As soon as the eldest was fifteen,she was allowed to rise to the surface of the ocean.When she came back,she had hundreds of things to talk about;but the most beautiful,she said,was to lie in the moonlight,on a sandbank,in the quiet sea,near the coast,and to gaze on a large town nearby,where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars;to listen to the sounds of the music,the noise of carriages,and the voices of human beings,and then to hear the merry bells peal out from the church steeples;and because she could not go near to all those wonderful things,she longed for them more than ever.Oh,did not the youngest sister listen eagerly to all these descriptions?and afterwards,when she stood at the open window looking up through the dark blue water,she thought of the great city,with all its bustle and noise,and even fancied she could hear the sound of the church bells,down in the depths of the sea.
In another year the second sister received permission to rise to the surface of the water,and to swim about where she pleased.She rose just as the sun was setting,and this,she said,was the most beautiful sight of all.The whole sky looked like gold,while violet and rose-colored clouds,which she could not describe,floated over her;and,still more rapidly than the clouds,flew a large flock of wild swans towards the setting sun,looking like a long white veil across the sea.She also swam towards the sun;but it sunk into the waves,and the rosy tints faded from the clouds and from the sea.
The third sister's turn followed;she was the boldest of them all,and she swam up a broad river that emptied itself into the sea.On the banks she saw green hills covered with beautiful vines;palaces and castles peeped out from amid the proud trees of the forest;she heard the birds singing,and the rays of the sun were so powerful that she was obliged often to dive down under the water to cool her burning face.In a narrow creek she found a whole troop of little human children,quite naked,and sporting about in the water;she wanted to play with them,but they fled in a great fright;and then a little black animal came to the water;it was a dog,but she did not know that,for she had never before seen one.This animal barked at her so terribly that she became frightened,and rushed back to the open sea.But she said she should never forget the beautiful forest,the green hills,and the pretty little children who could swim in the water,although they had not fish's tails.
The fourth sister was more timid;she remained in the midst of the sea,but she said it was quite as beautiful there as nearer the land.She could see for so many miles around her,and the sky above looked like a bell of glass.She had seen the ships,but at such a great distance that they looked like sea-gulls.The dolphins sported in the waves,and the great whales spouted water from their nostrils till it seemed as if a hundred fountains were playing in every direction.
The fifth sister's birthday occurred in the winter;so when her turn came,she saw what the others had not seen the first time they went up.The sea looked quite green,and large icebergs were floating about,each like a pearl,she said,but larger and loftier than the churches built by men.They were of the most singular shapes,and glittered like diamonds.She had seated herself upon one of the largest,and let the wind play with her long hair,and she remarked that all the ships sailed by rapidly,and steered as far away as they could from the iceberg,as if they were afraid of it.Towards evening,as the sun went down,dark clouds covered the sky,the thunder rolled and the lightning flashed,and the red light glowed on the icebergs as they rocked and tossed on the heaving sea.On all the ships the sails were reefed with fear and trembling,while she sat calmly on the floating iceberg,watching the blue lightning,as it darted its forked flashes into the sea.
When first the sisters had permission to rise to the surface,they were each delighted with the new and beautiful sights they saw;but now,as grown-up girls,they could go when they pleased,and they had become indifferent about it.They wished themselves back again in the water,and after a month had passed they said it was much more beautiful down below,and pleasanter to be at home.Yet often,in the evening hours,the five sisters would twine their arms round each other,and rise to the surface,in a row.They had more beautiful voices than any human being could have;and before the approach of a storm,and when they expected a ship would be lost,they swam before the vessel,and sang sweetly of the delights to be found in the depths of the sea,and begging the sailors not to fear if they sank to the bottom.But the sailors could not understand the song,they took it for the howling of the storm.And these things were never to be beautiful for them;for if the ship sank,the men were drowned,and their dead bodies alone reached the palace of the Sea King.
When the sisters rose,arm-in-arm,through the water in this way,their youngest sister would stand quite alone,looking after them,ready to cry,only that the mermaids have no tears,and therefore they suffer more.“Oh,were I but fifteen years old,”said she:“I know that I shall love the world up there,and all the people who live in it.”
At last she reached her fifteenth year.“Well,now,you are grown up,”said the old dowager,her grandmother;“so you must let me adorn you like your other sisters;”and she placed a wreath of white lilies in her hair,and every flower leaf was half a pearl.Then the old lady ordered eight great oysters to attach themselves to the tail of the princess to show her high rank.
“But they hurt me so,”said the little mermaid.
