Fictional Cats

An excerpt from chapter 8 of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

The Queen's Croquet-Ground

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, `Now, what am I to
do with this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted again,
so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm.
This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more
nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd
for her to carry it further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to
see it trot away quietly into the wood. `If it had grown up,' she
said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but
it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.' And she began thinking
over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and
was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right way to
change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing the
Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured,
she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth,
so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

`Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all
know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a
little wider. `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she
went on. `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from
here?'

Alice speaks to Cheshire Cat

`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the
Cat.

`I don't much care where--' said Alice.

`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

`--so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation.

`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk
long enough.'

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
question. `What sort of people live about here?'

`In that direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
`lives a Hatter: and in that direction,' waving the other paw,
`lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

`But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

`Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: `we're all mad here. I'm
mad. You're mad.'

`How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

`You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on
`And how do you know that you're mad?'

`To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad. You grant that?'

`I suppose so,' said Alice.

`Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's
angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm
pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry. Therefore I'm mad.'

`I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

`Call it what you like,' said the Cat. `Do you play croquet with
the Queen to-day?'

`I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been
invited yet.'

`You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to
queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where
it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

`By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat. `I'd nearly
forgotten to ask.'

`It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had
come back in a natural way.

`I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did
not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
direction in which the March Hare was said to live. `I've seen
hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be
much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.' As she said
this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
branch of a tree.

`Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

`I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep
appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.'

`All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite
slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the
grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

Cheshire Cat fading to smile

`Well! I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice; `but
a grin without a cat! It's the most curious thing I ever saw in
my life!'

The players all played at once without waiting for turns, quarrelling 
all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a very short
time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about,
and shouting `Off with his head!' or `Off with her head!' about 
once in a minute. 

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet 
had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might 
happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would 
become of me? They're dreadfully fond of beheading people 
here; the great wonder is, that there's any one left alive!' 

She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering 
whether she could get away without being seen, when she
noticed a curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much 
at first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out 
to be a grin, and she said to herself `It's the Cheshire Cat: now 
I shall have somebody to talk to.' 

`How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was 
mouth enough for it to speak with. 


Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. `It's no 
use speaking to it,' she thought, `till its ears have come, or at 
least one of them.' In another minute the whole head appeared, 
and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account 
of the game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. 
The Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in
sight, and no more of it appeared. 

`I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather a 
complaining tone,' and they all quarrel so dreadfully one 
can't hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have 
any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends 
to them--and you've no idea how confusing it is all the 
things being alive; for instance, there's the arch I've got to
go through next walking about at the other end of the 
ground--and I should have croqueted the Queen's 
hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine coming?' 

`How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice. 

`Not at all,' said Alice: `she's so extremely--' Just then 
she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening: 
so she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth 
while finishing the game.' 

The Queen smiled and passed on. 

`Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, 
and looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity. 

`It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice: `allow 
me to introduce it.' 

`I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King: `however,
it may kiss my hand if it likes.' 

`I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked. 

`Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at 
me like that!' He got behind Alice as he spoke. 

`A cat may look at a king,' said Alice. `I've read that in some 
book, but I don't remember where.' 

`Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, 
and he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, 
`My dear! I wish you would have this cat removed!' 

The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great 
or small. `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking round. 

`I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly,
and he hurried off. 

Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the 
game was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the 
distance, screaming with passion. She had already heard her 
sentence three of the players to be executed for having 
missed their turns, and she did not like the look of things
at all, as the game was in such confusion that she never 
knew whether it was her turn or not. So she went in 
search of her hedgehog. 

The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog, 
which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting 
one of them with the other: the only difficulty was, that her 
flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden,
where Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way 
to fly up into a tree. 

By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back, 
the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight: 
`but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches 
are gone from the side of the ground.' So she tucked it away 
under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went 
back for a little more conversation with her friend. 

When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised
to find quite a large crowd collected round it: there was a 
dispute going on between the executioner, the King, and
the Queen, who were all talking at once, while all the rest 
were quite silent, and looked very uncomfortable. 

The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three 
to settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her,
though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard
indeed to make out exactly what they said. 

The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a 
head unless there was a body to cut it off from: that he had 
never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going 
to begin at HIS time of life. 

The King's argument was, that anything that had a head 
could be beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense. 

The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done 
about it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, 
all round. (It was this last remark that had made the whole 
party look so grave and anxious.) 

Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to
the Duchess: you'd better ask HER about it.' 

`She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner: `fetch 
her here.' And the executioner went off like an arrow. 

The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, 
and, by the time he had disappeared; so the King and the 
executioner ran wildly up and down looking for it, while 
the rest of the party went back to the game. 

An excerpt from chapter 6 of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

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