In the centre of one of the rooms stood a large, rough-hewn table; round it were some low wooden stools covered with bear-skin. This was Demid's own room; in the other was the young bear, Makar.
Demid lay motionless for a long time on his bear-skin bed, listening to the vibrations of his great body--how it lived and throbbed, how the rich blood coursed through its veins. Makar, the bear, approached, laid his heavy paws on his chest, and amicably sniffed at his body. Demid stroked the beast on its ear, and it seemed as if the man and animal understood each other. Outside the window loomed the wood.
Demid was rugged and broad-shouldered, a large, quiet, dark-eyed, good man. He smelt of the woods, and was strong and healthy. Like all the hunters, he dressed in furs and a rough, home-woven fabric streaked with red. He wore high, heavy boots made of reindeer hide, and his coarse, broad hands were covered with broken chilblains.
Makar was young, and, like all young things, he was foolish. He liked to roll about, and was often destructive--he would gnaw the nets and skins, break the traps, and lick up the gunpowder. Then Demid punished him, whereupon Makar would turn on his heel, make foolish grimaces, and whine plaintively.
Demid went to the maidens on the slope and took Marina to his plot of land. She became his wife.
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.