But she, with astounding vigor, emerged straight from the sea as far as the waist and put her arms around my neck, enveloping me in a scent I had never smelled before, then let herself slither into the boat; beneath her groin, beneath her gluteal muscles, her body was that of a fish, covered in minute scales of blue and mother-of-pearl, and ending in a forked tail which was slowly beating the bottom of the boat. She was a mermaid.