"There was a lot she wanted to know, but her sisters could not answer all her questions,

so she asked the old grandmother: she knew well the upper world, as she very properly called the countries above the sea.

"If the human people aren't drowned," the little mermaid inquired, "can they go on living forever? Don't they die as we do down here in the sea?"

"Yes," said the old lady, "they also have to die, and besides, their lifetime is shorter than ours. We can live for three hundred years, but when we cease to be here, we only turn to foam on the water, and have not even a grave down here among our dear ones. We have no immortal souls, we never live again; we are like the green weed: once it is cut down it never grows green again. Human kind, on the other hand, have a soul that lives always after the body has turned into dust. It rises up through the clear air, up to all the shining stars; just as we rise out of the sea and look at the human people's country, so do they rise up to unknown beautiful places, which we shall never reach."

"Why did we have no immortal souls given us?" said the little mermaid, very sadly. "I would give all the hundreds of years that I have to live to be a human being for only one day, and then get a share in the heavenly world."