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Illustration for The Red Shoes

English · Intermediate

The Red Shoes

By Hans Christian Andersen

A girl’s beautiful red shoes lead her into a troubling chain of events.

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Intermediate sample in English

Scene 1

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Illustration for the scene “Karen's mother's funeral”

Scene 1 · Intermediate

Karen's mother's funeral

English

There was once a pretty little girl named Karen. She was so poor that she went barefoot in summer. In winter she wore large wooden shoes that rubbed the tops of her feet until they were red.

English

An old shoemaker’s wife lived in the middle of the village. Using scraps of red cloth, she made Karen a little pair of shoes as carefully as she could. They were rather clumsy, but she had made them out of kindness.

English

Karen wore them for the first time at her mother’s funeral. Red shoes were hardly suitable for mourning, but she had no others. She slipped her bare feet into them and walked behind her mother’s plain coffin.

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