第214章
《安徒生童话英文版 全TXT版》章节:第214章,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
do they never die as we do here in the sea?"
"Yes," replied the old lady, "they must also die, and their termof life is even shorter than ours. We sometimes live to threehundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foamon the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here ofthose we love. We have not immortal souls, we shall never liveagain; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, wecan never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soulwhich lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust.It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars.As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth,so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall neversee."
"Why have not we an immortal soul?" asked the little mermaidmournfully; "I would give gladly all the hundreds of years that I haveto live, to be a human being only for one day, and to have the hope ofknowing the happiness of that glorious world above the stars."
"You must not think of that," said the old woman; "we feelourselves to be much happier and much better off than human beings."
"So I shall die," said the little mermaid, "and as the foam of thesea I shall be driven about never again to hear the music of thewaves, or to see the pretty flowers nor the red sun. Is there anythingI can do to win an immortal soul?"
"No," said the old woman, "unless a man were to love you so muchthat you were more to him than his father or mother; and if all histhoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and the priest placedhis right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you here andhereafter, then his soul would glide into your body and you wouldobtain a share in the future happiness of mankind. He would give asoul to you and retain his own as well; but this can never happen.Your fish's tail, which amongst us is considered so beautiful, isthought on earth to be quite ugly; they do not know any better, andthey think it necessary to have two stout props, which they call legs,in order to be handsome."
Then the little mermaid sighed, and looked sorrowfully at herfish's tail. "Let us be happy," said the old lady, "and dart andspring about during the three hundred years that we have to live,which is really quite long enough; after that we can rest ourselvesall the better. This evening we are going to have a court ball."
It is one of those splendid sights which we can never see onearth. The walls and the ceiling of the large ball-room were of thick,but transparent crystal. May hundreds of colossal shells, some of adeep red, others of a grass green, stood on each side in rows, withblue fire in them, which lighted up the whole saloon, and shonethrough the walls, so that the sea was also illuminated. Innumerablefishes, great and small, swam past the crystal walls; on some ofthem the scales glowed with a purple brilliancy, and on others theyshone like silver and gold. Through the halls flowed a broad stream,and in it danced the mermen and the mermaids to the music of their ownsweet singing. No one on earth has such a lovely voice as theirs.The little mermaid sang more sweetly than them all. The whole courtapplauded her with hands and tails; and for a moment her heart feltquite gay, for she knew she had the loveliest voice of any on earth orin the sea. But she soon thought again of the world above her, for shecould not forget the charming prince, nor her sorrow that she hadnot an immortal soul like his; therefore she crept away silently outof her father's palace, and while everything within was gladness andsong, she sat in her own little garden sorrowful and alone. Then sheheard the bugle sounding through the water, and thought- "He iscertainly sailing above, he on whom my wishes depend, and in whosehands I should like to place the happiness of my life. I willventure all for him, and to win an immortal soul, while my sisters aredancing in my father's palace, I will go to the sea witch, of whom Ihave always been so much afraid, but she can give me counsel andhelp."
And then the little mermaid went out from her garden, and took theroad to the foaming whirlpools, behind which the sorceress lived.She had never been that way before: neither flowers nor grass grewthere; nothing but bare, gray, sandy ground stretched out to thewhirlpool, where the water, like foaming mill-wheels, whirled roundeverything that it seized, and cast it into the fathomless deep.Through the midst of these crushing whirlpools the little mermaidwas obliged to pass, to reach the dominions of the sea witch; and alsofor a long distance the only road lay right across a quantity of warm,bubbling mire, called by the witch her turfmoor. Beyond this stood herhouse, in the centre of a strange forest, in which all the trees andflowers were polypi, half animals and half plants; they looked likeserpents with a hundred heads growing out of the ground. Thebranches were long slimy arms, with fingers like flexible worms,moving limb after limb from the root to the top. All that could bereached in the sea they seized upon, and held fast, so that it neverescaped from their clutches. The little mermaid was so alarmed at whatshe saw, that she stood still, and her heart beat with fear, and shewas very nearly turning back; but she thought of the prince, and ofthe human soul for which she longed, and her courage returned. Shefastened her long flowing hair round her head, so that the polypimight not seize hold of it. She laid her hands together across herbosom, and then she darted forward as a fish shoots through the water,between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which werestretched out on each side of her. She saw that each held in its graspsomething it had seized with its numerous little arms, as if they wereiron bands. The white skeletons of human beings who had perished atsea, and had sunk down into the deep waters, skeletons of landanimals, oars, rudders, and chests of ships were lying tightly graspedby their clinging arms; even a little mermaid, whom they had caughtand strangled; and this seemed the most shocking of all to thelittle princess.
She now came to a space of marshy ground in the wood, where large,fat water-snakes were rolling in the mire, and showing their ugly,drab-colored bodies. In the midst of this spot stood a house, builtwith the bones of shipwrecked human beings. There sat the sea witch,allowing a toad to eat from her mouth, just as people sometimes feed acanary with a piece of sugar. She called the ugly water-snakes herlittle chickens, and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.
"I know what you want," said the sea witch; "it is very stupidof you, but you shall have your way, and it will bring you tosorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish's tail,and to have two supports instead of it, like human beings on earth, sothat the young prince may fall in love with you, and that you may havean immortal soul." And then the witch laughed so loud anddisgustingly, that the toad and the snakes fell to the ground, and laythere wriggling about. "You are but just in time," said the witch;"for after sunrise to-morrow I should not be able to help you till theend of another year. I will prepare a draught for you, with whichyou must swim to land tomorrow before sunrise, and sit down on theshore and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, and shrink upinto what mankind calls legs, and you will feel great pain, as if asword were passing through you. But all who see you will say thatyou are the prettiest little human being they ever saw. You will stillhave the same floating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer willever tread so lightly; but at every step you take it will feel as ifyou were treading upon sharp knives, and that the blood must flow.If you will bear all this, I will help you."
"Yes, I will," said the little princess in a trembling voice, asshe thought of the prince and the immortal soul.
"But think again," said the witch; "for when once your shape hasbecome like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You willnever return through the water to your sisters, or to your father'spalace again; and if you do not win the love of the prince, so that heis willing to forget his father and mother for your sake, and tolove you with his whole soul, and allow the priest to join yourhands that you may be man and wife, then you will never have animmortal soul. The first morning after he marries another your heartwill break, and you will become foam on the crest of the waves."
"I will do it," said the little mermaid, and she became pale asdeath. />
"But I must be paid also," said the witch, "and it is not a triflethat I ask. You have the sweetest voice of any who dwell here in thedepths of the sea, and you believe that you will be able to charmthe prince with it also, but this voice you must give to me; thebest thing you possess will I have for the price of my draught. My ownblood must be mixed with it, that it may be as sharp as a two-edgedsword."
"But if you take away my voice," said the little mermaid, "what isl