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.”