The Red Shoes

Once there was a little girl named Karen, pretty and dainty, though very poor. In summer she went barefoot, and in winter she wore big clumsy wooden shoes that rubbed her feet red. In the village there lived an old shoemaker's wife, who took some scraps of red cloth and sewed Karen a pair of little shoes. They were rough and plain, but they were made with love.

On the very day Karen's mother was buried, those were the shoes Karen wore, walking behind the small, poor coffin. Just then a grand old carriage rolled by, and inside sat a kind old lady. She looked at the little girl and felt sorry for her, and she said to the clergyman, "Let me take the child. I will care for her."

Karen believed it was the red shoes that had brought her such good fortune. But the old lady thought the shoes were ugly, and had them burned. Karen was dressed in clean, neat clothes, and taught to read and to sew, and everyone said she had grown quite pretty. Even the mirror, when she looked into it, seemed to say, "You are more than pretty — you are lovely."

One day the Queen came traveling through, and with her was her small daughter, the princess, who stood at a castle window in white to be admired by the crowd. She wore no crown, only a pair of fine red shoes — far finer than the ones the shoemaker's wife had made — but Karen thought nothing in the world could be as beautiful as red shoes.

When Karen grew old enough to be confirmed, she needed new clothes and new shoes. The shoemaker in town measured her foot in a room full of glass cases, glittering with fine slippers. The old lady's eyes were weak, so she couldn't see well, and among the shoes was a pair of red ones, just like the princess's. The shoemaker said they'd been made for a count's daughter but hadn't fit her.

"Is that shining leather?" the old lady asked.

"Yes, they shine," said Karen. And so they were bought, the old lady never guessing they were red — for she would never have allowed Karen to be confirmed in red shoes.

But that is exactly what Karen wore. As she walked into the church, it seemed to her that even the old painted portraits of long-dead pastors and their wives were staring down at her shoes. She thought of nothing else, not even when the minister spoke of holy vows and laid his hand upon her head. All through the singing and the organ's deep voice, Karen thought only of her red shoes.

That afternoon, the old lady heard what everyone was saying, and she told Karen firmly: from now on, she must wear plain black shoes to church, even old ones, never those red ones again.

The next Sunday there was Communion. Karen looked at the black shoes. She looked at the red ones. She looked at them again — and put on the red ones.

The sun was shining bright as Karen and the old lady walked the path through the fields. At the church door stood an old soldier, leaning on a crutch, with a long beard more red than gray. He bowed low and asked if he might wipe the old lady's shoes clean, and Karen held out her foot too.

"Well now, what pretty dancing shoes!" he said, and gave the soles a little tap with his hand. "Mind you keep your feet under you when you dance!"

Inside the church, it seemed to Karen that everyone — even the painted pictures — was watching her red shoes. Kneeling at the altar, she thought of nothing else, forgot her hymn, forgot her prayer.

When the service ended and Karen went to climb into the carriage, the old soldier said again, "What pretty dancing shoes!" And suddenly Karen's feet would not stay still. She took a few dancing steps, and then she could not stop — round the corner of the church she went, dancing as though the shoes had taken hold of her will. The coachman had to run and catch her and lift her, still dancing, into the carriage. Only when the shoes were pulled from her feet did her legs grow quiet again.

At home, the shoes were locked away in a cupboard. But Karen could not help going to look at them.

Not long after, the old lady grew very ill, and everyone said she would not recover. Karen was the one who cared for her most tenderly. But there came a grand ball in the town, and Karen was invited. She told herself surely there could be no harm in it, and she put on the red shoes once more.

She began to dance — but when she tried to turn right, the shoes turned left; when she tried to dance up the room, they carried her down it, out through the door, down the stairs, through the streets, and out through the town gate, into the dark forest, and she could not stop.

Among the trees something glimmered like the moon — but it was a face. It was the old soldier with the red beard, nodding and saying, "What pretty dancing shoes!"

Karen was frightened now and tried to tear the shoes off, but they would not come free. She tore off her stockings, but the shoes seemed to have become part of her. On she danced, over field and meadow, through rain and sun, by day and by night — and night was the worst of all.

She danced into a quiet churchyard, but the dead there did not dance; they had better things to do. She longed to rest a moment on a grave, but there was no rest for her. Dancing on toward the open church door, she saw an angel standing there in long white robes, with wings that swept the ground, his face solemn, a shining sword in his hand.

"Dance you shall," he said, "in your red shoes, till you are pale and worn thin. Dance from door to door, so that proud and vain children may hear you and take heed. Dance — dance on."

"Have mercy!" Karen cried. But she could not hear his answer, for the shoes carried her away, over road and field, always dancing.

One morning she danced past a house she knew well. She heard a hymn being sung inside, and saw a coffin carried out, covered in flowers. She understood then that the old lady had died — and Karen felt utterly alone, and certain that she had been judged for her sin.

Still she danced, through the dark night, over rough ground that tore at her feet, until she came to a lonely little house on the heath. There her strength gave way at last, and she sank down before the door, too weary and heartsick to dance another step.

"O God, have mercy on me!" she cried into the dark. "I am so sorry — so sorry for my vanity and my pride. Take these red shoes from me. I would rather never dance again in all my life than be carried away from everyone I love."

And she told over all her faults, one by one, weeping bitterly and holding nothing back, sorry from the very bottom of her heart.

Then, all at once, it was as though a great weight lifted from her. The red shoes loosened from her feet — and away they danced, quite on their own, over the field and deep into the forest, and were never seen again.

Karen was free. She sat a long while in the stillness, footsore and worn, but with a quiet in her heart she had not felt for a very long time.

Into that quiet came a small, humble hymn — the kind that those who are truly sorry for their wrongs sing softly to themselves — and she sang it through her tears. When morning came she rose and went on her way across the heath, thankful with all her heart simply to walk in the cool light where she pleased.

"Surely now I have suffered enough for those shoes," she said to herself. "Now I will go to church, so people may see me." She walked toward the church door eagerly — but there, dancing along ahead of her, were the red shoes themselves. Frightened, she turned back.

All week she wept bitter, quiet tears. But when Sunday came again she thought, "Surely I am just as good as many who sit proudly in their pew." And she went boldly toward the church — but at the gate, there were the red shoes again, dancing before her. Terrified, she turned away, and this time she repented from the very bottom of her heart.

She went instead to the parsonage and asked humbly if she might work there — she would be diligent, she said, and ask for no wages, only a roof and kind company. The pastor's wife took pity on her and let her stay. Karen worked hard and thought deeply, and in the evenings she sat quietly listening as the pastor read from the Bible. The children of the house loved her, though whenever they spoke of fine clothes or beauty, she only shook her head.

One Sunday the family asked if she would come to church with them. With tears in her eyes, she only bowed her head and shook it. So they went without her, and Karen sat alone in her small room — just big enough for a bed and a chair — with her hymn-book in her lap. As she read, the sound of the organ drifted to her on the wind, and she lifted her face, wet with tears, and whispered, "O God, help me."

Then sunlight poured through the window, and before her stood the same angel she had seen that terrible night — but now he held no sword. In his hand was a green branch, full of roses. He touched the ceiling, and it rose high above her, a golden star shining where he had touched it. He touched the walls, and they seemed to widen, and Karen could see the church itself — the organ, the old portraits, the whole congregation singing together. It was as though the church had come to her, or she to it. She found herself sitting among the pastor's family, and when the hymn ended, they turned to her and said kindly, "It was good of you to come, Karen."

"It was mercy," she whispered.

The organ sang, the children's voices rose sweet and clear, and warm sunlight filled the pew where Karen sat, filling her heart so full of peace and light that it seemed to overflow — and gently, quietly, her spirit rose up on the sunbeams to God. And there was no one left who thought any more of the red shoes.