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THE RED SHOES. 248
foot to step in after her, the old soldier said: ¢ See, what
smart dancing pumps!” And Karen could not help
making a few dancing steps, and having once begun,
Ler feet went on dancing. = It was just as if the shoes
had some power over her. She danced round the
church corner, and could not stop herself, and the
coachman was obliged to run after her and catch hold
of her, and lift her into the carriage ; but her feet
went on dancing, so that she trod upon the good old
lady’s toes at a great rate. At last the shoes were
taken off her feet, which then obtained rest.
The shoes were put by into a closet at home, but
Karen could not cease looking at them.
The old lady now fell ill, and it was said she could
not live. She had to be nursed and waited on, and
it was nobody’s business to attend her so much as
Karen’s ; but there happened to be a great ball in
the town, to which Karen was invited, and she gazed
at the old lady, who was not likely to recover, and
then looked at her red shoes, and thought there could
not be any very great sin in putting them on—and so
tar there was not—but she next went to the ball, and
began to dance: only, when she wanted to go to the
tight, the shoes would dance to the left; and when she
vanted to go up the room, the shoes persisted in going
down the room, and then down the steps into the street,
and out through the town-gate. And she danced on,
in spite of herself, right into the gloomy forest.
Something was gleaming through the tops of the
trees, and she thought it was the moon—for it was a
tace—but it was the old soldier with his red beard,
Who sat and nodded, saying: “See, what pretty
dancing pumps!”
She was now frightened, and tried to fling off the
red shoes, but they clung fast; and she tore off her
Stockings 3 but the shoes had, as it were, grown to her
feet, and dance she must, across fields and meadows—
rain or in sunshine—by day and by night—only by
night it was far more dreadful still.