Alice, growing weary and bored beside her sister on the riverbank, found little interest in her sister's book, which lacked both pictures and dialogue.
Drowsy and sluggish from the heat, she was idly contemplating whether the effort of gathering daisies for a chain was worth rising, when a White Rabbit with distinctive pink eyes suddenly scurried past her.
Initially, Alice wasn't particularly surprised to hear the Rabbit mutter to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" (Though she later realized this was indeed odd, at the moment it felt unremarkable). Her curiosity was ignited, however, when the Rabbit actually produced a watch from its waistcoat pocket, checked the time, and then hurried away with renewed urgency. The notion of a rabbit with a waistcoat pocket and a watch was an entirely novel concept to Alice, prompting her to spring up, consumed by a powerful sense of wonder.
She dashed across the field in pursuit of the peculiar creature and arrived just in time to see it disappear headfirst into a large rabbit hole situated beneath a hedge. Without a moment's hesitation, or a single thought about how she might ever get out, Alice plunged in after it.
The rabbit hole initially extended horizontally like a tunnel but then took such a sudden, steep downward turn that Alice had no time to consider stopping; she simply found herself falling into what seemed like an extraordinarily deep well. Whether the well's depth was immense or her descent unusually slow, Alice noticed she had ample time to observe her surroundings as she plummeted. She first attempted to look down to see where she was headed, but it was too dark to distinguish anything. Next, she examined the walls of the well, which were surprisingly lined with an assortment of cupboards and shelves, some even adorned with maps and pictures hanging from pegs. As she passed a shelf, she grabbed a jar labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," only to find, to her considerable disappointment, that it was empty. Not wanting to drop it and potentially injure someone below, she carefully placed the jar into another cupboard she passed, continuing her long, strange descent.