Shortly afterwards the old lady was taken ill,and it was said she could not recover.She required constant care and faithful nursing,and for this she depended on Karen.But a great ball was being given in the town,and Karen was invited.She looked at the old lady,who could not live in any case.She looked at the red shoes,for she thought there was no harm in looking.She put them on,for she thought there was no harm in that either.But then she went to the ball and began dancing.When she tried to turn to the right,the shoes turned to the left.When she wanted to dance up the ballroom,her shoes danced down.They danced down the stairs,into the street,and out through the gate of the town.Dance she did,and dance she must,straight into the dark woods.
Suddenly something shone through the trees,and she thought it was the moon,but it turned out to be the red-bearded soldier.He nodded and said,“Oh,what beautiful shoes for dancing.”
She was terribly frightened,and tried to take off her shoes.She tore off her stockings,but the shoes had grown fast to her feet.And dance she did,for dance she must,over fields and valleys,in the rain and in the sun,by day and night.It was most dreadful by night.She danced over an unfenced graveyard,but the dead did not join her dance.They had better things to do.She tried to sit on a pauper's grave,where the bitter fennel grew,but there was no rest or peace for her there.And when she danced toward the open doors of the church,she saw it guarded by an angel with long white robes and wings that reached from his shoulders down to the ground.His face was grave and stern,and in his hand he held a broad,shining sword.
“Dance you shall!”he told her.“Dance in your red shoes until you are pale and cold,and your flesh shrivels down to the skeleton.Dance you shall from door to door,and wherever there are children proud and vain you must knock at the door till they hear you,and are afraid of you.Dance you shall.Dance always.”
“Have mercy upon me!”screamed Karen.But she did not hear the angel answer.Her shoes swept her out through the gate,and across the fields,along highways and byways,forever and always dancing.
One morning she danced by a door she knew well.There was the sound of a hymn,and a coffin was carried out covered with flowers.Then she knew the old lady was dead.She was all alone in the world now,and cursed by the angel of God.
Dance she did and dance she must,through the dark night.Her shoes took her through thorn and briar that scratched her until she bled.She danced across the wastelands until she came to a lonely little house.She knew that this was where the executioner lived,and she tapped with her finger on his window pane.
“Come out!”she called.“Come out!I can't come in,for I am dancing.”
The executioner said,“You don't seem to know who I am.I strike off the heads of bad people,and I feel my ax beginning to quiver.”
“Don't strike off my head,for then I could not repent of my sins,”said Karen.“But strike off my feet with the red shoes on them.”
She confessed her sin,and the executioner struck off her feet with the red shoes on them.The shoes danced away with her little feet,over the fields into the deep forest.But he made wooden feet and a pair of crutches for her.He taught her a hymn that prisoners sing when they are sorry for what they have done.She kissed his hand that held the ax,and went back across the wasteland.
“Now I have suffered enough for those red shoes,”she said.“I shall go and be seen again in the church.”She hobbled to church as fast as she could,but when she got there the red shoes danced in front of her,and she was frightened and turned back.
All week long she was sorry,and cried many bitter tears.But when Sunday came again she said,“Now I have suffered and cried enough.I think I must be as good as many who sit in church and hold their heads high.”She started out unafraid,but the moment she came to the church gate she saw her red shoes dancing before her.More frightened than ever,she turned away,and with all her heart she really repented.
She went to the pastor's house,and begged him to give her work as a servant.She promised to work hard,and do all that she could.Wages did not matter,if only she could have a roof over her head and be with good people.The pastor's wife took pity on her,and gave her work at the parsonage.Karen was faithful and serious.She sat quietly in the evening,and listened to every word when the pastor read the Bible aloud.The children were devoted to her,but when they spoke of frills and furbelows,and of being as beautiful as a queen,she would shake her head.
When they went to church next Sunday they asked her to go too,but with tears in her eyes she looked at her crutches,and shook her head.The others went to hear the word of God,but she went to her lonely little room,which was just big enough to hold her bed and one chair.She sat with her hymnal in her hands,and as she read it with a contrite heart she heard the organ roll.The wind carried the sound from the church to her window.Her face was wet with tears as she lifted it up,and said,“Help me,O Lord!”
Then the sun shone bright,and the white-robed angel stood before her.He was the same angel she had seen that night,at the door of the church.But he no longer held a sharp sword.In his hand was a green branch,covered with roses.He touched the ceiling with it.There was a golden star where it touched,and the ceiling rose high.He touched the walls and they opened wide.She saw the deep-toned organ.She saw the portraits of ministers and their wives.She saw the congregation sit in flower-decked pews,and sing from their hymnals.Either the church had come to the poor girl in her narrow little room,or it was she who had been brought to the church.She sat in the pew with the pastor's family.When they had finished the hymn,they looked up and nodded to her.
“It was right for you to come,little Karen,”they said.
“It was God's own mercy,”she told them.
The organ sounded and the children in the choir sang,softly and beautifully.Clear sunlight streamed warm through the window,right down to the pew where Karen sat.She was so filled with the light of it,and with joy and with peace,that her heart broke.Her soul traveled along the shaft of sunlight to heaven,where no one questioned her about the red shoes.
