The Little Mermaid Read online

  It was built of gleaming, pale yellow stone, with a great marble staircase that ran right down to the sea. Majestic gilt domes swelled on the roofline, and marble statues peeped from among the columns circling the castle and appeared to be alive. Through the tall windows the little mermaid glimpsed the most splendid halls, where expensive silk curtains hung and the walls were decorated with large paintings that must have been a pleasure to gaze upon. An enormous fountain burbled in the middle of the biggest hall, and jets of water stretched high towards the glass dome, through which the sun streamed onto the water and the lovely plants growing in the large pool.

  Now the little mermaid knew where the Prince lived, and she spent many nights in the sea offshore. She went much closer to land than any of her sisters dared—yes, she even swam up the narrow canal beneath the grand marble balcony. Here, in the long shadow that it cast onto the water, she would study the young Prince, who thought he was all by himself in the bright moonlight.

  Often she watched him sailing in his magnificent ship in the evenings, with music playing and flags aflutter. She’d peek at him from among the green reeds, and the wind would catch the long silver-white veil she wore. If anyone saw it, they simply thought it was a swan, lifting its wings.

  On some nights, the fishermen would light lanterns on their boats to catch eels. She would paddle close and listen as they told each other tales of the young Prince’s goodness, and it made her happy to think that she’d saved his life when he almost died in the waves. And she remembered how steadily he had rested on her breast, how passionately she had kissed him. Yet he knew nothing of what had happened—no, he couldn’t even dream about her.

  The little mermaid grew fonder and fonder of human beings, and she wished more and more that she could walk up among them. Their world seemed so much larger than hers, for they could fly across the sea in ships and climb the mountains till they were higher than the clouds, while the lands they owned, with their fields and forests, stretched farther than her eyes could see. There was so much she longed to know! Yet her sisters couldn’t answer all her questions, and so she asked her grandmother. The old mermaid knew a lot about the upper world, as she quite rightly called the lands above the sea.

  “If they don’t drown, can human beings live forever?” the little mermaid asked her. “Or do they have to die, like we do down here in the sea?”

  “Yes, they must die too,” her grandmother said. “And their lifetime is even shorter than ours. We can live to be three hundred years old—though when we stop living, we turn into foam on the water. And we have no graves here, down among those we love. We don’t have immortal souls; there’s no more life for us once we die. A mermaid is just like a green reed—once it’s been cut down, it will never grow new leaves! But a human being has a soul that lives forever. This soul keeps living after the human body turns into soil; it rises up through the clear air, up to all the twinkling stars! Just as we can rise to the top of the ocean to look at the lands of people, so people can rise to amazing unknown places that we will never get to see.”

  “Why don’t we have an immortal soul?” asked the little mermaid, disappointed. “I’d gladly give up my three hundred years if I could just live for a single day as a human—and then become part of that heavenly world!”

  “Don’t say such things!” the old mermaid warned. “We’re much happier and better off than the people up there.”

  “But then I’m going to die and just turn into foam floating on the ocean! I won’t hear the music of the waves any more, or see all the fine flowers and the red sun! Isn’t there anything at all I can do to get an immortal soul?”

  “No!” her grandmother insisted. “Except… except if a human being loved you so much that you meant more to him than his mother and father, if he would do anything for you and let a minister place his right hand in yours, and if you both promised to be true to each other, now and forever. Then his soul would flow into your body, and you would know lasting human happiness. He would give you a soul—and keep his too.

  “But that’ll never happen!” the old mermaid continued. “The one thing that we admire so much here in the sea—our fishtail—seems hideous to people on land. Human beings have no sense. They think that to be beautiful, you need the two clumsy stumps they call legs!”

  The little mermaid sighed, and looked sadly at her fishtail.

  “Let’s enjoy ourselves,” her grandmother said. “Let’s leap and dance for the three hundred years we have. That’s plenty of time—and when we die, we can rest, and that’ll feel more pleasant then. Meanwhile, tonight we’re holding a court ball!”

  Indeed, the mermaid ball was finer than anything you’ll ever see on land. The walls and ceiling of the ballroom were made of thick glass, and hundreds of gigantic clamshells, rosy red and grassy green, stood in lines on both sides, while a burning blue fire lit up the sea around the ballroom. Innumerable fish, big and small, could be seen swimming towards the glass walls; some had scales of glowing purple, on others the scales were silver and gold. A broad current flowed through the ballroom, where mermen and mermaids danced to their own wonderful songs. Never will you hear such voices up here! And the little mermaid’s singing was the loveliest of all, and everyone clapped. For a moment her heart was glad, because she knew she had the most beautiful voice anywhere, on land or in the sea.

  But soon she started thinking about the upper world. She couldn’t forget the handsome Prince, or her sorrow over not having what he did—an immortal soul. So she slipped out of her father’s palace, and while everything inside was laughter and song, she sat in her little garden, mournful and alone. Then she heard the sound of a horn coming down through the water, and she thought to herself, He’s probably sailing above me right now—the one person who means more to me than father or mother, the one person I’m devoted to and in whose hand I want to place my life’s happiness. I’d risk everything to win him, and a soul! Maybe the Sea Witch can give me advice and help, even though she’s always scared me. Yes—while my sisters are dancing in our father’s palace, I’ll visit the Sea Witch.

  The little mermaid swam from her garden towards the seething whirlpools. Somewhere behind them lived the witch. The little mermaid had never gone that way before, for no flowers grew there, not even seaweed. There was only bare grey sea floor until she got to the whirlpools, where the water whooshed around like roaring mill wheels and brought everything it caught down into the deeps. She had to swim through the middle of the deadly whirlpools to reach the region of the sea witch, and then the only way was across the hot bubbling swamp that the witch called her peat bog. Beyond the swamp was a strange jungle, with the witch’s house at the centre. The trees and bushes here were all polyps, half animal and half plant; they looked like hundred-headed snakes growing from the ground. Their branches were long slimy arms with flexible fingers like worms, squirming joint by joint from root to tip. Whenever the polyps could grab hold of something, they coiled themselves tightly around it and never let go.

  The little mermaid was terrified as she floated there in front of them, her heart pounding with fear, and she almost turned around. But then she thought of the Prince, and a human soul, and she took courage. She tied her flowing hair around her head, so that the polyps couldn’t grab it, crossed both hands over her breast and flew through the water the way only a fish can, scooting in between all the monstrous polyps that stretched out their waving tentacles to catch her. She saw that wherever a polyp had captured something, a hundred small tentacles were holding it fast like strong bands of iron. Humans who had drowned at sea and sunk to the bottom were only white skeletons now, peeping forth from the polyps’ arms. She could see ships’ rudders and sea chests that had fallen into their clutches, the bones of land animals and—scariest of all—a small mermaid they’d caught and strangled.

  Now she came to a large slimy clearing in the jungle where big fat sea snakes squirmed around and showed their vile yellowish bellies. In the middle of the clearing, a
house had been built from the white bones of shipwrecked sailors. And there sat the Sea Witch, letting a toad eat from her mouth, just the way we might let a canary peck at a sugar lump between our teeth. “My little chickens!” she called out to the nasty fat sea snakes, and they wriggled up onto her big spongy breast.

  “I know what you want,” cried the Sea Witch, “and it’s a stupid thing to ask! Yet I will let you have your way, my darling Princess, for I know it’ll bring you misfortune. You’d like to get rid of your fishtail, and instead you want two stumps to walk with, like the humans—just so the young Prince might fall in love with you, and then you can win him and an immortal soul!”

  The witch’s laughter was so loud and evil that the toad and the sea snakes fell to the ground, where they continued to twitch and writhe. “You’ve come at just the right time,” said the witch. “Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, I wouldn’t be able to help you for another year. But I’ll make you a potion, and before the sun rises, you must swim to land, sit on the shore and drink it. It’ll split your tail in two, and the two pieces will shrivel into what humans call pretty legs. But it will hurt! It’ll feel like a sharp sword has sliced right through you. Then everyone who catches sight of you will say that you’re the loveliest person they’ve ever seen. You’ll keep your swaying way of moving, and no dancer will be able to glide like you—but with every step you take, it’ll feel like you’re stepping on a sharp knife that’ll make you bleed. Do you want me to help you suffer all of this?”

  “Yes!” said the little mermaid with a trembling voice, thinking of the Prince and the undying soul that would be hers.

  “But remember,” said the witch, “once you have a human shape, you can never be a mermaid again! Never can you swim down through the water to your sisters or to your father’s palace. And if you don’t win the Prince’s love—if he doesn’t forget father and mother, promise himself to you and let the minister place your hands together as husband and wife—then you’ll never get a soul! If he marries someone else instead, your heart will burst the very next time the sun rises, and you’ll turn into sea foam.”

  “I’ll do it!” cried the little mermaid, and she turned as pale as a corpse.

  “Ah, but you must pay me too,” said the witch. “And it’s no small thing I ask! You have the most beautiful voice of anyone at the bottom of the sea—and you probably think you can use it to enchant him. But you must give that voice to me! The very best thing you have—that’s the price of this precious potion. For I must put my own blood into it, to make the potion as sharp as a double-edged sword.”

  “But once you take my voice, what will I have left?”

  “You’ll have your lovely form, the floating way you move, and your expressive eyes,” the witch said. “With these three things, surely you can charm a human heart? Ha, have you lost your courage? Stick out your little tongue! I’ll cut it off as payment—and then you’ll get your potion.”

  “Do it!” said the little mermaid.

  The Sea Witch set her cauldron on the fire to boil the magic potion. She tied the sea snakes in a knot and used them to scour out the cauldron. “Cleanliness is a virtue!” she said. Then she cut herself on the breast and let her black blood drip into the cauldron, and the steam formed the eeriest shapes—shapes that would terrify anyone. The witch kept adding new things to the cauldron, and it bubbled away, like the tears in a crocodile’s eyes. Finally the potion was ready—and it looked just like pure water.

  “Here you go!” said the witch, and then she sliced off the little mermaid’s tongue. Now she was mute, unable to sing or speak.

  “When the polyps try to grab you on your way back through the jungle,” the witch said, “just splash a single drop of the potion on them. Then their arms and fingers will burst into smithereens.”

  But that wasn’t necessary. When the polyps saw the potion in the little mermaid’s hand, glittering like a star, they drew back in fear. And so she passed quickly through the jungle, the swamp and the roaring whirlpools.

  Now she could see her father’s palace. The flames in the great ballroom had all been snuffed out. She supposed everyone was asleep inside, but she didn’t dare to try to find them, because now she was mute and leaving them forever. She felt as if her heart would break in pieces from sorrow. She sneaked into the garden and took one blossom from each of her sisters’ flowerbeds, flung a thousand kisses towards the palace and swam up through the deep blue sea.

  The sun hadn’t risen yet when she reached the Prince’s castle and crawled up its majestic marble steps; but the moon still shone wonderfully bright. The little mermaid drank down the burning bitter potion, and then her delicate body felt like it was being split by a double-edged sword. She fainted and lay there lifeless. When the first ray of the sun touched the ocean, she woke and felt a sizzling pain, but just in front of her stood the handsome young Prince, his coal-black eyes fixed upon her. She dropped her gaze and saw that her fishtail was gone; instead she had the prettiest legs a girl could wish for, slender and white. Since she had no clothes, she wrapped herself in her long flowing hair. The Prince asked her who she was and how she had got there. She gazed at him with gentleness in her dark blue eyes and yet sadness too, for of course she couldn’t speak. Then he took her by the hand and led her into the castle. Just as the witch had said, with each step it felt like she was walking on sharp knives and needles, but she put up with it gladly. She glided up the stairs at his side as lightly as a bubble, and the Prince and everyone who saw her marvelled at the graceful, floating way she walked.

  They gave her expensive clothes of silk and muslin to wear, and she was the prettiest in the castle. Yet she could not sing or speak. Lovely servant women in silk and gold came out and sang for the Prince and his royal parents. One servant sang more beautifully than the others, and the Prince clapped his hands and smiled at her. That saddened the little mermaid, for she knew she could have sung far better. Oh, she thought, if only he knew that I gave away my voice forever just to be with him!

  Then the servants began a charming, gliding dance to magnificent music. The little mermaid raised her fine white arms, rose up on tiptoe and floated across the floor, dancing like no one had ever danced before. With each movement her loveliness became more and more apparent, while her eyes spoke to the depths of the heart, deeper than the servants singing. Everyone was enchanted—especially the Prince, who called her his little foundling—and she kept dancing, even though each time her foot touched the floor it felt like she was stepping on knife blades.

  The Prince declared that she must stay with him always, and she was allowed to sleep outside his door on a velvet pillow. He let her sew herself men’s clothing so that she could follow him on horseback. They rode through fragrant forests, where green branches slapped her shoulders and songbirds sang behind new leaves. She climbed the high mountains with the Prince, and though her fine feet bled so that everyone noticed, she laughed it off and followed him upwards, till they saw the clouds sailing beneath them like a flock of birds flying to far-off lands.

  Back home in the Prince’s castle, the little mermaid would walk out onto the broad marble steps at night while the others slept. The cold seawater cooled her burning feet as she stood there, and then she’d think about the sea folk who lived in the deeps.

  One night her sisters appeared, arm in arm, singing mournfully as they swam through the water. She waved to them, and then they saw who she was. They told her how sad she’d made them. They visited every night after that, and once she even saw in the distance her old grandmother, who hadn’t been above water in many years, and the Sea King with his crown upon his head. They stretched their arms towards her, but they didn’t dare to come as close to shore as her sisters.

  Day by day, the little mermaid became dearer and dearer to the Prince. He doted on her, the way you dote on a darling child. Yet it never occurred to him to make her his queen. And she had to become his wife! Otherwise she wouldn’t gain an immortal soul, and when day daw
ned after his wedding, she would turn into foam.

  When he took her in his arms and kissed her beautiful forehead, the little mermaid’s eyes seemed to ask, Don’t you love me more than anyone else?

  “You are the dearest of them all,” the Prince said, “because you have the truest heart and show the most devotion to me. Besides, you remind me of a girl I once saw but will probably never see again. I was on a ship that sank, and the waves carried me to land near a holy temple where some young women were serving. The youngest one found me on the shore and rescued me, but I only saw her twice. She’s the only person I could love in this world—though you do look like her and have almost replaced her image in my heart. Since she belongs to the temple, my good fortune has sent you to me instead—and never shall we be apart!”

  Alas, thought the little mermaid, he doesn’t realize that I was the one who saved his life! I bore him across the ocean to the shore where that temple stands, then hid myself in foam and watched to see if anyone would come. And then I saw her—the beautiful girl he loves more than me! The mermaid sighed deeply, since she could not cry. That girl belongs to the holy temple, that’s what he said. She’ll never leave and go out into the world, and that means they’ll never meet again. But I am at his side and see him every day—and I’ll care for him, love him and sacrifice my life for him!

  Yet then people began to say that the Prince was to be married—to the neighbouring king’s lovely daughter! That’s why he’s fitting out such a stately ship, they said. The Prince is making the journey just to see the kingdom, that’s the official story—but the real reason he’s taking so many people along is because he’s going to see the King’s daughter.

  The little mermaid only shook her head and laughed. She knew the Prince’s thoughts better than anyone. “I have to go!” he had told her. “I have to see this beautiful princess—my parents insist. But can they force me to bring her home as my bride? Never! I cannot love her! She can’t possibly look like the beautiful girl in the temple, as you do. If I were ever going to choose a bride, I’d rather choose you, my silent foundling with the eloquent eyes!” And then he’d kissed her red lips, twirled her long hair around his fingers and placed his head by her heart, so that it dreamt of human happiness and an immortal soul.