Bambi (19 page)

“They're rabble!” snarled the fox, full of a boundless contempt.

Then the dog could contain himself no longer and sprang at the fox's throat. Growling, spitting and yelping, they rolled in the snow, a writhing, savagely snapping mass from which fur flew. The snow rose in clouds and was spattered with fine drops of blood. At last the fox could not fight any more. In a few seconds he was lying on his back, his white belly uppermost. He twitched and stiffened and died.

The dog shook him a few times, then let him fall on the trampled snow. He stood beside him, his legs planted, calling in a deep, loud voice, “Here! Here! He's here!”

The others were horrorstruck and fled in all directions.

“Dreadful,” said Bambi softly to the old stag in the hollow.

“The most dreadful part of all,” the old stag answered, “is that the dogs believe what the hound just said. They believe it, they pass their lives in fear, they hate Him and themselves and yet they'd die for His sake.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

T
HE COLD BROKE, AND THERE WAS a warm spell in the middle of the winter. The earth drank great drafts of the melting snows so that wide stretches of soil were everywhere visible. The blackbirds were not singing yet, but when they flew from the ground where they were hunting worms, or when they fluttered from tree to tree, they uttered a long-drawn joyous whistle that was almost a song. The woodpecker began to chatter now and then. Magpies and crows grew more talkative. The titmice chirped more cheerily. And the pheasants, swooping down from their roosts, would stand in one spot preening their feathers and uttering their metallic throaty cacklings.

One such morning Bambi was roaming around as usual. In the gray dawn he came to the edge of the hollow. On the farther side where he had lived before something was stirring. Bambi stayed hidden in the thicket and peered across. A deer was wandering slowly to and fro, looking for places where the snow had melted, and cropping whatever grasses had sprung up so early.

Bambi wanted to turn at once and go away, for he recognized Faline. His first impulse was to spring forward and call her. But he stood as though rooted to the spot. He had not seen Faline for a long time. His heart began to beat faster. Faline moved slowly as though she were tired and sad. She resembled her mother now. She looked as old as Aunt Ena, as Bambi noticed with a strangely pained surprise.

Faline lifted her head and gazed across as though she sensed his presence. Again Bambi started forward, but he stopped again, hesitating and unable to stir.

He saw that Faline had grown old and gray.

Gay, pert little Faline, how lovely she used to be,” he thought, “and how lively!” His whole youth suddenly flashed before his eyes. The meadow, the trails where he walked with his mother, the happy games with Gobo and Faline, the nice grasshoppers and butterflies, the fight with Karus and Ronno when he had won Faline for his own. He felt happy again, and yet he trembled.

Faline wandered on, her head drooped to the ground, walking slowly, sadly and wearily away. At that moment Bambi loved her with an overpowering, tender melancholy. He wanted to rush through the hollow that separated him from the others. He wanted to overtake her, to talk with her, to talk to her about their youth and about everything that had happened.

He gazed after her as she went off, passing under the bare branches till finally she was lost to sight.

He stood there a long time staring after her.

Then there was a crash like thunder. Bambi shrank together. It came from where he was standing. Not even from a little way off but right beside him.

Then there was a second thunderclap, and right after that another.

Bambi leaped a little farther into the thicket, then stopped and listened. Everything was still. He glided stealthily homeward.

The old stag was there before him. He had not lain down yet, but was standing beside the fallen beech trunk expectantly.

“Where have you been so long?” he asked, so seriously that Bambi grew silent.

“Did you hear it?” the old stag went on after a pause.

“Yes,” Bambi answered, “three times. He must be in the woods.”

“Of course,” the old stag nodded, and repeated with a peculiar intonation, “He is in the woods and we must go.”

“Where?” the word escaped Bambi.

“Where He is now,” said the old stag, and his voice was solemn.

Bambi was terrified.

“Don't be frightened,” the old stag went on, “come with me and don't be frightened. I'm glad that I can take you and show you the way. . . .” He hesitated and added softly, “Before I go.”

Bambi looked wonderingly at the old stag. And suddenly he noticed how aged he looked. His head was completely gray now. His face was perfectly gaunt. The deep light was extinguished in his eyes, and they had a feeble, greenish luster and seemed to be blind.

Bambi and the old stag had not gone far before they caught the first whiff of that acrid smell that sent such dread and terror to their hearts.

Bambi stopped. But the old stag went on directly toward the scent. Bambi followed hesitantly.

The terrifying scent grew stronger and stronger. But the old stag kept on without stopping. The idea of flight sprang up in Bambi's mind and tugged at his heart. It seethed through his mind and body, and nearly swept him away. But he kept a firm grip on himself and stayed close behind the old stag.

Then the horrible scent grew so strong that it drowned out everything else, and it was hardly possible to breathe.

“Here He is,” said the old stag, moving to one side.

Through the bare branches, Bambi saw Him lying on the trampled snow a few steps away.

An irresistible burst of terror swept over Bambi and with a sudden bound he started to give in to his impulse to flee.

“Halt!” he heard the old stag calling. Bambi looked around and saw the stag standing calmly where He was lying on the ground. Bambi was amazed and, moved by a sense of obedience, a boundless curiosity and quivering expectancy, he went closer.

“Come near,” said the old stag, “don't be afraid.”

He was lying with His pale, naked face turned upward, His hat a little to one side on the snow. Bambi, who did not know anything about hats, thought His horrible head was split in two. The poacher's shirt, open at the neck, was pierced where a wound gaped like a small red mouth. Blood was oozing out slowly. Blood was drying on His hair and around His nose. A big pool of it lay on the snow which was melting from the warmth.

“We can stand right beside Him,” the old stag began softly, “and it isn't dangerous.”

Bambi looked down at the prostrate form whose limbs and skin seemed so mysterious and terrible to him. He gazed at the dead eyes that stared up sightlessly at him. Bambi couldn't understand it all.

“Bambi,” the old stag went on, “do you remember what Gobo said and what the dog said, what they all think, do you remember?”

Bambi could not answer.

“Do you see, Bambi,” the old stag went on, “do you see how He's lying there dead, like one of us? Listen, Bambi. He isn't all-powerful as they say. Everything that lives and grows doesn't come from Him. He isn't above us. He's just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way. He can be killed like us, and then He lies helpless on the ground like all the rest of us, as you see Him now.”

There was a silence.

“Do you understand me, Bambi?” asked the old stag.

“I think so,” Bambi said in a whisper.

“Then speak,” the old stag commanded.

Bambi was inspired, and said trembling, “There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.”

“Now I can go,” said the old stag.

He turned away, and they wandered side by side for a stretch.

Presently the old stag stopped in front of a tall oak. “Don't follow me any farther, Bambi,” he began with a calm voice, “my time is up. Now I have to look for a resting place.”

Bambi tried to speak.

“Don't” said the old stag, cutting him short, “don't. In the hour which I am approaching we are all alone. Goodbye, my son. I loved you dearly.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

D
AWN OF THE SUMMER'S DAY came hot, without a breath of wind or the usual morning chill. The sun seemed to come up faster than usual. It rose swiftly and flashed like a torch with dazzling rays.

The dew on the meadows and bushes was drawn up in an instant. The earth was perfectly dry so that the clods crumbled. The forest had been still from an early hour. Only a woodpecker hammered now and then, or the doves cooed their tireless, fervid tenderness.

Bambi was standing in a little clearing, forming a narrow glade in the heart of the thicket.

A swarm of midges danced and hummed around his head in the warm sunshine.

There was a low buzzing among the leaves of the hazel bushes near Bambi, and a big may beetle crawled out and flew slowly by. He flew among the midges, up and up, till he reached the treetop where he intended to sleep till evening. His wing covers folded down hard and neatly and his wings vibrated with strength.

The midges divided to let the may beetle pass through and closed behind him again. His dark brown body, over which shone the vibrant glassy shimmer of his whirring wings, flashed for a moment in the sunshine as he disappeared.

“Did you see him?” the midges asked each other.

“That's the old may beetle,” some of them hummed.

Others said, “All of his offspring are dead. Only one is still alive. Only one.”

“How long will he live?” a number of midges asked.

The others answered, “We don't know. Some of his offspring live a long time. They live forever almost. . . . They see the sun thirty or forty times, we don't know exactly how many. Our lives are long enough, but we see the daylight only once or twice.”

“How long has the old beetle been living?” some very small midges asked.

“He has outlived his whole family. He's as old as the hills, as old as the hills. He's seen more and been through more in this world than we can even imagine.”

Bambi walked on. “Midge buzzings,” he thought, “midge buzzings.”

A delicate frightened call came to his ears.

He listened and went closer, perfectly softly, keeping among the thickest bushes, and moving noiselessly as he had long known how to do.

The call came again, more urgent, more plaintively. Fawns' voices were wailing, “Mother! Mother!”

Bambi glided through the bushes and followed the calls.

Two fawns were standing side by side, in their little red coats, a brother and sister, forsaken and despondent.

“Mother! Mother!” they called.

Before they knew what had happened Bambi was standing in front of them. They stared at him speechlessly.

“Your mother has no time for you now,” said Bambi severely.

He looked into the little brother's eyes. “Can't you stay by yourself?” he asked.

The little brother and sister were silent.