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At last she told her secret to one of her sisters . Soon the other sisters knew it too , but nobody else . Well , two more mermaids knew it , but they only told their best friends . One of these friends knew who the prince was . She also knew where his palace stood . “ Come , little sister ! ” said the other princesses . They took each other’s arms and rose up out of the sea together . They came up in front of the prince’s palace . It was built of shining yellow stone . Wide marble steps went down into the sea . Now the little mermaid knew where the prince lived . She spent many evenings and nights there . She swam much closer to the land than her sisters ever dared . Sometimes she stayed under his marble balcony . From there she watched the prince , who thought he was alone in the moonlight . On other evenings she watched him sail in his boat , with music and flags . She often heard the fishermen say good things about the young prince . Then she was glad that she had saved his life . She remembered how his head lay on her shoulder . But he knew nothing about it . He could not even dream about her . V . A Soul That Never Dies Day by day she liked people more and more . Their world seemed so much bigger than hers : they could cross the sea in ships and climb mountains higher than the clouds . So she went to her old grandmother , who knew the “ lands above the sea ” very well . “ If people do not drown , ” asked the little mermaid , “ do they live for ever ? Don’t they die , like us ? ” “ Yes , they die too , ” said her grandmother , “ and their lives are shorter than ours . We can live for three hundred years . But when our lives are over , we turn into foam on the sea . We have no soul that lives for ever . We are like seaweed : when it is cut , it never grows again . But people have a soul . When their body dies , the soul rises up past the stars . There are bright places up there that we will never see . ” “ Why don’t we have a soul ? ” asked the little mermaid sadly . “ I would give all my three hundred years to be a human being for just one day . ” “ Don’t think about that , ” said her grandmother . “ We are much happier than the people up there . ” “ So I am going to die and become foam on the sea , ” said the little mermaid . “ I will never hear the music of the waves or see the sun again . Can I do nothing to win a soul ? ” “ There is only one way , ” said her grandmother . “ A man must love you more than his father and mother . He must marry you before a priest and promise to love you for ever . Then he will give you a soul , and he will keep his own too . But that will never happen . Down here , everyone thinks that your fish’s tail is lovely . But up on land they think it is ugly . Up there , you need two clumsy sticks to be pretty . They call them legs ! ”
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