Your beautiful form,' said the witch, 'your gliding gait, and your
speaking eyes; with these you ought surely to be able to bewitch a
human heart. Well! have you lost courage? Put out your little tongue,
and I will cut it off in payment for the powerful draught.'
'Let it be done,' said the little mermaid, and the witch put on her
caldron to brew the magic potion. 'There is nothing like cleanliness,' said she, as she scoured the pot with a bundle of snakes; then
she punctured her breast and let the black blood drop into the caldron, and the steam took the most weird shapes, enough to frighten
any one. Every moment the witch threw new ingredients into the
pot, and when it boiled the bubbling was like the sound of crocodiles weeping. At last the potion was ready and it looked like the
clearest water.
'There it is,' said the witch, and thereupon she cut off the tongue
of the little mermaid, who was dumb now and could neither sing
nor speak.
'If the polyps should seize you, when you go back through my
wood,' said the witch, 'just drop a single drop of this liquid on
them, and their arms and fingers will burst into a thousand pieces.'
But the little mermaid had no need to do this, for at the mere sight
of the bright liquid, which sparkled in her hand like a shining star,
they drew back in terror. So she soon got past the wood, the bog,
and the eddying whirlpools.
She saw her father's palace; the lights were all out in the great
ballroom, and no doubt all the household was asleep, but she did
not dare to go in now that she was dumb and about to leave her
home for ever. She felt as if her heart would break with grief. She
stole into the garden and plucked a flower from each of her sisters'
plots, wafted with her hand countless kisses towards the palace, and
then rose up through the dark blue water.
The sun had not risen when she came in sight of the prince's
palace and landed at the beautiful marble steps. The moon was shining bright and clear. The little mermaid drank the burning, stinging
draught, and it was like a sharp, two-edged sword running through
her tender frame;