[I remembered those dreadful days I spent in a mass cell of a lockup... I had never said a word to that Lithuanian woman who didn't speak Russian and couldn't understand why they brought her there. I'm afraid, the grief disordered her mind so that she wouldn't understand her mother tongue... I didn't ask or simply forgot her name. Local women with whom she lived told her story.]
Every day brings death of her children, one by one, «... today Bertha died ... today Keituk died ... today Erna ...» It was terrible to see her despair. The myth of Niobe suggested itself; merciless gods killed her children one after another. Niobe challenged gods, that woman hid a small trace of barley in her stocking to feed the kids. As a result the mother is in jail, the children suffering of scarlet fever are thrown away like puppies and die one after another.