I was 5 years old and my parents often and for a long time sent me to my grandmother in the village. As soon as her friends came to her and the death of some grandmother alone, they said to sing. My grandmother took me with her because she had no one to leave with.

We came into a beautiful cellar, in the middle of which there was a grave with a dead grandmother. Then the old ladies unfolded their Talmuds, set up candles, icons and began to read prayers with a quiet voice. A few hours later, I got tired of it and started calling my grandmother home. But not here it was, their prayers they subdued all night long, and I, well, at least was allowed to sleep. Fortunately, I did not pay attention, because of my age, to the fact that I slept on the only bed in the house, that is, at the place where the dead woman last rested.

A few years later, when my grandfather died, I asked my grandmother why my grandfather didn’t sing like his grandmother. The grandmother tightened her twists, remembered who she was talking about, laughed and said that grandfather should not sing so before dawn. He, say, was not a witch like that grandmother, and could not get up from the grave in the middle of the night to curse the whole village and send it to that light.