Страшные сказки / Scary stories

“You will dance in your red shoes until you are pale and cold, and your flesh shrivels down to the skeleton. You will dance 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. You will dance. You will dance always!”

“Have mercy upon me![22 - Have mercy upon me! – Смилуйся надо мной!]” screamed Karen.

But she did not hear the angel’s answer. Her shoes swept her out through the gate, and across the fields, along highways and byways.

She danced and danced all the time!

One morning she danced by a door she knew well. There was the sound of a hymn, and they carried out a coffin which was 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.

She danced and danced all the time, 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 dance all the time”.

The executioner said,

“Do you know who I am? I strike off the heads of bad people, and my ax quivers”.

“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 their deeds. She kissed his hand that held the ax, and went back across the wasteland.

“I suffered enough”, she said. “I shall go to the church again”.

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 think I am as good as many who sit in church and hold their heads high”.

She started out, but the moment she came to the church gate she saw her red shoes before her. More frightened than ever, she turned away, and with all her heart she really repented.