Soundlessly the Little Mermaid drew back the gossamer curtain of the tent and gazed at the sleeping prince and his bride. Kissing his brow, she then noticed the sky, where the rosy dawn glimmered more and more brightly. The knife trembled in her wavering hand. Gazing at the prince once more, she flung it far away from her into the waves, where the water turned crimson. Casting a lingering, half-fainting glance at the prince, she then threw herself from the ship into the sea. Dispiritedly she thought her body was dissolving into sea foam, but she did not feel as if she were dying. The sun’s warm rays fell on the frigid sea.
Around the Little Mermaid suddenly floated hundreds of transparent beings through whom she could distinguish the white sails of the ship and the red clouds in the azure sky. As mellifluous as a celestial choir, their speech nevertheless was too ethereal to be heard by mortal ears, just as the beings also were veiled to mortal eyes, and perceiving she had a body as theirs, she continued to rise higher out of the foam.
Comments