Shortly before the start of the Great Patriotic War, my great-grandmother Maria married a fellow villager Ivan. Just celebrated the wedding, and then the Germans attacked. Ivan was drafted into the army.
After some time, Ivan began to come home at night. He said that he managed to escape for a short time from the unit that was nearby. Maria was all amazed, asked how he did it, but Ivan avoided answering. After spending the night with his wife, the husband went back to the unit. Then Maria stopped trying to figure out how Ivan manages to escape. I was just glad that my husband comes home - alive, healthy, even if not for long. After some time, Maria began to wither before our eyes, grew thin, lost a lot of weight and turned pale. Strength left her every day.
And an old woman lived next door to Maria. Noticing these oddities, she approached her to find out what was happening. And although Ivan strictly forbade talking about his visits (otherwise, they say, he could be imprisoned or even shot as a deserter), Maria opened up to her neighbor. It was then that the old woman explained to her that the unclean himself was visiting her.
Maria, of course, did not believe what she heard. Then the neighbor suggested that when Ivan came again and they sat down at the table, drop a fork on the floor and, bending down behind it, look at his legs. The main thing is, even if you see something strange, not to give yourself away.
When Maria, following the advice of a neighbor, crawled under the table for a fork, instead of her husband's feet, she saw something like hooves. She could hardly contain herself so as not to scream in horror. But still she endured, sat with Ivan until the end of the feast. And when the guest tried to caress her, she referred to a female illness. Soon Ivan left. Early in the morning Maria ran to the old woman and told her everything. A neighbor advised her to draw crosses with chalk on all the shutters, above the front door, on the stove bolt. In general, wherever it was possible to enter the house. Maria did just that.
Exactly at midnight, the husband came to the house and began to call his wife. He literally begged her to come out to his porch. Maria refused, said that she was scared, and invited Ivan to come in, as he always did. For a long time the guest persuaded the woman, but she refused. After another "no", the house started shaking. Shutters shook, glass rattled, a deafening rumble was heard in the chimney. With the first crows of the rooster, everything was quiet.
The unclean one never came again. Maria recovered. When the real Ivan returned home from the war, she told him this story. The husband replied that immediately after being drafted, they were taken to another city, he could not leave his unit and run home. And then he fought far from his native places. So a cruel fate would probably have awaited my great-grandmother if her old neighbor had not saved her.