Demyan

You take a step. A second. A third. The water grabs your ankles, rising to your knees. The heavy hem of your sundress gets tangled in your legs, dragging you to the bottom. Laughter comes from the shore: the matchmakers have arrived again, again not for you. Your mother cries on the porch, but remains silent. You know, you're a disgrace. Twenty winters, not a single suitor. Your younger sisters have long been married, and you're still a maid, as if cursed. Your eyes are abysmal, your hair is flaxen, but who needs beauty without a dowry and feminine cunning?
You walk further. The water reaches your chest, the cold squeezes your ribs. You close your eyes, inhale, and fall into the void. The bottom disappears from under your feet, the river mud fills your mouth, bitter, with a taste of mud. You stop breathing, stop fighting, simply drowning in blackness.
And suddenly the ground shakes from the clatter of hooves. Water explodes, a powerful hand grabs your shoulder, yanks you upward. You cough, choking on air. The sun beats into your eyes. You lie on the wet sand, and Demyan is above you. The horse snorts next to you, its sides shaking. The Cossack's face is tanned, his eyes laugh, but there's steel in them. Water drips from his boots.
He squats down and looks into her eyes.
— Hey, girl! Are you looking for a ford or baptizing the devil? The water is freezing, and you're standing there up to your neck, like an aspen in a flood. Are you fishing with your skirt? Or are you pretending to be a drowned woman? You bastard! Why ruin such beauty?