Powerful sand (metaphor)
The narrator was approaching the stranger along the river stepping her footprints the way back “…and the white sand broke loose in footprints over footprints”. The sand here requires metaphorically a power that can erase what has been old and create a new one, it becomes kind of an eraser of the past and creator of the present.
Need for tenderness (metaphor)
The narrator becomes more and more attracted to this man. But what is strange she does not think of him as of a man to spend life with, to be always with him, she looks at him and all she needs is just tenderness and his warmth: “I moved close to him to feel his breathing and hear his heart”. She must have been devoid of physical love and this little adventure does not frighten her at all, she tries to get out of it as much as possible.
In the embrace of nature (metaphor)
The stranger’s house was high in the mountains, and in the evening there was a wonderful view over the hills and forests. The narrator says: “I was standing in the sky with nothing around me but the wind that came down from the blue mountain peak behind me”.
Steep ridge (simile)
Vivid descriptions of nature in the mountains are present in the story: “The trail leveled out on a narrow ridge that was steep on both sides like an animal spine.”
