their ships they could scour the ocean, they could ascend the
mountains high above the clouds, and their wooded, grass-grown lands
extended further than her eye could reach. There was so much that she
wanted to know, but her sisters could not give an answer to all her
questions, so she asked her old grandmother, who knew the upper world
well, and rightly called it the country above the sea.

'If men are not drowned,' asked the little mermaid, 'do they live for
ever? Do they not die as we do down here in the sea?'

'Yes,' said the old lady, 'they have to die too, and their lifetime is
even shorter than ours. We may live here for three hundred years, but
when we cease to exist we become mere foam on the water and do not have
so much as a grave among our dear ones. We have no immortal souls; we
have no future life; we are just like the green sea-weed, which, once
cut down, can never revive again! Men, on the other hand, have a soul
which lives for ever, lives after the body has become dust; it rises
through the clear air, up to the shining stars! Just as we rise from the
water to see the land of mortals, so they rise up to unknown beautiful
regions which we shall never see.'

'Why have we no immortal souls?' asked the little mermaid sadly. 'I
would give all my three hundred years to be a human being for one day,
and afterwards to have a share in the heavenly kingdom.'

'You must not be thinking about that,' said the grandmother; 'we are
much better off and happier than human beings.'

'Then I shall have to die and to float as foam on the water, and never
hear the music of the waves or see the beautiful flowers or the red sun!
Is there nothing I can do to gain an immortal soul?'

'No,' said the grandmother; 'only if a human being so loved you that you
were more to him than father or mother, if all his thoughts and all his
love were so centred in you that he would let the priest join your hands
and would vow to be faithful to you here, and to all eternity; then your
body would become infused with his soul. Thus, and only thus, could you
gain a share in the felicity of mankind. He would give you a soul while
yet keeping his own. But that can never happen! That which is your
greatest beauty in the sea, your fish's tail, is thought hideous up on
earth, so little do they understand about it; to be pretty there you
must have two clumsy supports which they call legs!'

Then the little mermaid sighed and looked sadly at her