"Thomas M. Disch - The M D" - читать интересную книгу автора (Disch Thomas M)

religious faith. The myth of Santa Claus was, as she had just
explained to the children, a pagan practice, and therefore sinful, all
the more because it had attached itself to a Christian holy day. She
walked decisively to the back of the room, hauled the boy up by his
shirt collar, and plopped him down into his seat. He let out a final
yelp of protest, and she slapped his face soundly.

"Enough of that."

He caught his breath and glared at her.

Before he could renew his foolishness, Sister Symphorosa turned her
back on him and continued talking to the children as though nothing
unusual had happened.

"Now, who can tell me what the First Commandment instructs us to do?"

No hands went up. Sister Symphorosa had shifted gears too fast for
them. Everything that she had told them in the last two weeks about
Moses and the Golden Calf and the Ten Commandments had vanished from
their erratic memories. Hints were of no help.

"The First Commandment," Sister Symphorosa announced, in the tone of
another Moses reproaching the tribes of Israel, 'is

"I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt have no strange gods before thee."
And what is this Santa Claus but a strange god?

He can fly all about the world in a magic sleigh with flying reindeer.
He is supposed to know if you're good or bad-" Billy Michaels produced
an audible gurgling sound, as though he were being strangled-or getting
ready to throw another tantrum.

"Billy Michaels, be quiet and sit still. Only God, who is omniscient,
knows that. Only God knows the secrets we each have in our hearts. God
knows that, because God knows everything, but Santa Claus can't know
anything, because Santa Claus does not exist, and never did, though
there was a St Nicholas once. But he did not live at the North Pole.
No one lives there, it is much too cold. The real St. Nicholas lived
in a town called Myra, where he was a bishop like our own dear Bishop
Fitzgerald, and his feast day is the sixth of December."

There was a long silence. Sister Symphorosa surveyed the rows and
files of wide-eyed faces, searching them for signs of defiance or
inattention. They all seemed satisfactorily subdued.

"St. Nicholas," she resumed in a cheerier tone, "is the patron saint
of children and of storekeepers, and that must be how the legends of
Santa Claus got started." She broke off as she did not want to take
the children out of their depth. Enough to smash the idol; she did not