Page:Fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen (Walker).djvu/74

50 reached from his shoulders to the ground; his face was grave and stern, and in his hand he held a broad and shining sword.

"Dance you shall!" said he; "you shall dance in your red shoes till you are pale and cold; till your skin shrivels up and you are a skeleton! You shall dance from door to door, and wherever you find proud, vain children, you must knock at the door so that they may see you and fear you. Yea, you shall dance——"

"Mercy!" shrieked Karen, but she did not hear the angel's answer, for the shoes bore her through the gate into the fields, over roadways and paths, ever and ever she was forced to dance.

One morning she danced past a door she knew well; she heard the sound of a hymn from within, and a coffin covered with flowers was being carried out. Then she knew that the old lady was dead, and it seemed to her that she was forsaken by all the world, and cursed by the holy angels of God.

On and ever on she danced; dance she must even through the dark nights. The shoes bore her away over briars and stubble till her feet were torn and bleeding; she danced away over the heath till she came to a little lonely house. She knew the executioner lived here, and she tapped with her fingers on the window pane and said:

"Come out! come out! I can't come in, for I am dancing!"

The executioner said, "You can't know who I am? I chop the bad people's heads off, and I see that my axe is quivering."

"Don't chop my head off," said Karen, "for then I can never repent of my sins, but pray, pray chop my feet off with the red shoes!"

Then she confessed all her sins, and the executioner chopped off her feet with the red shoes, but the shoes danced right away with the little feet into the depths of the forest.

Then he made her a pair of wooden legs and crutches, and he taught her a psalm, the one penitents always sing; and she kissed the hand which had wielded the axe, and went away over the heath.