“I want it,” said the little mermaid, turning as pale as death.

“But you’ll have to pay me too,” said the sea-witch. “And what I ask is no trifle.”

—The Little Mermaid, Hans Christian Andersen

 

 

And the ship with eight sails

And with fifty cannons

Will disappear with me

—The Threepenny Opera, Bertolt Brecht