Mermaid by Alexander Pushkin. Short summary

5 seconds

A prince leaves his former lover and marries another. The girl jumps off a cliff and turns into a mermaid. She lives underwater with her child, the Prince’s daughter.

1 minute

The miller speaks to the daughter. He learns that the girl is having an affair with the prince. Melnik notices that the bridegroom has become infrequent. The Prince appears and the girl joyfully greets him, and the father runs to get a treat.

The prince talks about how he must marry someone else. He hands her a sack of gold coins and pearls. The girl feels as if a string of pearls is strangling her. She informs the prince that she is expecting a child, but he does not change his mind, although he promises to help the child.

The guest leaves, the miller returns and rejoices in his gifts. When he learns of their reason, he scolds his daughter. The girl cries, and her father begins to comfort her.

During the prince’s wedding, he hears a sad song and thinks that his former sweetheart has come to the wedding. After the wedding, he goes to the mill, where he finds the distraught miller. He tells her that he threw himself off the cliff after his daughter and learned to fly. The drowned woman becomes the queen of the mermaids and lives with her daughter under water. One day the prince sees a beautiful child, the mermaid, who was his daughter.