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

One sang more sweetly than all the rest, and the Prince applauded her and smiled on her. Then the little mermaid was sad.

Then the slave girls danced graceful dances. Now the little mermaid raised her pretty white arms and rose on tiptoe and floated over the floor. Everyone was enraptured by it, and more than all, the Prince. She danced again and again, though every time her foot touched the ground it was as though she was treading on sharp knives.

The Prince decided to be with her all the time, and she was allowed to sleep outside his door on a cushion of silk.

He gave her a boy’s dress, and she rode with him on horseback. They rode through the woods, where the green boughs brushed her shoulders, and the little birds sang. With the Prince she clambered up the high mountains, and though her delicate feet were cut, she only laughed, and followed him.

At the Prince’s palace, when at night all the others were asleep, she went out to the broad marble stairs, and stood in the cold sea water. She thought about those who were down in the deeps below.

One night her sisters came up arm in arm. They were singing mournfully as they swam on the water. She beckoned to them, and they recognized her. But they were very sad. After that they visited her every night; and one night she saw far out in the sea, the old grandmother and the Sea King, with his crown on his head. They stretched their arms towards her.

Day by day she became dearer to the Prince: he loved her as people love dear good children.

But he did not want marry her and make her his Queen.

“Do you love me?” the little mermaid’s eyes asked when he took her in his arms and kissed her fair brow.

“Yes, you are dearest of all to me,” said the Prince, “You are dearest to me, and you are like a young maiden whom I saw once and certainly will never meet again. I was on a ship that was wrecked, and the waves drove me to land near a holy temple where a number of young maidens ministered. The youngest of them found me on the bank and saved my life.

I saw her only twice. She is the only one I can love in all the world, but you are like her. She belongs to that holy temple, and therefore I’ll love you”.

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