle rapetisse, rapetisse encore, puis grandit, grandit sans fin. Pourquoi n’est-il jamais possible de rester tel qu’on voudrait le demeurer pour l’éternité ?

It was so indeed: she was not only ten inches high, and her face brightened up as it occurred to her that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden. First, hwoever, she waited for a few minutes to see whether she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervious about this, “for it might end, you know,” said Alice to herself, “in my going out altogether, like a candle, and what should I be like then, I wonder?” and she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember having ever seen one. However, nothing more happened, so she decided on going into the garden at once, but, alas for poor Alice! when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for the key, she found she could not possibly reach it: she could see it plainly enough through the glass, and she tried her best to climb up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery, and when she had tired herself out with trying, the poor little thing sat down and cried.

Le monde est parfois tellement étrange dans les rêves : les chats parlent et disparaissent au gré de leurs envies, vous prenez le thé avec des gens bizarres et les cartes vous invitent à disputer une partie de croquet « typically english, isn’t it ? ».Mais lorsque cela tourne mal, inutile de crier, de pleurer ou de prier… ouvrez les yeux… Oh! Bien sûr le monde ne sera pas plus beau, mais une autre fois… un autre rêve… et tu resteras, petite Alice, l’enfant que tu ne veux pas voir grandir.

“Wake up!, Alice dear!” said her sister, “what a nice long sleep you’ve had!”
(…)Then she thought, (in a dream within the dream, as it were,) how this same little Alice would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman: and how she would keep, through her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather around her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a wonderful tale, perhaps even with these very adventures of the little Alice of long-ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

Lewis Caroll (Charles Dodgson, 1832-1898) Alice’s Adventures Underground, 1865.