“Yes,you are dear to me,”said the prince;“for you have the best heart,and you are the most devoted to me;you are like a young maiden whom I once saw,but whom I shall never meet again.I was in a ship that was wrecked,and the waves cast me ashore near a holy temple,where several young maidens performed the service.The youngest of them found me on the shore,and saved my life.I saw her but twice,and she is the only one in the world whom I could love;but you are like her,and you have almost driven her image out of my mind.She belongs to the holy temple,and my good fortune has sent you to me instead of her;and we will never part.”
“Ah,he knows not 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 beneath the foam,and watched till the human beings came to help him.I saw the pretty maiden that he loves better than he loves me;”and the mermaid sighed deeply,but she could not shed tears.“He says the maiden belongs to the holy temple,therefore she will never return to the world.They will meet no more:while I am by his side,and see him every day.I will take care of him,and love him,and give up my life for his sake.”
Very soon it was said that the prince must marry,and that the beautiful daughter of a neighboring king would be his wife,for a fine ship was being fitted out.Although the prince gave out that he merely intended to pay a visit to the king,it was generally supposed that he really went to see his daughter.A great company were to go with him.The little mermaid smiled,and shook her head.She knew the prince's thoughts better than any of the others.
“I must travel,”he had said to her;“I must see this beautiful princess;my parents desire it;but they will not oblige me to bring her home as my bride.I cannot love her;she is not like the beautiful maiden in the temple,whom you resemble.If I were forced to choose a bride,I would rather choose you,my dumb foundling,with those expressive eyes.”And then he kissed her rosy mouth,played with her long waving hair,and laid his head on her heart,while she dreamed of human happiness and an immortal soul.“You are not afraid of the sea,my dumb child,”said he,as they stood on the deck of the noble ship which was to carry them to the country of the neighboring king.And then he told her of storm and of calm,of strange fishes in the deep beneath them,and of what the divers had seen there;and she smiled at his descriptions,for she knew better than any one what wonders were at the bottom of the sea.
In the moonlight,when all on board were asleep,excepting the man at the helm,who was steering,she sat on the deck,gazing down through the clear water.She thought she could distinguish her father's castle,and upon it her aged grandmother,with the silver crown on her head,looking through the rushing tide at the keel of the vessel.Then her sisters came up on the waves,and gazed at her mournfully,wringing their white hands.She beckoned to them,and smiled,and wanted to tell them how happy and well off she was;but the cabin-boy approached,and when her sisters dived down he thought it was only the foam of the sea which he saw.
The next morning the ship sailed into the harbor of a beautiful town belonging to the king whom the prince was going to visit.The church bells were ringing,and from the high towers sounded a flourish of trumpets;and soldiers,with flying colors and glittering bayonets,lined the rocks through which they passed.Every day was a festival;balls and entertainments followed one another.
But the princess had not yet appeared.People said that she was being brought up and educated in a religious house,where she was learning every royal virtue.At last she came.Then the little mermaid,who was very anxious to see whether she was really beautiful,was obliged to acknowledge that she had never seen a more perfect vision of beauty.Her skin was delicately fair,and beneath her long dark eye-lashes her laughing blue eyes shone with truth and purity.
“It was you,”said the prince,“who saved my life when I lay dead on the beach,”and he folded his blushing bride in his arms.“Oh,I am too happy,”said he to the little mermaid;“my fondest hopes are all fulfilled.You will rejoice at my happiness;for your devotion to me is great and sincere.”
