On the day of the ball, Anna asks permission to go once more, when the foursome—father, stepmother, and her two daughters—are dressed to the nines, ready to go. The women regard her with cold, mocking eyes. Her stepmother picks up the pot with the lentils Anna has cleaned and dumps it in the ashes of the fireplace. She says, “If you can clean the lentils in half an hour, you can go. But don’t come anywhere near us if you do….”

The foursome depart without looking back; they don’t give her a second thought. Anna watches them out of the corner of her eye. They look hideous. Her father’s suit is shiny. “How embarrassing, he looks like some low-class government functionary!” The young ladies are dressed in painfully bad taste.

Anna calls to the birds in the peach tree, singing:

Live blossoms of the peach tree in bloom,

Sort the good from the bad.

I want to dance and be loved.

A dozen different birds fly into the kitchen, fishing the lentils out of the fireplace, leaving them clean in the bowl. Anna goes to the peach tree and asks:

Father of live flowers,

Help me to dress beautifully.

I want to dance and be loved.

A dozen new birds bring her a gold dress and a pair of golden slippers, laying them on the clean kitchen table.

Anna bathes (in cold water—all birds hate hot water), does her hair, and dresses. The slippers make her feel lighter; she usually wears a pair of rough wooden clogs. In these slippers she runs—practically flies—to the king’s castle, and she doesn’t slow down when she arrives. She’s lighter and more agile than all the matrons and spoiled girls in the room—overfed and pudgy—who are trying to catch the prince’s eye. In comparison, Anna looks like a pixie.

The prince sees her and tells the king:

Father of mine, amongst these live blossoms

I can sort the good from the bad.

She’s the one.

I want to dance and be loved.

The king doesn’t think much of her. She doesn’t move with “dignity,” but neither does she move like a peasant. What is she? Beautiful, yes, and she seems to have good manners. He holds his son’s arm until she begins to move her arms and feet more gracefully than he has ever beheld. Then he releases the prince, who shoots off like a bullet—a clumsy expression, but there’s no better way to describe it.

The prince dances with Anna all night. They’re like two figures in a music box. Magnetic, almost mechanical. When some aristocrat or other approaches him between songs to introduce his daughter, the prince, instead of replying, “With pleasure,” repeats:

I have chosen amongst these living blossoms

To love and be loved.