'Nothing particular happened to disrupt the morning of the second day. I continued to follow the increasingly oppressive meanders of this strange swamp,
despairing of ever finding further traces of another human being, when I became aware of a gentle lapping noise coming from a nearby pool. I'd barely caught a glimpse of a naked young woman's graceful curves when she was bitten by a snake, and then she fled. I will never forget the expression on her pale face: a mixture of surprise and fear, pain and pleasure. So much so that I wondered to what extent she had not yielded to the desire to be the serpent's victim.
Promising myself not to mistake water snakes for floating branches, I set off in pursuit of the bather. After a few minutes, the sight of an unexpected scene stopped me in my tracks. A group of Naiads, similar in every way to the one I was chasing, were frolicking in the sludgy green waters, joyous and carefree: one hanging upside-down from a branch, the others playing with the severed tentacles of a giant octopus.'
From: 'Simulated Beauty' Simon Delobel, in: My garden is wilder than yours
