The Red Shoes Page #2

								

gates of the town. She danced, and was obliged to dance, far out
into the dark wood. Suddenly something shone up among the trees, and
she believed it was the moon, for it was a face. But it was the old
soldier with the red beard; he sat there nodding his head and said:
"Dear me, what pretty dancing shoes!"

She was frightened, and wanted to throw the red shoes away; but
they stuck fast. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes had grown
fast to her feet. She danced and was obliged to go on dancing over
field and meadow, in rain and sunshine, by night and by day--but by
night it was most horrible.

She danced out into the open churchyard; but the dead there did
not dance. They had something better to do than that. She wanted to
sit down on the pauper's grave where the bitter fern grows; but for
her there was neither peace nor rest. And as she danced past the
open church door she saw an angel there in long white robes, with
wings reaching from his shoulders down to the earth; his face was
stern and grave, and in his hand he held a broad shining sword.

"Dance you shall," said he, "dance in your red shoes till you
are pale and cold, till your skin shrivels up and you are a
skeleton! Dance you shall, from door to door, and where proud and
wicked children live you shall knock, so that they may hear you and
fear you! Dance you shall, dance--!"

"Mercy!" cried Karen. But she did not hear what the angel
answered, for the shoes carried her through the gate into the
fields, along highways and byways, and unceasingly she had to dance.

One morning she danced past a door that she knew well; they were
singing a psalm inside, and a coffin was being carried out covered
with flowers. Then she knew that she was forsaken by every one and
damned by the angel of God.

She danced, and was obliged to go on dancing through the dark
night. The shoes bore her away over thorns and stumps till she was all
torn and bleeding; she danced away over the heath to a lonely little
house. Here, she knew, lived the executioner; and she tapped with
her finger at the window and said:

"Come out, come out! I cannot come in, for I must dance."

And the executioner said: "I don't suppose you know who I am. I
strike off the heads of the wicked, and I notice that my axe is
tingling to do so."

"Don't cut off my head!" said Karen, "for then I could not
repent of my sin. But cut off my feet with the red shoes."

And then she confessed all her sin, and the executioner struck off
her feet with the red shoes; but the shoes danced away with the little
feet across the field into the deep forest.

And he carved her a pair of wooden feet and some crutches, and
taught her a psalm which is always sung by sinners; she kissed the
hand that guided the axe, and went away over the heath.

"Now, I have suffered enough for the red shoes," she said; "I will
go to church, so that people can see me." And she went quickly up to
the church-door; but when she came there, the red shoes were dancing
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