有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第28章

 “There it is for you,” said the witch. Then she cut off themermaid’s tongue, so that she would never again speak or sing. “If the polypishould seize you as you return through the wood,” said the witch, “throw overthem a few drops of the potion, and their fingers will be torn into a thousandpieces.” But the little mermaid had no occasion to do this, for the polypisprang back in terror when they caught sight of the glittering draft, whichshone her hand like a twinkling star.

So she passed quickly through thewood and the marsh and between the rushing whirlpools. She saw that in herfather’s palace the torches in the ballroom were extinguished and that allwithin were asleep. But she did not venture to go in to them, for now that shewas dumb and going to leave them forever she felt as if her heart would break.She stole into the garden, took a flower from the flower bed of each of her sisters,kissed her hand towards the palace a thousand times, and then rose up throughthe dark-blue waters.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第27章

 “But if you take away my voice,” said the little mermaid, “what isleft for me?”

“Your beautiful form, yourgraceful walk, and your expressive eyes. Surely with these you can enchain aman’s heart. Well, have you lost your courage? Put out your little tongue, thatI may cut it off as my payment; then you shall have the powerful draft.”

“It shall be,” said the littlemermaid.

Then the witch placed her caldronon the fire, to prepare the magic draft.

“Cleanliness is a good thing,”said she, scouring the vessel with snakes which she had tied together in alarge knot. Then she pricked herself in the breast and let the black blood dropinto the caldron. The steam that rose twisted itself into such horrible shapesthat no one could look at them without fear. Every moment the witch threw a newingredient into the vessel, and when it began to boil, the sound was like theweeping of a crocodile. When at last the magic draft was ready, it looked likethe clearest water.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第26章

 “But think again,” said the witch, “for when once your shape hasbecome like a human being, you can no more be a mermaid. You will never returnthrough the water to your sisters or to your father’s palace again. And if youdo not win the love of the prince, so that he is willing to forget his fatherand mother for your sake and to love you with his whole soul and allow thepriest to join your hands that you may be man and wife, then you will neverhave an immortal soul. The first morning after he marries another, your heartwill break and you will become foam on the crest of the waves.”

“I will do it,” said the littlemermaid, and she became pale as death.

“But I must be paid, also,” saidthe witch, “and it is not a trifle that I ask. You have the sweetest voice ofany who dwell here in the depths of the sea, and you believe that you will beable to charm the prince with it. But this voice you must give to me. The bestthing you possess will I have as the price of my costly draft, which must bemixed with my own blood so that it may be as sharp as a two-edged sword.”

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第25章

 “You are but just in time,” said the witch, “for after sunriseto-morrow I should not be able to help you till the end of another year. I willprepare a draft for you, with which you must swim to land to-morrow beforesunrise; seat yourself there and drink it. Your tail will then disappear, andshrink up into what man calls legs.

“You will feel great pain, as ifa sword were passing through you. But all who see you will say that you are theprettiest little human being they ever saw. You will still have the samefloating gracefulness of movement, and no dancer will ever tread so lightly.Every step you take, however, will be as if you were treading upon sharp knivesand as if the blood must flow. If you will bear all this, I will help you.”

“Yes, I will,” said the littleprincess in a trembling voice, as she thought of the prince and the immortalsoul.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第24章

She now came to a space of marshy ground in the wood, where large, fat water snakes were rolling in the mire and showing their ugly, drab-/'kʌləd/ bodies. In the midst of this spot stood a house, built of the bones of shipwrecked human beings. There sat the sea witch, allowing a / təʊd/ to eat from her mouth just as people sometimes feed a canary with pieces of sugar. She called the ugly water snakes her little chickens and allowed them to crawl all over her bosom.
“I know what you want,” said the sea witch. “It is very stupid of you, but you shall have your way, though it will bring you to sorrow, my pretty princess. You want to get rid of your fish’s tail and to have two supports instead, like human beings on earth, so that the young prince may fall in love with you and so that you may have an immortal soul.” And then the witch laughed so loud and so disgustingly that the / təʊd/ and the snakes fell to the ground and lay there wriggling.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第23章

The little mermaid was so alarmedat what she saw that she stood still and her heart beat with fear. She camevery near turning back, but she thought of the prince and of the human soul forwhich she longed, and her courage returned. She fastened her long, flowing hairround her head, so that the polypi should not lay hold of it. She crossed herhands on her bosom, and then darted forward as a fish shoots through the water,between the supple arms and fingers of the ugly polypi, which were stretchedout on each side of her. She saw that they all held in their grasp somethingthey had seized with their numerous little arms, which were as strong as ironbands. Tightly grasped in their clinging arms were white skeletons of humanbeings who had perished at sea and had sunk down into the deep waters;skeletons of land animals; and oars, rudders, and chests, of ships. There waseven a little mermaid whom they had caught and strangled, and this seemed themost shocking of all to the little princess.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第22章

Then the little mermaid went outfrom her garden and took the road to the foaming whirlpools, behind which thesorceress lived. She had never been that way before. Neither flowers nor grassgrew there; nothing but bare, gray, sandy ground stretched out to thewhirlpool, where the water, like foaming mill wheels, seized everything thatcame within its reach and cast it into the fathomless deep. Through the midstof these crushing whirlpools the little mermaid was obliged to pass before shecould reach the dominions of the sea witch. Then, for a long distance, the roadlay across a stretch of warm, bubbling mire, called by the witch her turf moor.

Beyond this was the witch’shouse, which stood in the center of a strange forest, where all the trees andflowers were polypi, half animals and half plants. They looked like serpentswith a hundred heads, growing out of the ground. The branches were long, slimyarms, with fingers like flexible worms, moving limb after limb from the root tothe top. All that could be reached in the sea they seized upon and held fast,so that it never escaped from their clutches.

有声英语儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第21章

No one on earth has such lovelyvoices as they, but the little mermaid sang more sweetly than all. The wholecourt applauded her with hands and tails, and for a moment her heart felt quitegay, for she knew she had the sweetest voice either on earth or in the sea. Butsoon she thought again of the world above her; she could not forget thecharming prince, nor her sorrow that she had not an immortal soul like his. Shecrept away silently out of her father’s palace, and while everything within wasgladness and song, she sat in her own little garden, sorrowful and alone. Thenshe heard the bugle sounding through the water and thought: “He is certainlysailing above, he in whom my wishes center and in whose hands I should like toplace the happiness of my life. I will venture all for him and to win animmortal soul. While my sisters are dancing in my father’s palace I will go tothe sea witch, of whom I have always been so much afraid; she can give mecounsel and help.”

英语有声儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第20章

Then the little mermaid sighedand looked sorrowfully at her fish’s tail. “Let us be happy,” said the oldlady, “and dart and spring about during the three hundred years that we have tolive, which is really quite long enough. After that we can rest ourselves allthe better. This evening we are going to have a court ball.”

英语有声儿童童话故事 海的女儿 第19章

 “Why have not we immortal souls?” asked the little mermaid,mournfully. “I would gladly give all the hundreds of years that I have to live,to be a human being only for one day and to have the hope of knowing thehappiness of that glorious world above the stars.”

“You must not think that,” saidthe old woman. “We believe that we are much happier and much better off thanhuman beings.”

“So I shall die,” said the littlemermaid, “and as the foam of the sea I shall be driven about, never again tohear the music of the waves or to see the pretty flowers or the red sun? Isthere anything I can do to win an immortal soul?”

“No,” said the old woman; “unlessa man should love you so much that you were more to him than his father or hismother, and if all his thoughts and all his love were fixed upon you, and thepriest placed his right hand in yours, and he promised to be true to you hereand hereafter—then his soul would glide into your body, and you would obtain ashare in the future happiness of mankind. He would give to you a soul andretain his own as well; but this can never happen. Your fish’s tail, whichamong us is considered so beautiful, on earth is thought to be quite ugly. Theydo not know any better, and they think it necessary, in order to be handsome,to have two stout props, which they call legs.”