Page:Hans Andersen's fairy tales (Robinson).djvu/183

 HANS ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES but her sisters could not give her any satisfactory answer; she was again obliged to have recourse to the old queen-mother, who knew a great deal about the upper world, which she used to call 'the country above the sea.'

'Do men when they are not drowned live for ever?' she asked one day. 'Do they not die as we do, who live at the bottom of the sea?'

'Yes,' was the grandmother's reply, 'they must die like us, and their life is much shorter than ours. We live to the age of three hundred years, but when we die, we become foam on the sea, and are not allowed even to share a grave among those that are dear to us. We have no immortal souls, we can never live again, and are like the grass which, when once cut down, is withered for ever. Human beings, on the contrary, have souls that continue to live when their bodies become dust, and as we rise out of the water to admire the abode of man, they ascend to glorious unknown dwellings in the skies which we are not permitted to see.'

'Why have not we immortal souls?' asked the little mermaid. 'I would willingly give up my three hundred years to be a human being for only one day, thus to become entitled to that heavenly world above.'

'You must not think of that,' answered her grandmother, 'it is much better as it is; we live longer and are far happier than human beings.'

'So I must die, and be dashed like foam over the sea, never to rise again and hear the gentle murmur of the ocean, never again see the beautiful flowers and the bright sun! Tell me, dear grandmother, are there no means by which I may obtain an immortal soul?'

'No!' replied the old lady. 'It is true that if thou couldst so win the affections of a human being as to become 146