Time passes, and Bambi learns how good grass tastes, how tender the buds of leaves are, and how sweet clover is. When he presses himself against his mother to get some refreshment she often pushes him away. “You’re not a little child any more,” she says. Sometimes she will be even more direct and say, “Go away, leave me in peace.” Sometimes his mother would even stand up in the middle of the day in their little place in the wood and just walk away without looking to see whether Bambi is following her or not. There are even times when she is walking along the familiar paths when she seems not to notice whether Bambi is trotting behind her like a good boy. One day his mother was not there, and Bambi does not know how that is possible, cannot understand it. But his mother is gone and Bambi, for the first time, is alone.
He is bewildered, he becomes uneasy, he becomes nervous and anxious, and he begins to long for her quite pitifully. Very sadly he stands there and calls to her. No-one answers, no-one comes.
He listens, he smells the air. Nothing. He calls again. Gently, inside himself, imploringly, he calls, “Mother ... Mother ...” All in vain.
Now he is gripped with doubt as to whether he can endure it, so he begins to walk.
He wanders along all the paths he knows, stops and calls out, walks on with hesitant steps, fearful and unable to understand. He is very sad.
He carries on walking and finds himself on paths where he has never been before, he finds himself in parts of the wood which are strange to him. He is lost.
Then he hears the voices of two children who are calling out like him:
“Mother ... mother ...!”
Surely that is Gobo and Faline. It must be them.
He runs quickly towards the voices and soon sees their red coats shining through between the leaves. Gobo and Faline. There they stand next to each other under a dogwood, looking forlorn and calling, “Mother ... mother ...!”
They’re glad that they can hear something rusting in the undergrowth, but they are disappointed when they see it is only Bambi. But they are a little bit glad to see him. And Bambi is glad that he is not quite so alone any more.
“My mother’s gone away somewhere,” says Bambi.
“Ours is gone too,” lamented Gobo.
They look at each other in their dismay.
“But where could they be?” asks Bambi, almost in tears.
“I don’t know,” sighs Gobo. His heart is beating fast and he is feeling quite miserable.
Suddenly, Faline says, “I think ... they’re with our fathers ...”
Gobo and Bambi look at each other in astonishment. They are immediately gripped by a sense of awe. “You mean ... with our fathers?” asked Bambi and shudders.
Faline shudders too, but she makes a face that seems to be saying a lot. She looks like someone who knows more than he is willing to say. She does not really know anything at all of course; she does not even know where she got the idea from. But as Gobo repeats, “Do you really mean that?,” she makes herself look clever and says each time, “Yes, I think so.”
That is, of course, a guess, but it is at least worth thinking about. It does not make Bambi any less uneasy though. He is not now capable of thinking, he is too anxious and too sad.
He moves away. He does not like to spend too much time on one spot. Faline and Gobo go with him a little way; all three of them call “Mother ... mother ...” But now Gobo and Faline have stopped; they do not dare to go any further. Faline says, “Where are we going? Our mother knows where we should be. So let’s stay there so that she can find us when she comes back.”
Bambi walks on by himself. He wanders through a thicket where there is a little bare patch. In the middle of the bare patch Bambi stops. It is as if he is held there by his roots and cannot leave the spot.
There, at the edge of the bare patch, in a tall hazel bush, he could make out a form. Bambi has never seen a form like this. At the same time a scent came to him in the air, a scent he has never smelt before. It is a strange aroma, heavy and sharp and exciting, enough to make you mad.
Bambi stares at the form. It is remarkably erect, exceptionally narrow, and it has a pale face which is quite naked on the nose and around the eyes. Horribly naked. This is a face that projects a dreadful horror. Cold and gruesome. This face has a monstrous power to it, a power that could leave you crippled. This face is painful to behold, hardly bearable to behold, but Bambi nonetheless stands there and stares at it, captivated.
The form remains there motionless for a long time. Then it reaches one leg out, a leg that is positioned high up, and puts it near its face. Bambi has not noticed that it was there at all. This terrible leg stretches right out into the air, and it is merely this gesture that sweeps Bambi away like a candle in the wind. In an instant he is back in the thicket he has just left. And he runs.
Suddenly his mother is back with him. She leaps through bush and undergrowth next to him. The two of them run as fast as they can. His mother leads the way, she knows the path, and Bambi follows. In this way they keep running until they are at the entrance to their chamber.
“Did you ... did you see that?” asks his mother gently. Bambi cannot answer, he has no breath left. He merely nods.
“That was ... that was Him!” she says.
The two of them shuddered in horror.
Bambi was often left alone now. But he did not have the same fear of it as he had the first time. His mother would disappear, and then, however much he called for her, she did not come. But then she would reappear unexpectedly.
One evening, feeling very lonely, he wandered once more along the paths. He had not found Gobo and Faline even once. The sky had already turned to a light grey and it was beginning to get dark, so that the tops of the trees could be seen over the bushes and undergrowth. Something rustled in the bushes, something hurtled its way between the leaves, and then his mother appeared Close behind her another deer made its way in. Bambi did not know who it was. Auntie Ena or his father or someone else. But Bambi’s mother saw immediately who it was, despite the speed at which she had rushed past him. He heard the shrillness of her voice. She screamed, and it seemed to Bambi that she did so only in fun, but then it occurred to him that there was a slight ring of fear in that scream.
Another time, it happened in full daylight. Bambi had been walking for hours through the dense woods and finally began to call. Not so much because he was afraid, but because did not want to remain so alone any more, and he felt he would soon be in a terrible state. So he began to call for his mother.
Suddenly there was one of their fathers standing in front of him, looking at him severely. Bambi had not heard him coming and he was startled. This elder stag looked more powerful than the others, he was taller and more proud. His coat was aflame with a deep dark red, but his face shone silver-grey; and a powerful, black pearled crown extended high above his playful ears.
“What are you calling for?” the old stag asked severely. Bambi trembled in awe of the elder stag and did not dare to make any answer. “Your mother hasn’t got the time to spend on you now!” the elder continued. Bambi was completely cowed by this imperious voice, but at the same time he felt admiration for it. “Can’t you be by yourself for a while? You should be ashamed of yourself!” Bambi would have liked to say that he could be by himself perfectly well, that he had often been by himself, but he said nothing. He did as he was told and became terribly ashamed. The elder turned round and left him. Bambi did not know how the stag left, where he had gone, did not even know whether he had left quickly or slowly. He was simply gone, just as suddenly as he had arrived. Bambi strained his ears, but he heard no steps moving away from him, no leaf being disturbed. That made him suppose the elder must still be quite near to him, and he smelt the air on every side. He learned nothing from that. Bambi sighed in relief as he was once more alone, but at the same time he yearned to see the old stag again and to make sure he was not displeased with him.
Then his mother arrived but Bambi said nothing about his meeting with the elder. Nor did he ever call for her, now, when she was out of sight. He thought about the old stag when he wandered about on his own; he felt a powerful wish to come across him. Then he would say to him, “See? I’m not calling for anyone.” And the elder would praise him.
He did speak to Gobo and Faline though, the next time they were together on the meadow. They listened with excitement and they had had no experience of their own that could compare with this. “Weren’t you scared?” asked Gobo excitedly. Yes! Bambi admitted, he had been scared. Just a little bit. “I’d have been terribly scared,” Gobo told him. Bambi answered that no, he had not been very scared, because the elder had been so majestic. Gobo told him, “That wouldn’t have been much help for me. I’d have been too scared even to look at him. When I get scared everything flickers in front of my eyes so that I can’t see anything and my heart beats so hard that I can’t breathe.” What Bambi had told them made Faline very thoughtful and she said nothing.
The next time they met, though, Gobo and Faline rushed to him in great leaps and bounds. They were alone once more, as was Bambi. “We’ve been looking for you for ages,” declared Gobo. “Yes,” said Faline with an air of importance, “as now we know exactly who it was that you saw.” Bambi was so keen to know he jumped in the air. “Who ...!?”
Faline took pleasure in saying, “It was the old prince.”
“How do you know that?” Bambi wanted to know.
“Our mother told us!” retorted Faline.
Bambi was astonished, and he showed it. “Did you tell her about it then?” The two of them nodded their heads. “But that was a secret!” objected Bambi.
Gobo quickly tried to excuse himself. “It wasn’t me. It was Faline who did it.” But Faline cheerfully called, “Oh, so what? Secret!? I wanted to know who it was, and now we do know, and that’s much more interesting!” Bambi was burning to hear all about this, and his wish was satisfied. Faline told him everything. “He’s the most noble stag in the whole wood. He’s the prince. There is no second most noble, no-one comes near to him. No-one knows how old he is. No-one knows where he lives. No-one knows who his relatives are. Very few have ever even seen him. Now and then there’s a rumour that he’s dead because he hasn’t been seen for a long time. Then somebody catches a glimpse of him and then everyone knows he’s still alive. No-one has ever dared to ask him where he’s been. He doesn’t speak to anyone and no-one dares to speak to him. He goes along the paths where no-one else ever goes; he knows every part of the wood, even the most distant corner. And nothing is a danger to him. Other princes might tussle with each other, sometimes as a test or in fun but sometimes they fight in earnest. It’s many years since he fought with anyone. And there’s no-one still alive who did fight with him a long time ago. He’s the great prince.”
Bambi forgave Gobo and Faline for having carelessly chatted about his secret with their mother. He was even quite satisfied about it as now, after all, it was him who had experienced all the all these important things. Nonetheless, he was glad that Gobo and Faline did not know everything quite precisely, that the great prince had said, “Can’t you be by yourself for a while?,” that they did not know he had said, “You should be ashamed of yourself!.” Bambi was glad, now, that he had kept silent about these admonitions. Faline would have told everything about that just like everything else, and then the whole forest would have been gossiping about it.
That night, as the moon was rising, Bambi’s mother came back again. She was suddenly there standing under the great oak at the edge of the meadow and looking round for Bambi. He saw her straight away and ran over to her. That night Bambi had another new experience. His mother was tired and hungry. She did not walk about as much as she usually did but satisfied herself there on the meadow where Bambi also usually took his meals. Together there, they munched on the bushes and as they did so, in that remarkably pleasant way, they wandered deeper and deeper into the woods. There was a loud noise that came through the greenery. Before Bambi had any idea of what was happening his mother began to scream loudly, just as she did when she was greatly startled or confused. “A-oh!” she screamed, jumped away, then stopped and screamed, “A-oh, ba-oh!.” Then, Bambi saw some immense figures appear, coming towards them through the noise. They came quite close. They looked like Bambi and his mother, like Auntie Ena and anyone else of their species, but they were enormous, they had grown so big and powerful that you felt compelled to look up at them. Like his mother, Bambi began to scream, “A-oh ... Ba-oh ...Ba-oh!.” He was hardly aware that he was screaming, he could not stop himself. The line of figures went slowly past, three or four enormous figures one after another. Last of all came one that was even bigger than the others, it had a wild mane around its neck and its head was crowned with a whole tree. Just to see it took your breath away. Bambi stood there and howled as loudly as he could, as he felt more frightened and bewildered than he ever had been before. His fear was of a particular kind. He felt as if he were pitifully small, and even his mother seemed to be the same. He felt ashamed, although he had no idea why, at the same time the horror of it shook him and he once more began to howl. “Ba-oh ... Ba-a-oh!.” It made him feel better when he shouted like that.
The line of figures had passed. There was nothing more to see and nothing more to hear from in. Even Bambi’s mother became silent. There was only Bambi who would whine briefly from time to time. He was still afraid.
“You can be quiet now,” his mother said, “look, they’ve gone away.”
“Oh, mother,” whispered Bambi, “who was that?”
“Oh, they’re not really that dangerous,” his mother said. “They were our big relatives ... yes ... they are big and they’re quality ... much higher quality than you or me ...”
“And aren’t they dangerous?” Bambi asked.
“Not normally,” his mother explained. “But they say there are many things that have happened. People say this and that about them but I don’t know if there’s any truth in these stories. They’ve never done anything to me or to anyone I know.”
“Why would they do anything to us when they’re relatives of ours?” thought Bambi. He wanted to be quiet, but he was still shaking.
“No, I don’t suppose they’ll do anything to us,” his mother answered, “but I’m not sure, and I get alarmed every time I see them. I can’t stop myself. It’s the same every time.”
Bambi was slowly soothed down by this conversation, but he remained thoughtful. Right above him, in among the branches of an alder tree, an impressive tawny owl shrieked. But Bambi was confused and forgot, for once, to show that he was startled. The owl, however still came down to him and asked, “Give you a shock, did I?.”
“Of course,” answered Bambi. “You always give me a shock.”
The owl gave a quiet laugh; he was satisfied. “I hope you don’t blame me for it,” he said. “It’s just the way I do things.” He fluffed up his plumage till he looked like a ball, sank his beak into his soft, downy feathers, and put on a terribly nice, serious expression. That was enough for him.
Bambi opened his heart to him. “Do you know,” he began in a way that seemed older than his age, “I’ve just had a shock that was far bigger than the one you gave me.”
“What?” asked the owl, no longer so satisfied with himself.
Bambi told him about his meeting with his enormous relatives.
“Don’t tell me about your relatives,” declared the owl. “I’ve got relatives too, you know. But all I have to do is look round me anywhere in the daytime and they’re all over me. Na, there’s not much point in having relatives. If they’re bigger than you they’re good for nothing, and if they’re smaller they’re even more good for nothing. If they’re bigger than you then you can’t stand them ‘cause they’re so haughty, and if they’re smaller they can’t stand you ‘cause they think you’re haughty. Na, I don’t want to know anything about anything of that.”
“But ... I don’t even know my relatives ...” said Bambi shyly and wishing he did. “I’d never heard anything about them and today was the first time I saw them.”
“Don’t you bother about those people,” the owl advised him. “Just take my word for it,” he said, rolling his eyes in a meaningful way, “take my word, that’s the best thing to do. Relatives are never as good as friends. Look at the two of us, we’re not related but we’re good friends, aren’t we, and very nice it is too.”
Bambi was about to say something more, but the owl continued speaking. “I’ve got some experience in things like that. You’re a bit young, still. Take my word, I know better about these things. And anyway, I don’t see why I should get involved in your family matters.” He rolled his eyes, and rolled them in a way that seemed so thoughtful, and sat with an expression that seemed so earnest and meaningful, that Bambi was modest and said nothing.
Another night went by, and the following day something else happened.
The sky was cloudless, and the morning was full of dew and freshness. All the leaves on the trees and the bushes suddenly had a more vivid scent. The meadow breathed the air in broad waves and lifted it up to the tree tops.
‘Peep’ said the tits as they woke up. They said it quite quietly, but as it was still twilight and the sky was grey they said nothing more for a little while. For a time there was silence. Then the raucous, rasping sound of a crow came from high up in the air. The crows had woken up and were visiting each other in the tree tops. The magpie answered straight back: “Shakerakshak ... can you believe this, I’m still asleep?” Then hundreds of calls, here and there, far and near, tentatively began: peep! Peep! Tiu! These sounds still had something of sleep, something of the twilight about them. And yet they were actually all quite distinct from each other.
Suddenly a blackbird flew up to the top of a fir tree. He flew right up to the very highest, thinnest point, reaching into the air. He sat high up there and looked out over all the other trees, near and far while the pale grey sky, still tired from the night, began to glow in the east and come to life. Then the bird began to sing. She was only a tiny dark spot if you glimpsed her from the ground. In the distance her little black body looked like a wilted leaf. But her song spread out all over the forest in great celebration. And then everything came to life. The finches struck up and the robins and the goldfinches made their voices heard. Pigeons rushed from one place to another with wide flapping and swishing of their wings. The pheasants shouted out loud as if their throats would burst. The sound of their wings was gentle but powerful as they swooped down to earth from the trees where they had been sleeping. On the ground they repeated their metallic, bursting cry many more times, and then they would coo gently. High in the sky, the falcons called out their sharp and joyful ‘yayaya!’ .
The sun had risen.
‘Diu-diyu!’ rejoiced the oriole. As he flew back and forth between the twigs and branches his round, yellow body shone in the beams of the morning sun like an exhilarated ball of gold.
Bambi stepped under the big oak tree on the meadow. It sparkled in the morning dew, had a scent of grass, flowers and wet earth, it whispered of the thousand lives it had led. There sat Bambi’s friend, the hare, and he seemed to be thinking about something very important. There was a haughty pheasant there, walking slowly. He pecked at the stalks of grass and looked carefully all around himself. His dark blue neck sparkled in the sunlight like a jewel necklace. But close in front of Bambi there stood one of the princes, very near to him. Bambi had never seen him before, had never even seen any of the fathers this close up. He stood there before him, very close to a hazel bush and still slightly concealed behind its twigs. Bambi did not move. He hoped the prince would come out fully from behind the bush, and he wondered whether he could dare to speak to him. He wanted to ask his mother and glanced around for her, but his mother had already gone ahead and stood a long way away with Auntie Ena. Just then, Gobo and Faline came out of the woods and ran onto the meadow. Bambi did not move but wondered about what he should do. If he wanted to get over to his mother and the others he would have to pass by the prince. He thought that would be unseemly. So what? he thought, I don’t need to get my mother’s permission first. It was the old prince who spoke to me first and I didn’t tell my mother anything about it. I will speak to the prince, I’ll see if I can. I’ll say to him: Good morning your highness. There’s nothing about that that might make him cross. And if he is I can just run away. Bambi wondered whether he had made the right decision, and it kept on making him feel unsteady on his feet.
Now the prince stepped away from the hazel bush and onto the meadow.
Now ... thought Bambi.
Just then there was a loud clap of thunder.
Bambi recoiled and did not know what had happened.
He saw how the prince jumped high into the air in front of him and saw him rush past him into the woods.
Bambi looked hard all around himself, he felt as if he could still hear the thunder clap. He saw his mother, Auntie Ena, Gobo and Faline, some way away, had fled into the woods, he saw his friend the hare rush away in a panic, saw the pheasant run away with his neck stretched out ahead of him, and he could not understand what it all could be about. The prince lay there, a broad wound had torn his shoulder open, he was bloody and dead.
“Don’t just stand there!” came a shrill cry from beside him. It was his mother who was running at a full gallop. “Run!” she called, “Run as fas as you can!.” She did not stop, but rushed on, and her command pulled Bambi along with her. He ran with all his strength.
“What is that, mother?” he asked. “What was that, mother?”
His mother, gasping for breath, answered, “That ... was ... Him!.”
Bambi shuddered, and they ran on.
Finally, out of breath, they stopped.
“What do you say? Please, what do you say?” called a thin voice from above them. Bambi looked up and saw the squirrel hurrying down to them through the branches of the tree. “I jumped all the way here beside you” he called. “No, it’s terrible!”
“Were you there when it happened?” asked Bambi’s mother.
“Well of course I was there” the squirrel replied. “I’m still shaking from it, all my limbs are shaking.” He sat upright, his magnificent flag against his back, showing his slender, white breast and pressing both his front paws against his body to reassure himself. “I’m quite beside myself with fear.”
“I’m afraid too, and it’s made me quite numb” said Bambi’s mother. “I can’t understand it. None of us saw anything.”
“Really?” The squirrel became excited. “You’re wrong there, you know. “I’d been watching him for a long time!”
“So had I!” called another voice. It was the magpie; she flew up to them and sat down on a branch.
“And me!” called another screeching voice from even higher in the ash tree. There was the jay sitting there.
And from the very tops of the trees there was a pair of crows who cawed angrily. “We saw him too!” they interjected.
They all sat round in earnest discussion. They were exceptionally agitated and, it seemed, full of anger and fear.
Who, thought Bambi, who have they seen?
“I did everything I possibly could do,” the squirrel assured them as he pressed both his forepaws to his heart. “Really everything, to bring Him to the attention of the poor prince.”
“So did I,” the jay screeched, “I don’t know how many times I shouted to him! But he just didn’t want to hear me.”
“He didn’t hear me either,” the magpie said with a laugh. “Ten times it was I called to ‘im. Just as I was going to fly over to him, I thought to meself; well if ‘e can’t hear me I’ll fly over onto that hazel bush, just where he’s standing; he’s got to hear me from there. But that was just when it happened.”
“But my voice is louder than yours, and I did all I could to warn ‘im,” said the crow in a bitter tone. “But you posh lot never give enough attention to birds like us.”
“Yes, never enough at all,” agreed the squirrel.
“We do what we can,” thought the magpie, “but it’s not our fault if somebody’s unlucky.”
“He was such a handsome prince,” the squirrel lamented, “and in the prime of life.”
“Ach!” the jay screeched, “if he hadn’t been so stand-offish and paid a bit of attention to us.”
“He was certainly not stand-offish!” the squirrel contradicted him.
The magpie added, “Na, no more than the other princes like him.”
“Stupid then!” the jay laughed.
“You’re pretty stupid yourself!” a crow called down from above them. “You can’t talk about being stupid. The whole forest knows how stupid you are.”
“Me?” retorted the jay in astonishment. “No-one can accuse me of being stupid. A bit forgetful sometimes, but I’m certainly not stupid.”
“Suit yourself,” said the crow, now serious. “Don’t forget what I’ve just said, but bear in mind that it wasn’t being haughty or stupid that cost the prince his life, it’s ‘cause you can’t get away from him.”
“Ach!” screeched the jay. “I don’t like talking like this!” He flew away. The crow continued speaking. “There’s even a lot in my family who he’s tricked. He kills anyone ‘e feels like killing. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“You’ve just got to keep a watch out for him,” the magpie added.
“Yeah, you certainly do,” said the crow sadly. “Cheerio.” She flew away and her family went with her.
Bambi looked around. His mother was no longer there.
What are they talking about? he thought. I can’t understand everything they’re saying. Who is this ‘He’ they’re talking about? It must be that ‘He’ that I saw in the woods that time ... but he didn’t kill me ...
Bambi thought of the prince whom he had just seen lying in front of him with a bloody, shredded shoulder. He was now dead. Bambi walked on. The forest was again in song with a thousand voices, the sun drove its broad beams of light through the tree tops, everywhere was light, the leaves began to steam, high in the air called the falcons, and here, close by, a woodpecker was laughing out loud as if nothing had happened. Bambi did not become cheerful. He felt under threat from something dark, he could not understand how the others could be so gay and carefree when life was so hard and so dangerous. At that moment he was gripped by the desire to get a long way away from there, to go deeper and deeper into the woods. He felt the urge to go to a place where the trees were at their densest, where he could find a corner to slide into, a place surrounded broad and far by the most impenetrable undergrowth, where he could not possibly be seen. He did not want to go back out onto that meadow.
Something gently moved in the bushes beside him. Bambi was greatly startled. There, in front of him, stood the elder.
There was something twitching in Bambi; he wanted to run away but he took control of himself and remained. The elder looked at him with his big, deep eyes. “Were you there when it happened?”
“Yes,” said Bambi quietly. His heart was beating so hard he could feel it in his mouth.
“Where is your mother?” the elder asked.
Bambi answered, still speaking quietly, “I don’t know.”
The elder continued to look at him. “And you’re not calling out for her?”
Bambi looked into that venerable, ice-grey face, looked up at the elder’s majestic crown, and suddenly found himself full of courage. “I can be by myself, too,” he said.
The elder looked at him for a while and then, softly, he said, “Are you not the little one who, not very long ago, was crying for his mother?”
Bambi felt slightly ashamed, but continued to be courageous. “Yes, that was me,” he admitted.
The elder looked at him in silence, and it seemed to Bambi that these deep eyes were watching him with more tenderness. “You told me off for it, elder prince,” he exclaimed, “for not being able to be by myself. I can do now, though.”
The elder looked at Bambi, examining him, and smiled, very slightly, barely noticeably, but Bambi did notice it. “Elder prince,” he asked trustingly, “what happened back there? I can’t understand it ... who is this ‘He’ they’re all talking about ...?” He stopped, shocked at the dark look that bade him to be silent.
They said nothing for a while. The elder stopped looking at Bambi and stared into the distance, then he said, slowly, “Listen for yourself, smell for yourself, watch for yourself. Learn for yourself.” He raised the crown on his head even higher. “Farewell,” he said. Then nothing more. And then, he had disappeared.
Bambi, dismayed, stayed where he was and wanted to give up hope. But the prince’s farewell was still in his ears and gave him some comfort. Farewell, the elder had said. So he wasn’t cross with him.
Bambi was filled with pride, felt that he had been lifted out of something that was formal and serious. Yes, life was hard and full of danger. Let it bring whatever it wants, he would learn somehow to bear all of it.
Slowly, he walked deeper into the woods.
The leaves were falling from the big oak tree at the edge of he meadow. They were falling from all the trees. One of the branches of the oak was much higher up than the others and it stretched a long way out over the meadow. At its tip there sat two leaves together.
“Things ain’t like they they used to be,” said one of the leaves.
“They ain’t,” the other answered. “There were so many of us last night who ... we’re just about the only ones left here on this branch.”
“You never know who it’s goin to ‘appen to next,” said the first. “Even when it was nice and warm and the sunshine gave you some heat you get a storm or a cloudburst sometimes, and lots of us got torn off then, even them that were still young. You never know who it’s goin to ‘appen to next.”
“You don’t get much sunshine these days,” the second leaf sighed, “and even when the sun does shine there’s no strength to it. You’ve got to get your strength from somewhere else.”
“Do you think it’s true,” pondered the first, “is it true that other leaves will come along and take our place once we’ve gone, and then another lot, and then another lot ...?”
“Course it’s true,” whispered the second, “only, we can’t work out how ... it’s above what we can understand, that is.”
“It’d make you really sad, and all,” the first added.
They remained silent for a while. Then the first said quietly to himself, “What do you have to go away for, anyway?”
The second asked, “What ‘appens to us after we’ve fallen?”
“We sink down ...”
“And what is it, what’s down there?”
The first answered, “I don’t know. Some say one thing, others say something different ... nobody knows, really.”
The second asked, “D’you think you feel anything, d’you think you know anything about yourself when you’re down there?”
The first answered, “Who can say? None of them who’ve gone down there has ever come back to tell us.”
They were again silent for a while. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, “Don’t get yourself all upset about it, here, you’re shivering, look.”
“Oh don’t bother about that,” the second answered, “anything makes me shiver these days. You just don’t feel properly attached to where you are, do you.”
“We’d better stop talking about things like that,” said the first leaf.
“Yeah, we’d better leave it,” the other replied. “Only ... what we going to talk about now then?”
They became silent, but after a short time resumed the subject. “Who d’you think’s going to be the first of us to go down there, then...?”
“It won’t be for a while yet,” the first reassured him. “Let’s just think about how beautiful it used to be, how wonderfully beautiful! When the sun came out and burned us so hot it seemed we’d just swell up with all the good health it gave us. Remember? And then there was the dew, early in the morning ... and the lime trees, wonderful nights ...”
“The nights are horrible now,” whined the second. “They never seem to come to an end.”
“We can’t complain,” said the first leaf gently, “we’ve lived longer than so many others.”
“Have I changed much?” the second leaf asked, shyly but emphatically.
“Not a bit,” the first assured him. “What, ‘cause I’ve gone all yellow and ugly? No, it’s gone a bit different for me ...”
“Oh, give over,” the second contradicted.
“No, honest,” the first repeated emphatically. “It’s true, what I’m telling you. You’re as lovely as you as you were on the very first day. Might be a few yellow stripes here and there, but not so’s you’d notice, but they just make you look all the lovelier. Honest!”
“Well, thank you,” the second leaf whispered, feeling quite touched. “I’m not sure I believe you ... well not everything ... but thank you for it. You are so good to me ... and you always ‘ave been ... it’s only now that I’m starting to understand how good you’ve always been to me.”
“Oh, stop it now,” said the first, and became silent himself. He could not talk any more because he was upset.
Now they were both silent. The hours passed. A damp wind blew cold and hostile through the tree tops.
“Oh ... now ...” said the second leaf, “... I ...” His voice broke off. He was gently removed from his place and fluttered down to the earth. - Winter had come.
Bambi noticed that the world had changed. It was hard for him to get by in this altered world. They had all been living like rich people and now they began to find themselves in poverty. But wealth was all that Bambi had ever known. He took it as a matter of course to be surrounded by the greatest excess and the finest luxury on all sides, to have no worries about finding food, to sleep in a beautiful room hung with green that no-one could see into, and to walk about in a majestically smooth, glossy, red coat.
Everything was different now, and he had not really noticed it, not properly. The change which had taken place had been, for him, just a sequence of short-lived appearances. He found it entertaining when milky-white veils of mist drew the morning dampness up from the meadow, or when they would suddenly sink down from the twilight sky. They were so beautiful as they dissipated in the sunlight. He liked the frost too, which surprised him when he saw the ground and the meadow strewn with white. He spent much time luxuriating in the sound of his grown-up relatives, the stags, as they shouted. The whole forest would rumble from the voices of these kings. Bambi would listen and be very afraid, but his heart would thump in admiration whenever he heard this thunderous call. He thought about the crowns worn by these kings, so big and with so many branches, like a majestic oak, and he would think their voices were just as powerful as their crowns. Their imperious commands rolled out in the deepest tones, the monstrous groans of noble blood as it rushed around their bodies and seethed with the ancient power of yearning, haughtiness and pride. Whenever Bambi heard these voices he felt overwhelmed by them, but he was proud to have such distinguished relatives. At the same time he felt a peculiar, excited irritation at their being so unapproachable. That hurt him, that humiliated him, although he did not know exactly why or how, or even how he could come any closer to knowing.
It was only when the kings’ time for lovemaking was over, and their thunderous cries went silent, that Bambi started paying attention to other things once more. When he walked through the woods by night or lay in his room by day he heard the whisperings of the leaves as they fell through the trees. The rustling sounds, as they trickled down through the air from every tree top, every twig, were incessant. The gentle, silvery light of the moon ran continuously down to the earth. It was wonderful to wake up to it, and it was delicious to go to sleep with this mysterious, sad whispering. The leaves at that time lay deep and loose on the ground, and when you walked through them they crackled loudly and they rustled quietly. It was fun to have to push them aside with each step because their layers were so deep. They made a shhh-shhh noise that was very fine, very light and silvery. This was also very useful, as during these times there was no need to make great effort with listening and smelling. Everything could be heard from a long way off. The leaves rustled from the slightest movement, they cried out Shhh! Who could possibly sneak up on you? No-one.
But then came the rain. From early morning to late in the evening it poured down, it struck and splattered from late in the evening and all through the night until back to the morning, eased off for a little while and then began again with new strength. The air seemed full of cold water, the whole world seemed full of it. Your mouth was filled with water if you only tried to gather a few blades of grass and if you pulled at a bush then water would gush down into your eyes and up your nose. The leaves on the ground no longer rustled. They lay there soft and heavy, pressed down by the rain, and made no sound at all. Bambi, for the first time, learned how vexing it was to have water streaming down on you all through the day and all through the night and to be soaked to the skin. He was still not very cold, but he yearned for warmth and he thought it was miserable to have to move about while soaked through and through.
But then, when the stormy weather came down from the north, Bambi learnt what it really means to be cold. It was little help to cuddle up close to his mother. At first, of course, he liked it very much to lie there and be nice and warm, at least on one side. But the stormy winds raged all through the night and all through the day and all through the forest. It seemed to be driven by an incomprehensible, ice-cold fury, an insane rage that wanted to tear all the trees up by the roots and carry them away or to destroy them in some other way. The trees roared as they put up powerful resistance, they fought bravely against this immense attack. You could hear their long drawn out groans, the sighs of their creaking, there was a loud bang when one of their mighty boughs split, the angry crack when, here and there, the trunk of a tree would break, the cry of pain from all its wounds as its body was overpowered, split and killed. But then it became impossible to hear anything more, as the storm fell onto the forest with even greater violence and its roars drowned out any other voice.
Bambi now understood that a period of need and poverty had begun. He saw how much the rain and the storms had changed the world. There were now no leaves on any of the trees or bushes. They stood there robbed of all they had, their whole body was naked and could be clearly seen, they looked pitiful as they stretched their naked, brown arms up to the sky. The grass on the meadow was limp and dark brown and so short it seemed to have been burnt to the ground. Even the place where Bambi and his mother slept seemed pitiful and bare now. Since its green walls had disappeared it offered no privacy, and the wind blew in from every side.
One day a young magpie flew over the meadow. Something white and cold fell into her eye, then another, then another, and laid a light veil over her sight. Little, soft, dazzling-white flakes were dancing all around her. The magpie flapped her wings and nearly stopped, but then directed herself upward and went higher in the sky. In vain! The soft, cool flakes were there again and again they fell onto her and into her eyes. Once again she directed herself upward and rose even higher.
“Just don’t bother, love,” called a crow from above her who was flying in the same direction, “just give it up. You can’t fly high enough to get out of these flakes. That’s snow, i’n’it.”
“Snow?” said the magpie in amazement as she struggled against each new flurry that came at her.
“Well, yeah!” said the crow. “Winter’s here. That’s snow, that is!”
“Forgive me,” answered the magpie, “I only left the nest in May. I don’t know what winter’s like.”
“Yeah, there’s a lot like that,” the crow observed. “You’ll soon find out though.”
“Well, if that’s what snow is,” thought the magpie, “I’d like to sit down for a little while.” She went down and sat on a twig on an alder tree and shook herself.
The crow flew lazily on.
At first, Bambi was pleased to see the snow. The air was still and mild, the white stars floated in the sky and everything in the world looked entirely new. It had become lighter, even gayer, thought Bambi, and for the brief periods when the sun came out everything lit up, the white covering sparkled and shone with such power that it was quite dazzling.
But Bambi soon stopped being pleased about the snow, as it was becoming harder and harder to find food. You had to scrape the snow aside and that took a lot of effort before a small patch of limp grass was exposed. And the snow cut into your legs too, so that you had to be careful not to get your feet injured. Gobo already had done. But, of course, that is what Gobo was like, he was never able to endure very much, and he caused his mother a lot of worry.
They were together now for almost all of the time, and they also had more company than previously. Ena would often call by with her children. Marena, a girl who was nearly grown up, had also begun to mix in their circle. But it was probably old Mrs. Nettla who came by for a chat most often. She was quite alone and had an opinion about everything. “No,” she said, “I want to have nothing more to do with children. That’s a pleasure that I’ve really had enough of.”
Then Faline would always say, “Why’s that then, when it’s a pleasure?” And Mrs. Nettla would pretend to be cross and say, “It’s a bad sort of pleasure, and I’ve had enough of it. Everyone enjoyed chatting very much. They sat next to each other and talked. The children had never had as much to listen to.
Even one or two of the princes came and kept company with them now. At first it felt a little awkward, especially as the children were still somewhat shy with them. But that passed quite quickly and then there was a pleasant atmosphere. Bambi admired Prince Ronno, who was an impressive gentleman, and he felt a tempestuous love for the young, beautiful Karus. They had cast off their crowns and Bambi would often stare at the two round, slate-grey discs on their heads where glamour, splendour and many tender points could be seen. Karus seemed very elegant and distinguished.
It was tremendously exciting when one of the princes would tell him about what had happened to him. On Ronno’s left foreleg there was a big lump which was now overgrown with fur. He would often ask, “Have you ever noticed how I limp on this leg?” Everyone was prompt to assure him that no-one had ever noticed any limp at all. That was what Ronno wanted to hear. And it really was true to say that it was barely noticeable. “Yes,” he would then continue, “I escaped from something very dangerous that day.” And so Ronno would go on to recount how he had been taken by surprise by Him and hurled fire at him. But he was only hit here on his leg. It hurt so much it could drive you mad. But it was only here, on his leg, that he had been hit. It hurt nearly enough to drive him crazy. No wonder. The bone had been shattered. But Ronno did not panic. He got up and went, on just three legs. He kept going despite the pain, as he was well aware that he was being chased. He ran and ran until night fell. Then he allowed himself some rest. But the following morning he moved on again until he felt he was in safety. Then he groomed himself, hidden and alone, and waited for the wound to close up. Eventually he came out of his place of safety and he was a hero. He had a limp, but that was barely noticeable.
Now, when they were all together in one place so often and for so long, when so many stories were told, Bambi heard more about Him than he ever had before. They talked about how horrible he was to look at. Nobody could bear looking into this pale face. This was something that Bambi already knew from his own experience. They even talked about the smell of him that spread all around, and here, too, Bambi would have been able to contribute to the discussion if he had not been too well brought up to join in with the conversations of grown ups. They said this scent was of a rather puzzling sort, always changing but instantly recognizable as it was always remarkably stimulating, unidentifiable, mysterious, but in itself rather disgusting. They talked about Him only needing two legs to walk on and about the wonderful strength of both his hands. Some of them did not exactly know what hands are. But Mrs. Nettla explained it to them. “I don’t see anything surprising about it. The squirrel can do everything you’ve just mentioned and does it in just the way he wants to, and every little mouse can do the same.” She turned her head disrespectfully away from them. “Oh!” the others exclaimed and they made her understand that it’s far from being the same thing. But Mrs. Nettla was not to be intimidated. “And what about the falcon?” she declared, “what about the buzzard? And the owl? They’ve only got two legs, and when they want to take hold of something, as you call it, they just stand on one leg and hold it with the other. That’s a lot harder to do, and I’m sure He can’t do it. “Mrs. Nettla was not in any way inclined to admire anything about Him. She hated him with all her heart. “He’s disgusting,” she said, and nothing would change her mind. And there was nobody who contradicted her, as there was nobody who found Him very lovable. But the matter became even more confusing as they talked about it, saying He had a third hand, not just two hands but a third hand as well. Mrs. Nettla’s reply was curt. “That’s just an old wives’ tale,” she concluded. “I just don’t believe it.”
Now Ronno joined in. “So what?” he asked, “and what do you think it was that He used to shatter my leg? Just tell me that, will you!”
Mrs. Nettla gave a glib retort. “That’s your affair, my love! He’s never shattered anything of mine.”
Auntie Ena said, “I’ve seen lots of different things in my life, and I think there must be something in it if he insists He’s got a third hand.”
Young Karus observed politely, “I can only agree with you there. There’s a crow who’s a friend of mine ...” He stopped in embarrassment for a short while and looked at all the people there as if he were afraid of being laughed at. But when he saw that they were listening to him and giving him all their attention, he continued. “The crow is exceptionally talented, I can’t deny that, she’s astonishingly talented. She told me that He really does have three hands, but not all the time. It’s that third hand, the crow told me, that’s the nasty one. It doesn’t grow out of Him like the other two; He carries it hanging on his shoulder. The crow says she can always tell whether He or any of his kind is dangerous or not. If He comes along without that third hand then He isn’t dangerous.”
Mrs. Nettla laughed. “This crow of yours is just stupid, Karus, take it from me, my love. If she was as clever as she thinks she is she’d know that He’s always dangerous –always!”
But the others had something to say too. “But there are some of them who are not dangerous at all,” Bambi’s mother thought. “You can see it straight away.”
“So what?” asked Mrs. Nettla. “Do you just stand there till they come up to you and say hello to them?”
Bambi’s mother answered softly, “Of course I don’t just stand there, I run away.”
And Faline burst out with, “You should always run away!” Everyone laughed. They continued talking about this third hand, and as they did so they became more serious and the sense of the horror of it came among them. Whatever it was, a third hand or something different, it was something terrible, something they could not understand. Most of them knew about it only from what they had been told by others, but some of them had seen it with their own eyes. He would stand there, a long way off, without moving, there was no way of explaining what He did or how it happened, but there would suddenly be a bang like thunder, fire sprayed out, and even at that distance from Him you would collapse with your breast torn open, and you would die. They all lowered their heads while she told them this as if they were pressed down by some dark force that had some inexplicable power over them. They listened eagerly to the many different accounts of seeing Him, and every story was full of horror, full of blood and suffering. They took all this in and still wanted to hear more of what was being said. Stories that must have been made up, all the fairy tales and legends they had heard from their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and as they listened they unconsciously learned, while still afraid, about how to make peace with this dark world or, at least, to run away from it.
“How does that happen, asked young Karus, quite dispirited, “that He can be so far away and still knock you down?”
“Didn’t your clever crow explain that to you?” sneered Mrs. Nettla.
“No,” said Karus with a smile, “she says she’s often seen it, but no-one knows how to explain it.”
“Well, He can even knock the crows down from the tree when He feels like it,” observed Ronno.
“And He knocks the pheasants down from the sky,” Auntie Ena added.
Bambi’s mother said, “He throws His hand out there. That’s what my grandmother told me.”
“Does He really?” Mrs. Nettla asked. “And what is it that makes that horrible thunderous noise then?”
“When His hand tears itself away from His body,” Bambi’s mother explained, “there’s a flash of fire and it makes a bang like thunder. On the inside that’s all He is, just fire.”
“Excuse me,” said Ronno. “There is some truth in saying He’s nothing but fire on the inside, but it’s wrong to say it’s His hand He uses. A strike from a hand could never cause injuries like that. You can see it for yourselves. It’s much more likely to be a tooth that He throws at us. Think about it, that would explain a lot. And so you die because He bites you.”
Young Karus breathed a deep sigh. “Will He never stop chasing us down?”
Then Marena spoke, the girl was now nearly an adult. “That means that one day He’ll come and join us and be as gentle as we are. He’ll play games with us, everyone in the forest will be happy and we’ll make peace together.”
Mrs. Nettla shrieked with laughter. “It’s best if He just stays where he is and leaves us alone!”
“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Auntie Ena admonished her.”
“And why not then?” retorted Mrs. Nettla as she became more heated. “That’s really not something I could imagine. Make peace with Him! He’s been murdering us for as long as we’ve been able to think, and our sisters and our mothers and our brothers! For all the time we’ve been in the world He never leaves us in peace, He kills us whenever he sees us ... and you want to make peace with him? That’s just so stupid!”
Marena looked at everyone with her gently sparkling eyes wide open. “There’s nothing stupid about making peace,” she said. “We’ve got to make peace.”
“I’m going to get something to eat,” said Mrs. Nettla as she turned round and ran off.
The winter went on. Sometimes it became milder, but then the snow would come again, and each time it did it lay higher on the ground so that it was impossible to scrape it away. Worst of all was when it became warm enough for it to thaw, and then the snow that had melted into water would freeze when the night came. Then there would be a thin layer of ice which you could easily slip on. It would also often break, so that the sharp splinters would cut the deers’ tender fetlocks, cut them bloody. But now there was a hard frost which had lasted for days. The air was clean and thin such as it never had been before and the frost was full of strength. It began to tinkle with a sound that was fine and high. It was so cold that the air sang.
Everything was quiet in the forest, but something shocking happened every day. One time, the crows attacked the hare’s little son, who was already lying down ill, and killed him in a gruesome way. His cries of pain were long and pitiful and could be heard by all. Bambi’s friend, the hare, was away at the time but when he heard the sad news he could not contain himself. Another time, the squirrel was running around with a serious wound on his neck from where the polecat had bitten him. By some miracle the squirrel had been able to get away from him. He could not speak because of the pain but he ran between all the twigs and branches. Everyone could see it. He ran like a madman. From time to time he would stop, sit down, raise his forepaws in confusion, take hold of his head in his shock and his suffering, and as he did so his blood gushed over his white breast and turned it red. He ran around like this for an hour, then he suddenly collapsed, fell hard against the branches of the tree and fell, dying, into the snow. A pair of magpies immediately came down on him and began their feasting. There was also the time when the fox attacked the pheasant and tore him to bits, even though everyone liked and respected the pheasant for his beauty and his strength. His death was a cause for concern far and wide, and everyone felt sorry for his inconsolable widow. The fox had snatched the pheasant out of the snow he had settled in and where he thought he was well hidden. No-one could feel safe any more, as all these things happened in broad daylight. It seemed that the penury they were suffering would never come to an end, and it spread bitterness and ruthlessness all around. It made all experience worthless, it undermined the conscience, destroyed all trust and all good manners. There was no mercy any more, no peace, no holding back.
“It’s impossible even to think that it might ever get any better,” Bambi’s mother sighed.
Auntie Ena sighed too. “And it’s impossible to think that it ever was any better.”
“Don’t be silly,” said Marena looking straight ahead. “I think about how lovely it used to be all the time!”
“Listen,” Mrs. Nettla said to Auntie Ena. “Your little one is shivering, isn’t he!” And she pointed to Gobo. “Does he always shiver like that?”
“Sad to say,” answered Auntie Ena, somewhat worried, “he’s been shivering like that for several days now.”
“Well then,” said Mrs. Nettla in the open way she had of saying things, “I’m only glad I haven’t got any children any more. If he was my little one I’d be worried about whether he gets through the winter.”
Gobo indeed did not look well. He was weak, he had always been less strong than Bambi or Faline and had not grown as fast as those two. But now, he looked worse from day to day. He could not keep his food down, what little there was of it now. He was in continual pain. So, with the cold and the difficulties of life, he had lost all of what strength he had. He shivered all the time and could barely hold himself upright. Everyone looked at him with concern.
Mrs. Nettla went to him and gave him a friendly push in the side. “Now don’t you be sad,” she told him sternly. “That’s not right for a young prince and it’s bad for your health.” She moved away from him because she did not want anyone to see how concerned she was.
Ronno was sitting in the snow to one side, but now he jumped up. “I don’t know what that is ...,” he mumbled and looked all around.
Everyone paid attention. “What what is ...?” they all asked.
“I don’t really know,” Ronno repeated, “but I’m worried ... all of a sudden I’m worried. It’s as if there were something wrong ...”
Karus had tested the air. “I can’t smell anything odd,” he declared.
They all stood there, listening, and testing the air. “Nothing!,” “I can’t smell anything ...,” they all said, one after the other.
“But still!” Ronno persisted. “You can say what you like ... but there is something wrong ...”
“The crows have been calling ...” said Marena.
“They’re calling again now!” added Faline quickly, but by now the others had heard them too.
“Look, that’s them, flying!,” Karus pointed out to the others.
Everyone looked up. Above the tops of the trees, crows were flying away in swarms. They came inwards from the outermost edge of the woods, from wherever it was that the danger was approaching, and spoke anxiously to each other up there. It was clear that there was an exceptional disturbance of some sort.
“There, wasn’t I right?” asked Ronno. “You can see that there’s something going on!”
“What are we to do?” whispered Bambi’s mother uneasily.
“Get away from here, now!” insisted Auntie Ena in alarm.
“Wait!” commanded Ronno.
“Wait? With all the children here?” Auntie Ena contradicted him. “When Gobo won’t be able to run?”
“Alright then,” Ronno conceded “You get away from here with your children. I don’t see any point in it, of course, but I don’t want to have you blaming me for it later.”
He was serious and decisive.
“Gobo, Faline, come this way! Not too fast! Go slowly! Stay behind me,” Auntie Ena admonished them. She, with her children, slipped away.
A time went by. They stood still, listening and smelling the air.
“That’s all we need,” Mrs. Nettla began. “We’ve got to put up with all of this and now, this is all we need!” She was very cross. Bambi looked at her and felt that she was thinking of something dreadful.
Now the magpies were also coming out of the same part of the thicket as the crows had come, three or four at a time. “Look out, look out!” they cried. They still could not be seen, but their loud warnings could be heard one after another: “Look out, look out!” Now they came nearer, continued to flap their wings, shocked and disturbed.
“Hakh!” the jays cried, yapping loud in their alarm.
Suddenly, and all at the same time, all the deer came together. It had seared through them as if they had been hit by something. Now they stood still and breathed heavily.
It was Him.
There was a frenzy of smelling the air like never before. There was now nothing left to examine. The smell entered their noses, befogged their senses and made their hearts freeze.
The magpies were still playing about, the jays above them were yapping, but now there was agitated movement everywhere. The tits swished between the branches, hundreds of little feathery balls, and they chirruped “away, away!” The blackbirds rushed dark and lightning-fast above the trees, with long drawn out screams of chirping as they flew. The deer looked down at the white snow through the network of bare twigs on the bushes, and saw a confused rush of small shadowy figures as they ran to and fro. They were the pheasants. Further away there was a shimmer of red. That was actually the fox, but no-one was afraid of him now, for continuous, broad waves of that dreadful smell wafted to them, breathing alarm into their minds and uniting them all into one crazy fear and into one feverish desire to flee, to save themselves.
This mysterious, overpowering scent permeated the wood with such power that they could tell that He was not alone this time but seemed to have come with all His friends, and things were at their most extreme.
They did not move, they watched the tits as they hurried away with frantic flapping of their wings, The blackbirds, the squirrels rushed away leaping from one tree top to another; they thought these little ones had no good reason to be afraid, but they nonetheless understood why they fled when He could be smelt. There was no creature in the forest who could bear to have Him anywhere near.
Now our friend, the hare, hopped away hesitantly, sat still, and hopped further.
“How does it look?” Karus called to him, impatiently.
But our friend, the hare, just looked around, madness in his eyes, and could not speak straight away. He was very disturbed.
“What’s the point of asking ...” said Ronno grimly.
Our friend the hare gasped for breath. “We are surrounded,” he said in a monotone. “There’s no way out on any side. He is everywhere!”
Just then they heard His voice. Twenty times, thirty times He called out. Hoho! Haha! It rang out and shook them more than thunder and lightning. It struck the trunks of the trees which trumpeted the sound out. It brought them horror, it threw them down. A distant rustling and cracking of the undergrowth as the bushes were pushed apart and the sound forced itself over to them, the screams and bangs of twigs as they broke.
He was coming! He was coming right here, into the thicket.
Now, behind them, they could hear short whistles and trills. Already, there was a pheasant there standing up as he heard His steps. They heard the flapping of the pheasant’s wings fading as he rose high into the air. A flash and a clap of thunder. Quiet. Then the muffled sound of something hitting the ground. “The pheasant has fallen,” said Bambi’s mother with a shudder.
“The first ...” added Ronno.
Then Marena, the young girl, spoke. “There are many of us who are going to die very soon. I might be one of them.” No-one listened to her. Now the great terror was among them.
Bambi tried to think. But the raging noise, which He was raising higher and higher, tore all his thoughts apart. Bambi could hear nothing but this noise, a noise that made you numb, and in among all this howling, bellowing and banging he could hear the thump of his own heart. All he felt was curiosity and was completely unaware that all his limbs were shaking. Now and then his mother came close to his ear and said, “Stay with me.” She shouted, but in all that uproar it seemed to Bambi that she was whispering. This “Stay with me” offered him some support. It held him fast as if he were held in place with a chain, otherwise he would have run away without a second thought, and he always heard it again just when he would have lost self control fled. He looked around. There was a crowd of many different people running around in a blind panic between each other. A pair of weasels ran past, slender lines like a snake which it nearly impossible to follow with the eye. A polecat listened spellbound for all the information he could get from the stuttering, confused hare. The fox stood there among the disordered rush of the pheasants. They paid no attention to him, ran right past his nose, and he paid no attention to them. Without becoming excited, his head stretched forward, his ears pointing up high, his nose working hard, he strained himself to hear through the tumult as it came closer. The only thing moving was his tail. It looked as if he were straining to think. A pheasant hurried past, out from behind, out of the most serious danger, and he was in a panic. “Don’t go up there!” he shouted to the other birds. “Don’t go up there ... just run! Don’t let them get you! Nobody go up there! Just run, run, run!” He kept on repeating the same thing, as if he were trying to warn himself. But he no longer knew what he was saying. A clamour of “Hoho! Haha!” seemed to come from somewhere quite close. “Don’t let them get you!” called the pheasant. At the same time his voice suddenly became a whistle-like sobbing, with a loud rattle he spread his wings and flew upwards. Bambi watched him as he went, flapping his wings loudly, flying up directly and steeply between the trees, his resplendent body glittering with its metallic dark blue, gold-brown sheen, as majestic as a precious gem. His long tail feathers swept proudly behind him like the train of a gown. The curt thunderclap rang out sharp. The pheasant in the sky collapsed suddenly into himself, twisted himself round as if trying to snap at his feet with his beak, and hurtled heavily to the ground. He fell in the middle of the others and moved no more.
Now no-one was able to stay calm. They all rushed around away from each other. Five, six pheasants rose into the air with noisy clattering. “Don’t go up there” shouted the others as they ran. The thunderclap came again, five times, six times, and some of those who had flown up in the air fell back to the ground lifeless.
“Now, come with me!” said Bambi’s mother. Bambi looked up. Ronno and Karus had already gone. Mrs. Nettla had also disappeared. Only Marena was still with them. Bambi went with his mother. Marena demurely followed them. All around them there was upheaval, loud cracks, bellowing and thunderclaps. Bambi’s mother stayed calm. She was trembling, just slightly, but she kept her thoughts together. “Bambi, my child” she said, “always stay right behind me. We’ve got to get out of here and across the clearing. But here inside we need to go slowly.”
The bellowing became more hurried. The thunderclaps came ten, twelve times, thrown out from the hands of Him.
“Stop that” said Bambi’s mother. “Don’t run! Once we’ve gone past the clearing then run, run as fast as you can. And Bambi, my child, don’t forget, you shouldn’t pay me any attention once we’ve reached the outside. Even if I fall, pay me no attention ... just keep going, keep going! Do you understand, Bambi?”
His mother made deliberate steps through the booming noise. The pheasants ran in all directions, pressed themselves into the snow, jumped out again, started to run once more. The whole family of the hare jumped here and there, sat down, ran again. No-one spoke a word. There were all exhausted with their fear, crippled by all the bellowing and by the thunderclaps.
Ahead of Bambi and his mother it was getting lighter. Through the cage-work of the bushes shone the clearing. Behind them, getting closer and closer, there were startling bangs that rattled on the tree trunks, the cracking of twigs as they broke, the yells of haha, and hoho!
Now their friend the hare with his two young rushed past close beside them and into the clearing. Bang! Ping! Bam! the thunder crashed. Bambi saw the hare did a somersault as he ran, and fell with his pale belly facing upwards and then just lay there. He twitched a few times, and then he was still. Bambi stood there as if made of stone.
But from behind he heard shouts of, “They’re there! Everyone, just get out!”
A widespread rustling of wings as they hurriedly unfurled, whistling, sobbing, swoosh of foliage, flapping. The pheasants rose up, lifted themselves up almost all at the same time like the straw in a sheaf. The air burst with many thunderclaps, and the muffled impact of the fallen could be heard as they hit the ground, the fine whistling of the survivors rang out as they flew away.
Bambi stopped and looked back. There He was. He was coming out from the undergrowth, here and there and there again. He was appearing everywhere, striking everywhere, damaging the bushes, drumming on the tree trunks and shouting terrifying cries.
“Now!” said his mother. “Straight ahead. And don’t come too close behind me!” With one leap she was out of the woods, so that the snow merely threw up a few flakes. Bambi hurried after her. They were attacked by the sound of thunder from every side. It was as if the Earth had been ripped in half. Bambi saw nothing. He ran. The urge to get away from this tumult had been accumulating, away from the steam of the storm that whipped everything up, from the gathering urgency to flee, the wish to save himself, all these were now unleashed. He ran. It seemed to him that he saw his mother fall, although he did not know whether she really had done. He felt a veil around his eyes. It had been thrown over him by the fear of the thunderclaps, booming all around him, which had now broken out. He was unable to think, unable to see, he ran.
The clearing was now behind him. A new thicket took him in. From behind him came another shout, another sharp thunderclap, and in the twigs above there was a very brief rattling, like a first spray of hailstones. Then it became quieter. Bambi ran. A pheasant with a twisted neck lay dying on the snow, twitching his wings weakly. As he heard Bambi approach he stopped his spasmodic movements and whispered, “It’s finished ...” Bambi paid him no attention and continued running. He found himself in a tangle of undergrowth that forced him to slow his pace and look for a path. He kicked around himself impatiently. “Over here,” called somebody in a broken voice. Bambi had no choice but to follow it, and immediately found himself in a place where he could walk. But in front of him somebody was struggling to get to her feet. It was the hare’s wife. It was her who had called. “Do you think you could give me a little help?” she said. Bambi looked at her and was shocked. Her rear legs dragged lifeless through the snow which was red and beginning to melt from the warm blood that dropped from her. She said once again, “Do you think you could give me a little help?” She spoke as if she were perfectly alright, relaxed and almost gay. “I don’t know what’s happened to me,” she continued, “it’s certainly not anything important ... but at the moment ... I can’t walk ...” As she spoke she sank down onto her side and she was dead. Bambi, once again, was horrified and he ran away.