Full text: Tales and fairy stories

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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.
	        
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