The further Alice went into the forest, the darker the scenery became, and the larger and taller the mushrooms grew, but she could not see the Caterpillar anywhere. The settings kept changing and, at the same time, it remained unchanged, and that made Alice feel scared.
“Curioser and curioser!” cried Alice.
No sooner had she uttered those words that an incredible thing happened: a middle-aged medium-bald continental European sprang right in front of her out of nowhere. The stranger appeared to be a deutschsprachig francophone.
“Guten Tag!” the stranger said. “Ich Hei;e Albert, Albert Hoffmann”.
“Sorry, I do not understand what you say, Mr. Albert Hoffmann”, Alice replied in an apologetic tone.
“Pardon, je ne parle pas anglais”, the old gentleman said. “Pourriez-vous parler fran;ais ou allemand?
“Some department of Germanic and Romance languages you are!!!” Alice shouted impatiently, forgetting her Victorian good manners. “What did you do with the Caterpillar, you bastard??? Antworten, Schweine!!!
“Pardon, let me just set things right!” Albert Hoffmann waved his hand and turned into the Caterpillar. The Caterpillar lay on the top of the largest mushroom, quietly smoking a long hookah.
“One side will make me grow taller, and the other side will make me grow shorter, eh?” Alice asked, reaching out her hands to break off a bit of the mushroom.
“You’d better stop right now, or you’ll die of overdose,” was the Caterpillar’s discouraging advice.
“Okay, and where are Mad Hatter, March Hare, and Dormouse?” asked the adventuress.
“Them three buggers be that way,” said the Caterpillar, and pointed her to a distant object.
Slowly, Alice plodded off from the kitchen to the bedroom, groping her way along, and the Wonderland’s iridescent shaky scenery followed her.
***
The three merry friends were waiting for her in the bedroom.