Do you remember, my heart, that black night from the dawn of my childhood? When the sky was in its great wrath — lightnings and thunders, the massed clouds pelting one another with balls of fire! There was not a single unveiled star in the sky that night!

A little while before, my mother had slipped out of our room — mine and my brothers' and sisters' — after quieting our fright, tucking us into our beds, and passing her lips over our foreheads... Then she lit the candle on the little table, took up the kerosene lamp, and vanished, her shadow following after her!!

I closed my eyelids, wanting sleep, but easy sleep would not yield to me with its accustomed ease. It was Christmas Eve! And old "Santa Claus," on his long, hard journey to the houses of the little ones, shaking the flakes of snow from his robe and his beard, bending barefoot over the children, stuffing their stockings with presents around their little heads...

What would become of Santa Claus in this mad hurricane, with the torrents pouring down the roads like waves??

Would my little doll with the pink dress, the one I had asked of him in my prayers, get wet?

A long while passed amid my forebodings. Then slow footsteps drew near the room. I shut my eyes tight and buried my head under the quilt. And through my panting, and the rush of your beating, my heart, I heard Santa Claus. Yes! I heard him emptying the bags of sweets into our stockings and blowing up the balloons. And I felt the weight of the box upon my pillow. How sweet its rustling in my ear!!

Moments that I counted as ages — after which Santa Claus stole away, back the way he had come!

And suddenly curiosity drove me to help myself to one look at the august guest. Through my lashes I snatched a fleeting glimpse — oh, the horror of what I saw!!

Do you remember, my heart, the force of the shock against which your fancy was dashed at that moment?

The lofty palaces of your dreams came down all at once!!

And from that day the splendor of the legend was snuffed out in my head, and I learned, alas, who Santa Claus was!!