美人鱼故事

Far out in the sea the water is as blue as the petal of the most beautiful

corn---flower, and as clear as the purest glass ; But it is very deep, deeper than any cable will sound; many steeples must be placed one above the other to reach from the bottom to the surface of the water . and down there live the sea people .

Now, you must not believe there is nothing down there but the bare sand; no, ---the strangest trees and plants grow there , so pliable in their stalks leaves that plants grow there, so pliable in their stalks and leaves that at the least motion of the water they move just as if they had leaves that at the least motion of the water they move just as if they had life. All fishes ,geat and small ,glide among the twings ,just as here the birds do in the trees .In the deepest spot of all lies the Sea Kings castle :the walls are of coral ,and the tall pointed windows of the clearest amber ;mussel shells form the roof ,and they open and shut according as the water flows .It looks lovely,for in eash shell lie gleaming pearls ,a single one ofwhich would be a geat ornament in a queens diadem.

The Sea King below there had been a widower for many years,while his old mother kept house for him .She was a clever woman ,but proud of her rank ,so she wore twelve oysters on her tail ,while the other great people were only allowed to wear six.Beyond this she was deserving of great praise , especially because she was very fond of her granddaughters,the little sea princesses .These were six pretty children ;but the youngest was the most beautiful of all .Her skin was as clear and as fine as a rose leaf, her eyes were as blue as the deepest sea ,but, like all the rest ,she had no feet , for her body ended in a fish-tail.

All day long they could play in the castle ,down in the halls, where living flowers grew out of the walls .The great amber windows ,were opened, and then the fishes swam in to them ,just as the swallows fly in to us when we open our windows ;but the fishes swam straight up to the princesses ,ate out of their hands ,and let themselves be stroked.

Outside the castle was agreat garden with bright red and dark blue flowers :the fruit glowed ,and the flowers like flames of fire ;and they continually kept moving their stalks and leaves .The earth itself was the finest sand ,but blue as the flame of brimstone .A peculiar blue radiance lay upon everything down there :one would have thought oneself high in the air ,with the canopy of heaven above and around ,rather than at the bottom of the deep sea .During a calm the sun could be seen ;it appeared like a purple flows,form which all light streamed out.

Each of the little Princesses had her own little place in the garden,where she might dig and plant at her good pleasure.One gave her flower-bed the form of a whale ;another thought it better to make here like a little mermaid but the youngest made hers quite round,like the sun ,and had only flowers which gleamed red as the sun itself .She was a strange child ,quiet and thoughtful ;and when the other sister made a display of the beautiful things they had received out of wrecked ships ,she would have nothing beyond the red flowers which resembled the sun ,except a pretty

marble statue .This was a figure of a charming boy ,hewn out of white clear stone ,which had sunk down to the bottom of the sea form a wreck .She planted a pink weeping willow beside this statue ;the tree grew famously,and hung its fresh branches over the statue towards the blue Sandy ground , where the shadow showed violet, and moved like the branches themselves; it