Page:The fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen (c1899).djvu/23



HERE was once a little girl who was delicately pretty, but who was obliged to walk about with bare feet in summer (for she was poor), and to wear coarse wooden shoes in winter, so that her little insteps were red all over.

In the village lived an old shoemaker’s wife, who fashioned a little pair of shoes as well as she could out of some old strips of red cloth; they were rather clumsy, but the intention was kind, for they were to give to the little girl, whose name was Karen.

She received the red shoes, and put them on, for the first time, on the very day her mother was buried. They were not fit for mourning, it is true, but having no others, she put them on to her bare feet, and followed the pauper’s coffin to its last resting-place.

There happened to pass by a large, old-fashioned carriage, in which sat an old lady, who took compassion on the little girl, and said to the preacher: “Pray, give me that little girl, and I will adopt her.”

And Karen fancied that all this was owing to the red shoes; but the old lady thought them abominable, and ordered them to be burnt. Karen then was dressed in clean and tidy clothes, and was taught to read and to sew, and people said she was pretty. But the looking-glass said: “You are more than pretty—you are beautiful!”

The queen once travelled through the land, with her little daughter, who was a princess. And crowds flocked towards the palace, and Karen stood amongst the rest, to see the little princess, who stood at a window, dressed in the finest white clothes. She had neither a train, nor a golden crown, but beautiful red morocco shoes—which, it must be confessed, were a trifle prettier than those the shoemaker’s wife had patched together for little Karen. Surely nothing in the world can be compared to red shoes!

Karen was now old enough to be confirmed. She had new clothes given her, and she was to have a pair of new shoes likewise. The rich shoemaker of the town took the measure of her little foot in his own house, in a room where a number of glass cases were filled with elegant shoes and shining boots. It was a very pretty sight; but as the old lady could not see very well, she took no pleasure in it. Amongst the shoes was a pair of red ones, just like those the princess wore. How pretty they were, to be sure! The shoemaker said they had been made for a count’s child, but had not fitted well.

“Are they of polished leather?” asked the old lady, “for they shine so.”

“They shine, indeed,” said Karen; and they fitted her and were purchased. But the old lady did not know they were red, or she would never have allowed Karen to go to be confirmed in red shoes, which she, however, now did.