“Father break off for me the first branch which knocks against your hat on your way home.” “And you, Cinderella,” said he, “what will you have?” “Beautiful dresses,” said one, “Pearls and jewels,” said the second. It happened that the father was once going to the fair, and he asked his two step-daughters what he should bring back for them. And as on that account she always looked dusty and dirty, they called her Cinderella. In the evening when she had worked till she was weary she had no bed to go to, but had to sleep by the hearth in the cinders. Besides this, the sisters did her every imaginable injury – they mocked her and emptied her peas and lentils into the ashes, so that she was forced to sit and pick them out again.

There she had to do hard work from morning till night, get up before daybreak, carry water, light fires, cook and wash. “Just look at the proud princess, how decked out she is,” they cried, and laughed, and led her into the kitchen.

Out with the kitchen-wench.” They took her pretty clothes away from her, put an old grey bedgown on her, and gave her wooden shoes. “Is the stupid goose to sit in the parlor with us,” they said. Now began a bad time for the poor step-child. The woman had brought with her into the house two daughters, who were beautiful and fair of face, but vile and black of heart. When winter came the snow spread a white sheet over the grave, and by the time the spring sun had drawn it off again, the man had taken another wife. Every day the maiden went out to her mother’s grave, and wept, and she remained pious and good.

Thereupon she closed her eyes and departed. The wife of a rich man fell sick, and as she felt that her end was drawing near, she called her only daughter to her bedside and said, “Dear child, be good and pious, and then the good God will always protect you, and I will look down on you from heaven and be near you.”

Hans christian andersen cinderella