"Then heavy footsteps were heard, and a tall, impressive figure
appeared on the road, clad in a white mantle, and he, too, fell
down on his knees, as though unwillingly, in front of the
tombstone.
"Thirteen times this was repeated. Thirteen old men came over to
the tombstone. The doctor counted them, but he could not understand
whether they were alive or dead. A shiver crept down his back, his
heart began to beat faster from fright. He involuntarily recalled
the terrible legend of the Day of Atonement in the tenth month,
Tishri, in the synagogue of Posen when, during the prayer of Kol
Nidrei, the congregation kept growing larger and larger; unknown
people, pushing one another, wrapped in prayer shawls, came in, one
hundred after another, until the terrified Rabbi lifted his hand as
if to curse and exclaimed: 'He who has flesh in his cheeks, let him
throw off the prayer shawl!' Hundreds remained covered, and when
the prayer shawls were torn away from them, all saw the skulls of
the dead who had come out of the graves to celebrate the Day of
Atonement with the rest of the congregation.
"As there, it seemed to him that the prayer shawls had fallen off
the heads of the praying old men, and a row of dead skulls
appeared. At that moment the clock struck twelve. A sharp metallic
sound rang out on the grave, after which a blue flame appeared and
illumined the thirteen kneeling figures.
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