H. C. Andersen best fairy tales / Лучшие сказки Г.Х. Андерсена. Уровень 1

Many nights she stood at the open window and gazed up through the dark blue waters where the fish were waving their fins and tails. She could see the moon and the stars. Of course they were very pale, but they looked much larger than they do to our eyes.

If a black passed along beneath them, she knew that it was either a whale, or even a ship with a number of people in it. Certainly they never thought that beneath them there was a lovely little mermaid.

And now the eldest Princess was fifteen years old and could rise up above the surface of the sea.

When she came back she had a hundred things to tell. The most beautiful thing, she said, was to lie on a sandbank in the moonlight in the calm sea, and to see the big town where the lights twinkled like hundreds of stars, and to hear the sound of music and the noise of carts and people, and see all the church towers and hear the bells.

The youngest sister listened and dreamed! And when, in the evening, she stood at the open window and gazed up through the dark blue water, she thought about the big town and all the noise.

The year after, the second sister rose up through the water and swam where she liked. She saw how the sun was going down, and the sight of that was the most beautiful of all. The whole heaven, she said, looked like gold, and the clouds sailed past above her.

Next year the third sister went up. She was the boldest of them all. She swam up a broad river that ran into the sea. She saw beautiful green hills, with rows of vines upon them.

In a little inlet she saw a crowd of young human children. They were naked, and ran about and splashed in the water. She wanted to play with them, but they ran away in a fright. Then came a little black creature (it was a dog) and it barked at her so dreadfully that she was terrified and swam away. She could not forget the splendid woods and the green hills and the pretty children who swam in the water, though they had no fish-tails.

The fourth sister stayed out in the lonely sea, and told them that that was the most beautiful of all. You could see many miles all round, and the sky was like a great bell of glass. She saw the merry dolphins and the big whales. It looked like hundreds of fountains all around her.

Now came the turn of the fifth sister. Her birthday was in winter.