At the age of five I understood that it was bad for us that mama was young and beautiful. It was dangerous.

I knew my mama was young and beautiful. Other children's mamas were older, but at the age of five I understood that it was bad for us that mama was young and beautiful. It was dangerous. I figured it out at the age of five ... I even understood that it was good that I was little. How could a child understand that? Nobody explained anything to me ...

S. Alexievich, tr. R. Pevear and L. Volkhonsky, Last Witnesses [Liuda Andreeva] (1985), 182