Page:Fairy tales and stories (Andersen, Tegner).djvu/409

 Rh to tell one another what they had seen on the first day and found to be most beautiful; for their grandmother had not told them enough, there was so much they wanted to know more about.

No one longed more that her time should come than the youngest, who had the longest time to wait, and who was so quiet and thoughtful.

Many a night did she stand at the open window, looking up through the dark-blue water, where the fishes were beating about with their tails and fins. She could see the moon and the stars shining, although somewhat indistinctly, but through the water they appeared much larger than to our eyes. If something like a black cloud passed between her and the moon, she knew it was either a whale swimming above her, or a ship sailing past with many people on board; they could have no idea that a lovely little mermaid was standing below them, stretching her white hands up toward the keel of their ship.

The eldest princess was now fifteen years of age, and might venture up to the surface of the water. When she came back, she had hundreds of things to tell; but the loveliest of all, she said, was to lie in the moonlight on a sand-bank when the sea was calm, and see the big city close to the coast, where the lights were twinkling like hundreds of stars, to hear the music and the noise and rattle of the carriages and people, to see the many church towers and steeples, and hear the bells ringing. Just because she could not get there, she longed most of all for this.

Oh, how the youngest sister listened to every word! And when, later on in the evening, she stood by the open window and looked up through the dark-blue water, she thought of the large city with all its noise and bustle, and then she thought she could hear the church bells ringing down where she was.

The year after the second sister was allowed to go to the surface and to swim about where she pleased. She emerged above the water just as the sun was setting, and this sight she found to be the loveliest of all. The whole of the heavens looked like gold, she said; and the clouds—well—she could not sufficiently describe their glory! Red and purple, they had sailed past above her head, but much more rapidly than the clouds flew a flock of wild swans, like a long white veil, over the water toward where the sun stood; she swam toward it, but it sank below the horizon, and the rosy hue on the water and the clouds vanished.

The year after the third sister came up to the surface; she was the boldest of them all, and swam up a broad river which ran into the sea. She saw beautiful green hills, covered with vines; palaces and houses peeped out between the mighty trees of the forests, and she heard how all the birds were singing. The sun shone so warm that she often had to dive under the water to cool her burning face. In a little bay she came across a whole flock of children, who ran and splashed about, quite naked, in the water; she wanted to play with them, but they ran away in great