The dark-green, wind-swept grass grew sweet and succulent in summer.
The sun seemed to shine from out a deep blue ocean of light. The
nights were silvery, the sky seemed dissolved into a pale, pellucid
mist; sunset and dawn co-mingled, and a white wavering haze crept
over the earth. Here life was strong and swift, for it knew that its
days were brief.
Marina was installed in Makar's room, and he was transferred to
Demid's.
Makar greeted Marina with an inhospitable snarl when he saw her for
the first time; then, showing his teeth, he struck her with his paw.
Demid beat him for this behaviour, and he quieted down. Then Marina
made friends with him.
Demid went into the woods in the daytime, and Marina was left alone.
She decorated her room in her own fashion, with a crude, somewhat
exaggerated, yet graceful, taste. She hung round in symmetrical order
the skins and cloth hangings, brightly embroidered with red and blue
cocks and reindeers. She placed an image of the God-Mother in the
corner; she washed the floor; and her multi-coloured room--smelling
as before of the woods--began to resemble a forest-chapel, where the
forest folk pray to their gods.
In the pale-greenish twilight of the illimitable night, when only
horn-owls cried in the woods and bear-cubs snarled by the river,
Demid went in to Marina. She could not think--her mind moved slowly
and awkwardly like a great lumbering animal--she could only feel, and
in those warm, voluptuous, star-drenched nights she yielded herself
to Demid, desiring to become one with him, his strength, and his
passion.
The nights were pale, tremulous, and mysterious. There was a deep,
heavy, nocturnal stillness. White spirals of mist drifted along the
ground. Night-owls and wood spirits hooted. In the morning was a red
blaze of glory as the great orb of day rose from the east into the
azure vault of heaven.
The days flew by and summer passed.