The Little Mermaid

Far out in the ocean the water is as blue as the petals of the loveliest cornflower, and as clear as the purest glass. But it is very deep, deeper than any anchor rope can reach; many church steeples would have to be stacked one upon another to reach from the bottom up to the surface. Down there live the sea folk.

Now, you must not think there is nothing down there but bare white sand. No, the strangest trees and plants grow there, so supple in stem and leaf that the slightest stir of the water sets them moving as if they were alive. All the fish, great and small, slip between the branches, just as the birds up here slip through the trees. In the very deepest spot of all stands the palace of the Sea King. Its walls are of coral, and its tall pointed windows of the clearest amber; the roof is made of shells that open and close as the water flows over them. It is a beautiful sight, for in each shell lies a shining pearl, and a single one of them would be worth a fortune in a queen's crown.

The Sea King down there had been a widower for many years, and his old mother kept house for him. She was a wise woman, but proud of her noble birth, and so she wore twelve oysters on her tail, while other people of rank were allowed only six. Apart from that she deserved great praise, above all for the loving care she gave the little sea princesses, her granddaughters. They were six lovely children, but the youngest was the loveliest of all. Her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose petal, her eyes as blue as the deepest sea; but, like all the others, she had no feet, for her body ended in a fish's tail.

All day long the children played in the great halls of the palace, where living flowers grew out of the walls. When the wide amber windows were opened, the fish swam in to them, just as swallows fly into our rooms when we open a window; only these fish swam right up to the princesses, ate from their hands, and let themselves be stroked.

Outside the palace lay a great garden, full of flame-red and deep-blue flowers. The fruits glowed like gold, and the blossoms shone like burning fire, forever waving stem and leaf. The earth itself was the finest sand, but blue, like the flame of burning sulphur. Over everything lay a strange blue glow; you would sooner have believed you were high in the air, with nothing but sky above and below, than at the bottom of the sea. When the water was calm you could glimpse the sun, looking like a purple flower with all its light streaming from the calyx.

Each of the little princesses had her own small plot in the garden, to dig and plant as she pleased. One gave her flower bed the shape of a whale; another liked hers to look like a little mermaid; but the youngest made hers round, like the sun, and grew flowers that shone as red as the sun does. She was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful. While her sisters showed off the wonderful things they had gathered from wrecked ships, she wanted nothing but her rose-red flowers, which were like the sun up above, and one thing besides: a beautiful marble statue. It was a handsome boy, carved from pure white stone, that had sunk to the sea floor from a wreck. Beside the statue she planted a rose-red weeping willow, which grew splendidly and hung its fresh branches over it, down toward the blue sand, where the shadow showed violet and swayed like the branches. It looked as though the crown of the tree and its roots were playing together, trying to kiss.

Nothing gave her greater joy than to hear about the world of human beings above. Her old grandmother had to tell her everything she knew of ships and towns, of people and animals. It seemed to her especially wonderful that up on the earth the flowers gave off scent, for they did not do that at the bottom of the sea; that the forests were green; and that the fish you saw among the trees could sing so loud and beautifully that it was a joy to hear. It was the little birds the grandmother called fish, for otherwise the princesses could not have understood her, since they had never seen a bird.

"When you reach your fifteenth year," said the grandmother, "you will be allowed to rise up out of the sea, to sit on the rocks in the moonlight and watch the great ships sail past. Forests and towns you shall see then!"

In the coming year the eldest of the sisters would be fifteen; but each of the others was a year younger than the last, so the youngest still had five whole years to wait before she might rise from the bottom of the sea and see what our world was like. But each promised to tell the others what she had seen and thought most beautiful on her first day, for their grandmother did not tell them nearly enough; there was so much they longed to know.

None longed so much as the youngest, the very one who had the longest to wait and who was always so quiet and thoughtful. Many a night she stood at the open window, gazing up through the dark blue water, watching the fish splash their fins and tails. She could see the moon and stars, pale it is true, but through the water they looked larger than they do to us. When something like a black cloud glided beneath them, she knew it was either a whale swimming over her head or a ship full of people, who surely never dreamed that a lovely little mermaid stood far below, stretching her white hands up toward the keel.

Now the eldest princess turned fifteen and was allowed to rise to the surface.

When she came back she had a hundred things to tell, but the loveliest of all, she said, was to lie in the moonlight on a sandbank in the calm sea, and to look at the great town on the nearby shore, where the lights twinkled like a hundred stars; to hear the music, the noise and clatter of carriages and people, to see all the church steeples and hear the ringing of the bells.

Oh, how the youngest sister listened! And later, when she stood at the open window and looked up through the dark blue water, she thought of the great town with all its noise and bustle, and imagined she could hear the church bells ringing all the way down to her.

The next year the second sister was allowed to rise up through the water and swim wherever she wished. She came to the surface just as the sun was setting, and that, she said, was the loveliest sight of all. The whole sky had looked like gold, and the beauty of the clouds she could never fully describe; red and violet they had sailed above her, but far swifter than they, like a long white veil, a flock of wild swans had flown across the water toward the sun. She swam toward it, but the sun sank, and the rosy glow faded from the sea and the clouds.

The year after, the third sister went up. She was the boldest of them all, and she swam up a broad river that flowed into the sea. She saw lovely green hills covered with grapevines; palaces and castles peeped out from splendid forests; she heard all the birds singing, and the sun shone so warm that she often had to dive under to cool her burning face. In a little bay she came upon a whole troop of small human children, quite naked, splashing in the water. She wanted to play with them, but they fled in fright, and a little black creature came up—a dog, though she had never seen one—and barked at her so dreadfully that she was frightened and made for the open sea. But she could never forget the splendid forests, the green hills, and the sweet children who could swim in the water though they had no fish's tails.

The fourth sister was not so bold; she stayed far out in the wild sea, and said that was the loveliest place of all. You could see for many miles around, and the sky stood over you like a great glass bell. She had seen ships, but only far away, so that they looked like gulls; the playful dolphins had turned somersaults, and the great whales had spouted water from their nostrils till it looked like a hundred fountains playing all around.

Now it was the fifth sister's turn. Her birthday was in winter, so she saw what the others had not seen the first time. The sea looked quite green, and great icebergs floated all around; each one, she said, looked like a pearl, yet was far larger than any steeple men could build. They rose in the strangest shapes and glittered like diamonds. She had seated herself on one of the largest and let the wind play with her long hair, while all the ships gave the iceberg a wide, fearful berth. Toward evening the sky clouded over; it flashed and thundered, while the black sea heaved the great blocks of ice high and made them glow red in the lightning. On every ship the sails were reefed; there was fear and dread everywhere. But she sat calmly on her floating iceberg and watched the blue lightning dart in zigzags into the shining sea.

The first time each sister rose above the water she was delighted with all the new and beautiful things she saw; but now that they were grown, and could go up whenever they pleased, it no longer mattered so much to them. They longed to be home again, and after a month they said it was loveliest of all down below; there one was so cozily at home.

Still, on many an evening the five sisters would link arms and rise up through the water in a row. They had beautiful voices, more beautiful than any human being's; and when a storm was coming on, so that they feared a ship might sink, they swam ahead of it and sang sweetly of how lovely it was on the bottom of the sea, begging the sailors not to be afraid to come down. But the sailors could not understand the words and thought it was only the storm; nor did they ever see the wonders below, for if the ship sank, the men drowned, and only their bodies reached the Sea King's palace.

When the sisters rose up like this, arm in arm, the littlest one stayed behind alone and watched them go, and she felt as though she must weep; but a mermaid has no tears, and so she suffers all the more.

"Oh, if only I were fifteen!" she said. "I know I shall dearly love the world up there and the people who live in it."

At last she too was fifteen.

"There now, you are grown up!" said her grandmother, the old dowager queen. "Come, let me deck you out like your sisters." She set a wreath of white lilies in the mermaid's hair, and each petal was half a pearl; and the old lady made eight great oysters clamp themselves to the princess's tail, to show her high rank.

"But it hurts so!" said the little mermaid.

"One must suffer to be grand," said the old lady.

Oh, how gladly she would have shaken off all this finery and laid the heavy wreath aside! Her red flowers in the garden suited her far better, but there was no help for it now. "Farewell," she said, and rose light and clear as a bubble up through the water.

The sun had just set as she lifted her head above the waves, but the clouds still glowed like roses and gold, and in the pale-red sky the evening star shone bright and lovely. The air was mild and fresh, and the sea calm. A great ship with three masts lay there; only one sail was set, for not a breath stirred, and the sailors sat idle among the rigging and along the yards. There was music and singing, and as it grew dark, hundreds of colored lanterns were lit, so that it looked as though the flags of all nations were fluttering in the air. The little mermaid swam right up to the cabin window, and each time the water lifted her she could peer through the clear glass panes at the finely dressed people within. Handsomest of all was the young prince with the great black eyes; he could not have been much over sixteen. It was his birthday, and that was why there was such splendor. The sailors danced on the deck, and when the young prince stepped out, more than a hundred rockets rose into the air, as bright as day, so that the little mermaid was frightened and dived under. But she soon put her head up again, and it seemed as though all the stars of heaven were falling down to her. Never had she seen such fireworks. Great suns whirled and sparkled, splendid fiery fish flew into the blue air, and everything was mirrored in the clear, still sea. On the ship itself it was so bright that every rope could be seen, and how much better the people! Oh, how handsome the young prince was, as he shook hands and smiled while the music rang out in the glorious night.

It grew late, but the little mermaid could not take her eyes from the ship and the beautiful prince. The colored lanterns were put out, no more rockets rose, no more cannon fired; but deep below the sea there was a humming and a rumbling. Still she sat rocking on the water so that she could look into the cabin. Then the ship gathered speed; one sail after another was spread; the waves grew stronger, heavy clouds rolled up, and lightning flashed far away. Oh, a terrible storm was coming! So the sailors reefed the sails, and the great ship rushed on over the wild sea. The water rose in great black mountains that seemed ready to break over the masts, but the ship dived like a swan between the towering waves and rose again on their high, foaming crests. To the little mermaid it seemed a merry ride, but not to the sailors. The ship groaned and cracked; the thick planks bent under the mighty blows; the sea poured in; the mast snapped in the middle like a reed, and the ship lay over on her side while the water rushed into the hold.

Now the little mermaid saw that they were in danger, and she herself had to take care of the beams and wreckage drifting on the water. One moment it was so dark she could see nothing at all; the next, when the lightning flashed, it was bright enough to make out everyone on board. She searched for the young prince, and just as the ship broke apart she saw him sink into the deep sea. For an instant she was glad, for now he would come down to her; but then she remembered that people cannot live in the water, and that he could reach her father's palace only as a corpse. No, he must not die! So she swam among the beams and planks that drifted on the sea, quite forgetting that they might crush her. She dived deep, rose again between the waves, and at last reached the prince, who could no longer keep himself afloat in the stormy sea. His arms and legs were failing him, his lovely eyes were closing; he would have died had she not come. She held his head above the water and let the waves carry them both wherever they would.

By morning the storm had passed; not a splinter of the ship could be seen. The sun rose red and shining out of the water, and it seemed to bring life back to the prince's cheeks, but his eyes stayed shut. The mermaid kissed his high, fair brow and stroked back his wet hair. He looked to her like the marble statue in her little garden, and she kissed him again and wished that he might live.

Now she saw before her the dry land, high blue mountains with white snow gleaming on their peaks, as though swans lay resting there. Down by the shore were lovely green woods, and near them stood a building—a church or a convent, she could not tell which. Lemon and orange trees grew in its garden, and tall palms stood before its gate. The sea formed a little bay here, calm but very deep, and she swam with the handsome prince toward the rocks where the fine white sand had drifted up. She laid him on the sand, taking special care to hold his head high in the warm sunshine.

Then all the bells rang out in the great white building, and many young girls came into the garden. The little mermaid swam off behind some high rocks that stood up out of the water, covered her hair and breast with sea foam so that no one could see her little face, and watched to see who would come to the poor prince.

Before long a young girl came by. She seemed frightened at first, but only for a moment; then she called others, and the mermaid saw the prince come back to life and smile at everyone around him. But at her he did not smile, for of course he did not know she had saved him. She grew very sad, and when he was led away into the great building she dived down sorrowfully into the water and returned to her father's palace.

She had always been quiet and thoughtful, but now she grew far more so. Her sisters asked what she had seen up above that first time, but she told them nothing.

Many an evening and morning she rose to the place where she had left the prince. She saw the fruits in the garden ripen and be picked, she saw the snow melt on the high mountains, but the prince she never saw, and so she always came home sadder than before. Her only comfort was to sit in her little garden with her arms around the beautiful marble statue that was so like him. But she no longer tended her flowers, and they grew wild all across the paths, twining their long stems and leaves into the branches of the trees until the whole place was dark.

At last she could bear it no longer, and told one of her sisters. Soon the others knew, but no one else except a few mermaids who told only their closest friends. One of them knew who the prince was; she too had seen the feast on the ship, and she told where he came from and where his kingdom lay.

"Come, little sister!" said the other princesses, and with their arms around one another they rose up in a long row out of the sea, near where they knew the prince's palace stood.

It was built of a pale-yellow, gleaming stone, with great marble stairs, one of which led right down into the sea. Splendid gilded domes rose above the roof, and between the pillars all around the building stood marble figures that looked as if they were alive. Through the clear glass of the tall windows you could see into magnificent halls hung with costly silk curtains and tapestries, and every wall was covered with great paintings, a true pleasure to look at. In the middle of the largest hall a fountain played, its jets reaching high toward the glass dome in the ceiling, through which the sun shone down on the water and the lovely plants growing in the great basin.

Now that she knew where he lived, she spent many an evening and many a night on the water there. She swam far closer to the shore than any of her sisters dared; indeed, she went right up the narrow channel beneath the fine marble balcony that threw a long shadow across the water. There she would sit and watch the young prince, who believed himself quite alone in the bright moonlight.

Many an evening she saw him sail out in his splendid boat, with music playing and flags flying; she peeped out from among the green reeds, and if the wind caught her long silver-white veil and someone saw it, he thought it was a swan spreading its wings.

Many a night, when the fishermen were out at sea with their torches, she heard them tell so much good of the young prince that she was glad she had saved his life when he drifted half-dead on the waves. She remembered how firmly his head had rested against her breast, and how tenderly she had kissed him then; but he knew nothing of it and could not even dream of her.

More and more she came to love human beings, and more and more she wished she could go about among them, for their world seemed far larger than her own. They could sail over the sea in ships and climb the high mountains above the clouds, and the lands they owned stretched away with forests and fields farther than she could see. There was so much she longed to know, but her sisters could not answer everything, so she asked her grandmother, who knew the world above well and rightly called it the lands over the sea.

"If people are not drowned," asked the little mermaid, "can they live forever? Do they not die as we do here below?"

"Yes," said the old lady, "they too must die, and their lives are even shorter than ours. We can live to be three hundred years old, but when we cease to be, we turn into foam on the water and have not so much as a grave here below among those we love. We have no immortal soul; we never live again; we are like the green reed—once it is cut, it can never grow green again. Human beings, on the other hand, have a soul that lives forever, that lives on after the body has become dust. It rises up through the clear air, up to the shining stars. Just as we rise out of the water and see the lands of the earth, so they rise to glorious places we shall never see."

"Why did we not get an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaid sadly. "I would give all my hundreds of years just to be a human being for a single day, and then to have a share in that heavenly world."

"You must not think of such things!" said the old lady. "We are far happier and better off than the people up there."

"So I shall die and drift as foam upon the sea, never to hear the music of the waves, never to see the lovely flowers and the red sun? Is there nothing at all I can do to win an immortal soul?"

"No," said the old lady, "unless a man should love you so much that you were more to him than father and mother; unless he clung to you with all his thoughts and all his love, and let a priest lay his right hand in yours, with a promise of faithfulness here and forever—then his soul would flow into your body, and you too would share in the happiness of mankind. He would give you a soul and yet keep his own. But that can never happen. The very thing that is beautiful here in the sea, your fish's tail, they think ugly up on the earth. They know no better; up there one must have two clumsy props, which they call legs, to be thought beautiful."

Then the little mermaid sighed and looked sadly at her fish's tail.

"Let us be merry," said the old lady. "Let us leap and dance through the three hundred years we have to live—that is surely long enough—and afterward we can rest all the more sweetly. This evening there is to be a court ball!"

And what a splendor it was, such as one never sees on earth! The walls and ceiling of the great ballroom were of thick but clear glass. Several hundred huge shells, rose-red and grass-green, stood in rows on either side, each holding a blue-burning fire that lit the whole hall and shone out through the walls, so that the sea outside was lit up too; and one could see the countless fish, great and small, swimming against the glass, their scales gleaming purple on some, silver and gold on others. Through the middle of the hall flowed a broad stream, and on it the mermen and mermaids danced to their own sweet singing. No people on earth have such lovely voices. The little mermaid sang the most beautifully of them all, and the whole court applauded her with hands and tails; and for a moment her heart was glad, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth or in the sea. But soon she thought again of the world above, for she could not forget the handsome prince, nor her grief at having no immortal soul as he did. So she slipped out of her father's palace, and while all inside was song and gladness, she sat sorrowful in her little garden. Then she heard the sound of a hunting horn come ringing down through the water, and thought: "There he is, surely, sailing up above, he on whom my heart is set, in whose hands I would place all the fortune of my life. I will risk everything to win him, and an immortal soul! While my sisters are dancing in my father's palace, I will go to the sea witch, of whom I have always been so afraid; but perhaps she can advise and help me."

So the little mermaid set out from her garden toward the roaring whirlpools behind which the witch lived. She had never gone that way before. No flowers grew there, no sea grass; only the bare gray sand stretched toward the whirlpools, where the water spun round like roaring mill wheels and dragged everything it seized down into the depths. Between these crushing whirls she had to pass to reach the witch's country, and for a long stretch there was no other road than across warm, bubbling mire, which the witch called her turf moor. Beyond it stood her house in the middle of a strange forest, where all the trees and bushes were polyps, half animal and half plant. They looked like hundred-headed snakes growing out of the earth; their branches were long slimy arms with fingers like supple worms, and joint by joint they moved from root to tip. Everything they could catch in the sea they wound tight and never let go again.

The little mermaid stood before it all, frightened; her heart beat with fear, and she nearly turned back. But then she thought of the prince and of a human soul, and her courage returned. She bound her long flowing hair tight around her head so the polyps could not seize it by that, folded both hands across her breast, and darted forward the way a fish shoots through the water, in among the ugly polyps, which reached out their supple arms and fingers after her. She saw how each of them held some prize it had caught, gripped by a hundred little arms as if by iron bands. People who had died at sea and sunk down deep showed as white skeletons in the polyps' arms; oars and chests they held fast, and skeletons of land animals, and a little mermaid they had caught and strangled—and that seemed to her the most terrible of all.

Now she came to a great marshy clearing in the forest, where fat water snakes rolled about, showing their ugly, yellowish-white bellies. In the middle of the clearing stood a house built from the white bones of drowned people, and there sat the sea witch, letting a toad eat from her mouth as people let a little canary eat sugar. The ugly fat water snakes she called her little chicks, and let them crawl about on her great spongy bosom.

"I know quite well what you want," said the sea witch. "It is foolish of you, but you shall have your way, for it will bring you to grief, my pretty princess. You want to be rid of your fish's tail and to have two props to walk on, like people up above, so the young prince will fall in love with you, and you can win him and an immortal soul." And with that the witch laughed so loud and so hideously that the toad and the snakes tumbled to the ground and lay writhing. "You have come just in time," said the witch. "After sunrise tomorrow I could not help you for another whole year. I will brew you a draught, and you must swim ashore with it before sunrise, sit down on the beach, and drink it. Then your tail will part and shrink into what people call pretty legs; but it will hurt, as if a sharp sword were passing through you. Everyone who sees you will say you are the loveliest human child they ever beheld. You will keep your gliding walk—no dancer will move so lightly as you—but every step you take will feel as though you tread on sharp knives, sharp enough to draw blood. If you will bear all this, I will help you."

"Yes," said the little mermaid in a trembling voice, thinking of the prince and of the immortal soul.

"But think well," said the witch. "Once you have taken human shape, you can never be a mermaid again. You can never come back down through the water to your sisters and your father's palace. And if you do not win the prince's love, so that he forgets his father and mother for your sake and clings to you with body and soul, and lets the priest lay your hands together as man and wife, then you shall get no immortal soul. On the very first morning after he marries another, your heart will break and you will become foam upon the water."

"I will do it," said the little mermaid, and she was pale as death.

"But you must pay me too," said the witch, "and it is no small thing I ask. You have the loveliest voice of anyone here at the bottom of the sea, and you mean to charm him with it, no doubt. But that voice you must give to me. The best thing you own I will have for my precious draught—for I must give my own blood to it, to make it sharp as a two-edged sword."

"But if you take my voice," said the little mermaid, "what will be left to me?"

"Your lovely shape," said the witch, "your gliding walk, and your speaking eyes—with those you can well enough enchant a human heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue, and I will cut it off in payment, and you shall have the powerful draught."

"Let it be done," said the little mermaid.

Then the witch set her cauldron on to boil the magic draught. "Cleanliness is a fine thing," she said, and scoured out the pot with the snakes, which she had tied in a great knot. Then she cut her own breast and let her black blood drip in. The steam rose in the strangest shapes, enough to fill anyone with dread. Every moment the witch threw something new into the pot, and when it boiled it sounded like a weeping crocodile. At last the draught was ready, and it looked as clear as the purest water.

"There it is," said the witch. Then she cut off the little mermaid's tongue, so that she was dumb and could never sing or speak again. "If the polyps should try to seize you as you go back through my forest," said the witch, "just throw a single drop of this on them, and their arms and fingers will burst into a thousand pieces." But the little mermaid did not need to do it, for the polyps shrank back in terror the moment they saw the glittering draught shining in her hand like a twinkling star.

So she came quickly back through the forest, the moor, and the roaring whirlpools. She could see her father's palace; the torches in the great ballroom had gone out, and everyone within was surely asleep. But she did not dare go in to them, now that she was dumb and about to leave them forever. It felt as though her heart would break with sorrow. She stole into the garden, took one flower from each of her sisters' beds, blew a thousand kisses toward the palace, and rose up through the dark blue sea.

The sun had not yet risen when she came in sight of the prince's palace and climbed the splendid marble stairs. The moon shone gloriously clear. The little mermaid drank the burning, biting draught, and it was as though a two-edged sword passed through her delicate body; she fainted and lay as if dead. When the sun shone out over the sea she awoke and felt a cutting pain—but right before her stood the handsome young prince. He fixed his coal-black eyes on her so intently that she cast down her own, and then she saw that her fish's tail was gone, and that she had the prettiest little white legs any girl could wish for. But she had no clothes, so she wrapped herself in her long hair. The prince asked who she was and how she had come there, and she looked at him gently but so sadly with her deep blue eyes, for she could not speak. Then he took her by the hand and led her into the palace. Every step she took was, as the witch had foretold, like treading on sharp needles and knives; but she bore it gladly, and at the prince's side she glided along as lightly as a soap bubble, so that he and everyone marveled at her lovely, floating walk.

She was given costly gowns of silk and muslin, and in the palace she was the fairest of all; but she was dumb and could neither sing nor speak. Lovely slave girls, dressed in silk and gold, came forward and sang before the prince and his royal parents. One sang more sweetly than the rest, and the prince clapped his hands and smiled at her. Then the little mermaid grew sad, for she knew she had once sung far more beautifully, and she thought: "Oh, if only he knew that to be with him I have given away my voice for all eternity."

Then the slave girls danced graceful, gliding dances to the most glorious music, and the little mermaid lifted her lovely white arms, rose on the tips of her toes, and glided over the floor, dancing as no one had ever danced before. With every movement her beauty showed the more, and her eyes spoke deeper to the heart than the singing of the slave girls. Everyone was enchanted, and the prince most of all, who called her his little foundling; and she danced more and more, though each time her foot touched the floor it was as if she trod on sharp knives. The prince said she should always stay with him, and she was allowed to sleep outside his door on a velvet cushion.

He had a page's dress made for her so that she could ride out with him. Together they rode through the fragrant woods, where the green branches brushed their shoulders and the birds sang behind the fresh leaves. She climbed the high mountains with the prince, and though her tender feet bled so that even the others could see it, she only laughed and followed him, until they saw the clouds sailing beneath them like a flock of birds flying off to distant lands.

Back at the prince's palace, when the others slept at night, she would go out onto the broad marble stairs; it soothed her burning feet to stand in the cold sea water, and there she would think of those below in the deep.

One night her sisters came, arm in arm, singing sorrowfully as they swam on the water. She waved to them, and they knew her, and told her how she had grieved them all. After that they came to her every night, and once, far out, she even saw her old grandmother, who had not been above the sea for many years, and the Sea King with his crown on his head. They stretched out their hands toward her, but did not dare come as close to land as her sisters did.

Day by day the prince grew dearer to her; he loved her as one loves a good, sweet child, but it never entered his head to make her his queen. And yet she had to become his wife, or she would never win an immortal soul, and on his wedding morning she would turn to foam upon the sea.

"Do you not love me best of all?" the little mermaid's eyes seemed to say when he took her in his arms and kissed her fair brow.

"Yes, you are dearest to me," said the prince, "for you have the best heart of them all. You are the most devoted to me, and you are like a young girl I once saw, but shall surely never find again. I was on a ship that was wrecked; the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple, where several young girls served. The youngest of them found me on the beach and saved my life. I saw her only twice; she is the one and only person in this world I could love—but you are like her, and you have almost driven her image from my heart. She belongs to the holy temple, and so my good fortune has sent you to me. We shall never part."

"Ah, he does not know that it was I who saved his life," thought the little mermaid. "I carried him over the sea to the wood where the temple stands; I sat hidden behind the rocks and watched to see if anyone would come. I saw the pretty girl he loves more than me." And she sighed deeply, for she could not weep. "He said the girl belongs to the holy temple; she never comes out into the world; they will never meet again. I am beside him, I see him every day. I will care for him, and love him, and give my life for him."

But now it was said the prince must marry, and that the neighboring king's beautiful daughter was to be his wife, and so he was fitting out a splendid ship. The prince was going to visit the neighboring king's lands, so it was given out; but really it was to see the king's daughter, and a great company was to go with him. The little mermaid shook her head and smiled; she knew the prince's thoughts far better than any of the others.

"I must go," he had said to her. "I must see this beautiful princess; my parents wish it. But they will not force me to bring her home as my bride. I cannot love her. She is not like the beautiful girl in the temple, whom you resemble. If I ever chose a bride, it would sooner be you, my silent foundling with the speaking eyes." And he kissed her red lips, played with her long hair, and laid his head against her heart, so that it dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul.

"You are not afraid of the sea, my silent child?" he said, when they stood on the fine ship that was to carry him to the neighboring king's country. He told her of storm and of calm, of strange fish in the deep and of what the divers had seen there; and she smiled at his tales, for she knew better than anyone what lay at the bottom of the sea.

In the moonlit night, when everyone slept but the helmsman at the wheel, she sat by the ship's rail and stared down through the clear water. She thought she could see her father's palace, and high above it her grandmother, the silver crown on her head, gazing up through the rushing currents at the keel of the ship. Then her sisters rose to the surface and looked at her sorrowfully, wringing their white hands. She waved to them, and smiled, and wanted to tell them that all was well and that she was happy; but the cabin boy came near, and the sisters dived under, so that he thought the white he had seen was only foam upon the sea.

The next morning the ship sailed into the harbor of the neighboring king's splendid city. All the church bells rang, and trumpets sounded from the high towers, while the soldiers stood with flying flags and gleaming bayonets. Every day there was a festival; balls and parties followed one another. But the princess had not yet come. She was being raised far away in a holy temple, they said, where she was learning every royal virtue. At last she arrived.

The little mermaid was eager to see her beauty, and she had to admit she had never seen a lovelier creature. Her skin was fine and clear, and behind her long dark lashes smiled a pair of deep-blue, faithful eyes.

"It is you!" said the prince. "You who saved me when I lay like a dead man on the shore!" And he clasped his blushing bride in his arms. "Oh, I am too happy!" he said to the little mermaid. "The dearest thing I ever dared to hope for has come true. You will be glad of my happiness, for of them all you wish me best!" And the little mermaid kissed his hand, and it seemed to her that her heart was already breaking. His wedding morning would bring her death and turn her into foam upon the sea.

All the church bells rang, and the heralds rode through the streets proclaiming the betrothal. On every altar fragrant oil burned in costly silver lamps. The priests swung their censers, and the bride and bridegroom joined hands and received the bishop's blessing. The little mermaid, dressed in silk and gold, held the bride's train; but her ears did not hear the festive music, and her eyes did not see the holy ceremony. She thought of the night of death that was coming, and of all she had lost in the world.

That same evening the bride and bridegroom went aboard the ship. The cannon roared, all the flags waved, and in the middle of the ship a costly tent of gold and purple had been raised, with the softest cushions, where the bridal pair were to sleep in the cool, still night. The sails swelled in the wind, and the ship glided lightly and smoothly over the clear sea.

When it grew dark, colored lamps were lit, and the sailors danced merrily on deck. The little mermaid could not help remembering the first time she had risen out of the sea, when she had seen the same splendor and joy; and she joined the dance, gliding as a swallow glides when it is pursued, and everyone cheered her in wonder. Never had she danced so beautifully. It cut into her tender feet like sharp knives, but she did not feel it; a sharper pain cut through her heart. She knew it was the last evening she would ever see him—him for whom she had left her family and her home, given up her lovely voice, and suffered endless torment day after day, while he never guessed a thing. It was the last night she would breathe the same air as he, or look on the deep sea and the starry sky; an endless night, without thought or dream, awaited her, for she had no soul and could never win one. And all was joy and merriment on the ship until long past midnight; she laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart. The prince kissed his lovely bride, and she played with his black hair, and arm in arm they went to rest in the splendid tent.

All grew quiet on the ship; only the helmsman stood at the wheel. The little mermaid laid her white arms on the rail and looked toward the east, for the first light of dawn—that first ray of sun, she knew, would kill her. Then she saw her sisters rise out of the sea. They were pale, as she was; their long beautiful hair no longer streamed in the wind, for it had been cut off.

"We have given our hair to the witch, so that she would help us save you from dying tonight! She has given us a knife—here it is. See how sharp it is? Before the sun rises you must plunge it into the prince's heart, and when his warm blood splashes on your feet, they will grow together into a fish's tail, and you will be a mermaid again, and can come down to us and live your three hundred years before you become dead, salt sea foam. Hurry! He or you must die before the sun rises. Our old grandmother grieves so that her white hair has fallen out, as ours fell under the witch's scissors. Kill the prince and come back! Hurry! Do you see the red streak in the sky? In a few minutes the sun will rise, and then you must die!" And with a deep, sorrowful sigh they sank beneath the waves.

The little mermaid drew back the purple curtain of the tent and saw the beautiful bride sleeping with her head on the prince's breast. She bent down and kissed his fair brow, then looked at the sky, where the dawn glowed brighter and brighter; she looked at the sharp knife, and again fixed her eyes on the prince, who in his sleep spoke his bride's name. She alone was in his thoughts, and the knife trembled in the little mermaid's hand. But then she flung it far out into the waves; they glowed red where it fell, as though drops of blood welled up from the water. Once more she looked at the prince with dimming eyes, then threw herself from the ship into the sea, and felt her body dissolving into foam.

Now the sun rose out of the sea; its rays fell so mild and warm on the cold sea foam, and the little mermaid did not feel that she was dying. She saw the bright sun, and above her floated hundreds of transparent, glorious beings; through them she could see the white sails of the ship and the red clouds of the sky. Their voices were like music, but so spirit-like that no human ear could hear them, just as no earthly eye could see them; without wings they floated through the air, carried by their own lightness. The little mermaid saw that she had a body like theirs, rising higher and higher out of the foam.

"Where am I going?" she asked, and her voice sounded like the others', so spirit-like that no earthly music could match it.

"To the daughters of the air!" they answered. "A mermaid has no immortal soul and can never win one unless she gains the love of a human being; her eternal life hangs on another's power. The daughters of the air have no immortal soul either, but through good deeds they can make one for themselves. We fly to the warm lands, where the heavy, plague-ridden air kills people, and there we fan cool breezes. We spread the scent of flowers through the air and send healing and comfort. When we have striven for three hundred years to do all the good we can, then we receive an immortal soul and share in the everlasting happiness of mankind. You, poor little mermaid, have striven for the same thing with your whole heart; you have suffered and endured, and lifted yourself into the world of the spirits of the air; and now, through good deeds, you too may make yourself an immortal soul after three hundred years."

And the little mermaid lifted her clear, shining eyes toward the sun, and for the first time she felt tears in them. On the ship there was noise and life again; she saw the prince and his beautiful bride searching for her; sadly they gazed at the foaming water, as though they knew she had thrown herself into the waves. Unseen, she kissed the bride's brow, fanned a cool breeze over the prince, and rose with the other children of the air onto a rosy cloud that sailed through the sky.

"In three hundred years we shall float like this into the kingdom of God!"

"And we may even come there sooner!" whispered one of the daughters of the air. "Unseen, we float into the houses of people where there are children, and for every day we find a good child who brings joy to its parents and deserves their love, God shortens our time of trial. The child never knows when we glide through the room, and when we smile for joy over such a child, a year is taken from the three hundred. But when we see a naughty or wicked child, we must weep tears of sorrow, and every tear adds a day to our time of trial."