“She had always been quiet and thoughtful, but now she was even more so. Her sisters asked her (...)

(...) what she had seen the first time up above, but she did not tell them anything. Many an evening and morning she rose up to the spot where she had left the prince. She saw how the fruit in the garden ripened and was picked, she saw how the snow melted on the high mountains, but she did not see the prince, and therefore she was always even sadder when she returned home.
Her only consolation was to sit in her little garden and embrace the beautiful marble statue that looked like the prince, but she did not tend her flowers, they grew as in a wilderness, out over the paths and twined their long stems and leaves in among the branches so that it became quite dark.
Finally, she couldn’t bear it any longer, and told one of her sisters, and soon all of them had got to hear of it, but only her other sisters and a couple of other mermaids who only told their closest friends. One of them knew the identity of the prince, (...) ,knew where he came from, and where his kingdom lay.”