“No one will believe that,” said the shadow. “Be sensible, or I’ll call the guard.”
“I’m going right to the princess,” the scholar said. “But I’m going first,” said the shadow, “and you’ll be arrested.” And so he was because the sentries obeyed the man the princess was going to marry.
“You’re shaking,” said the princess when the shadow came to her room. “Has something happened? You mustn’t get sick tonight, when we’re having the wedding.”
“I’ve been through the most terrible experience possible!” said the shadow. “Just think! The poor mind of a shadow can’t bear much! Imagine! My shadow has gone insane. He thinks he’s a human being and that I’m— imagine this—that I’m his shadow!”
“That’s dreadful!” said the princess. “He’s locked up, right?”
“Yes, he is. I’m afraid he’ll never recover.”
“Poor shadow,” said the princess. “He’s very unfortunate. It would truly be a good deed to free him from the little life that he still has, and when I really think it over, I believe it’ll be necessary to dispose of him quietly.”
“But it’s very hard,” said the shadow, “because he’s been a faithful servant,” and he gave what sounded like a sigh.
“You have such a noble nature,” said the princess.
That night the whole town was illuminated, the cannons were fired—boom!—and the soldiers presented arms. It was quite a wedding! The princess and the shadow went out on the balcony to be seen by the people and to receive yet another “hurrah!”
But the scholar heard nothing of it, for his life had been taken.
NOTES
1 Reference to
2
THE LITTLE MERMAID
WAY OUT AT SEA the water is as blue as the petals on the loveliest corn-flower, and as clear as the purest glass, but it’s very deep, deeper than any anchor rope can reach. Many church steeples would have to be placed end to end to reach from the bottom up to the surface and beyond. Down there the sea people live.
You mustn’t think that it’s just a bare white sand bottom. No, the most wonderful trees and plants grow there, and they have such supple stems and leaves that they move as if they were alive with the slightest motion of the water. All the big and little fish slip between the branches like the birds do in the air up here. The sea king’s castle is at the very deepest point. The walls are made of coral, and the long sharp windows of the clearest amber, but the roof is made of sea shells that open and close with the water currents. It looks lovely because there are glittering pearls in each shell; just one of them would be a fine ornament for a queen’s crown.
The sea king had been a widower for many years, but his old mother kept house for him. She was a wise woman, but proud of her nobility, and so she wore twelve oysters on her tail; the other aristocracy could only carry six. Apart from that she deserved a lot of praise, especially since she was so fond of the little sea princesses, her grandchildren. There were six beautiful children, all lovely, but the youngest was the most beautiful. Her skin was as clear and delicate as a rose petal, and her eyes were as blue as the deepest sea, but just like all the others, she had no feet. Her body ended in a fish tail.
All day long they could play in the castle, in the big hall where living flowers grew out of the walls. Whenever the big amber windows were opened up, the fish swam in, like swallows fly into our windows when we open them, but the fish swam right up to the little princesses and ate from their hands and allowed themselves to be petted.
Outside the castle was a big garden with fire-red and dark blue trees where the fruit shone like gold, and the flowers like a flaming fire, because the stems and petals were always moving. The ground itself was the finest sand, but blue, like a flame of sulphur, and there was a strange blue cast over everything down there. Rather than being on the bottom of the ocean, you could imagine yourself high up in the air, with sky both above and below you, and if it was very still, you could glimpse the sun for it appeared as a scarlet flower with all light streaming from its center.
Each of the little princesses had a plot in the garden, where she could dig and plant as she wished. One gave her flower garden the shape of a whale, another thought that hers should resemble a mermaid, but the youngest princess made hers quite round, like the sun, and only had flowers that shone just as red as it did. She was an odd child, quiet and thoughtful, and while her sisters decorated their gardens with all sorts of strange things they had found in sunken ships, she only wanted, except for the red flowers that resembled the sun, a beautiful marble statue of a lovely boy, carved from white, clear stone that had sunk to the sea bottom from a shipwreck. Beside the statue she planted a rose red weeping willow, which grew beautifully and whose branches hung over the statue and down towards the blue sand bottom, where its shadow was violet and moved like the branches. It looked as if the tree and the roots were playing at kissing each other.
Nothing gave her greater pleasure than hearing about the human world above them. The old grandmother had to tell all she knew about ships and towns, people and animals. She especially thought it was strange and splendid that up on the earth the flowers gave off a fragrance that they didn’t do on the bottom of the ocean; and that the forests were green; and that the fish that one saw among the branches could sing so loudly and delightfully that it was a joy. The grandmother called the little birds fish because otherwise they couldn’t understand her since they had never seen a bird.
“When you turn fifteen,” grandmother said, “you’ll be allowed to swim up from the ocean, sit in the moonlight on the rocks, and see the big ships sail by, and forests and towns you’ll see, too!” The following year, one of the sisters would turn fifteen, but the others—well, they were all one year younger than the next, so the youngest had five whole years left before she could rise up from the bottom of the sea to see how we have it up here. But each promised to tell the others what she had seen, and what she had found the most beautiful on the first day, for their grandmother hadn’t told them enough—there was so much they wanted to know!
None of them yearned as much as the youngest, the very one who had the longest time to wait, and who was so quiet and thoughtful. Many a night she stood by the open windows and looked up through the dark blue water, where the fish flapped their fins and tails. She could see the moon and stars, although they shone dimly, but
