marina was twenty when she proceeded to the river-bank.

her tall, somewhat heavy body was wonderfully moulded, with strong muscles and snowy skin. her chest, back, hips, and limbs were sharply outlined; she was strong, supple, and well developed. her round, broad breast rose high; her hair, eye-brows and eye-lashes were thick and dark. the pupils of her eyes were deep and liquid; her cheeks showed a flush of red. her lips were soft—like a beast's—large, sensuous and rosy. she walked slowly, moving her long straight legs evenly, and slightly swaying from her hips….

she joined the maidens on the river slope.

they were singing their mysterious, alluring and illusive songs.

marina mingled among the crowd of maidens, lay down upon her back, closed her dreamy eyes, and joined in the festive chorus. the maidens' souls became absorbed in the singing, and their song spread far and wide through all the shadowy recesses of the woods, like shining rays of sunlight. their eyes closed in langour, their full- blooded bodies ached with a delicious sensation. their hearts seemed to grow benumbed, the numbness spreading through their blood to their limbs; it deprived them of strength, and their thoughts became chaotic.

marina stretched her limbs sensuously; then became absorbed in the singing, and she also sang. she felt strangely inert; only quivering at the sound of the lusty, excited voices of the youths.

afterwards she lay on a couch in her suffocatingly close room; her hands were clasped behind her head; her bosom swelled. she stretched, opened her dark pensive eyes wide, compressed her lips, then sank again into the drowsy langour, lying thus for many hours.

she was twenty, and had grown up free and solitary—with the hunters, the woods, and the steep and the river—from her birth.