Bambi (9 page)

They listened curiously to the many stories that were always horrible, full of blood and suffering. They listened tirelessly to everything that was said about Him, tales that were certainly invented, all the stories and sayings that had come down from their fathers and great-grandfathers. In each one of them they were unconsciously seeking for some way to propitiate this dark power, or some way to escape it.

“What difference does it make,” young Karus asked despondently, “how far away He is when He kills you?”

“Didn't your clever crow explain that to you?” old Nettla mocked.

“No,” said Karus with a smile. “She says that she's often seen Him but no one can explain Him.”

“Yes, He knocks the crows out of the trees, too, when He wants to,” Ronno observed.

“And He brings down the pheasant on the wing,” Aunt Ena added.

Bambi's mother said, “He throws His hand at you, my grandmother told me so.”

“Is that so?” asked old Nettla. “What is it that bangs so terribly then?”

“That's when He tears His hand off,” Bambi's mother explained. “Then the fire flashes and the thunder cracks. He's all fire inside.”

“Excuse me,” said Ronno. “It's true that He's all fire inside. But that about His hand is wrong. A hand couldn't make such wounds. You can see that for yourself. It's much more likely that it's a tooth He throws at us. A tooth would explain a great many things, you know. You really die from His bite.”

“Will He never stop hunting us?” young Karus sighed.

Then Marena spoke, the young half-grown doe. “They say that sometime He'll come to live with us and be as gentle as we are. He'll play with us then and the whole forest will be happy, and we'll be friends with Him.”

Old Nettla burst out laughing. “Let Him stay where He is and leave us in peace,” she said.

Aunt Ena said reprovingly, “You shouldn't talk that way.”

“And why not?” old Nettla replied hotly; “I really don't see why not. Friends with Him! He's murdered us ever since we can remember, every one of us, our sisters, our mothers, our brothers! Ever since we came into the world He's given us no peace, but has killed us wherever we showed our heads. And now we're going to be friends with Him. What nonsense!”

Marena looked at all of them out of her big, calm, shining eyes. “Love is no nonsense,” she said. “It has to come.”

Old Nettla turned away. “I'm going to look for something to eat,” she said, and trotted off.

Chapter Ten

W
INTER DRAGGED ON. Sometimes it was warmer,
but then the snow would fall again and lie deeper and deeper, so that it became
impossible to scrape it away. It was worse when the thaws came and the melted snow water
froze again in the night. Then there was a thin slippery film of ice. Often it broke in
pieces and the sharp splinters cut the deer's tender fetlocks till they bled.

A heavy frost had set in several days before. The air was purer and rarer
than it had ever been, and full of energy. It began to hum in a very fine high tone. It
hummed with the cold.

It was silent in the woods, but something horrible happened every day.
Once the crows fell upon Friend Hare's small son who was lying sick, and killed
him in a cruel way. He could be heard moaning pitifully for a long while. Friend Hare
was not at home, and when he heard the sad news he was beside himself with grief.

Another time the squirrel raced about with a great wound in his neck where
the ferret had caught him. By a miracle the squirrel had escaped. He could not talk
because of the pain, but he ran up and down the branches. Everyone could see him. He ran
like mad. From time to time he stopped, sat down, raised his forepaws desperately and
clutched his head in terror and agony while the red blood oozed on his white chest. He
ran about for an hour, then suddenly ­crumpled up, fell across a branch, and
dropped dead in the snow. A ­couple of magpies flew down at once to begin their
meal.

Another day a fox tore to pieces the strong and handsome pheasant who had
enjoyed such general respect and popularity. His death aroused the sympathies of a wide
circle who tried to comfort his disconsolate widow.

The fox had dragged the pheasant out of the snow, where he was buried,
thinking himself well hidden. No one could have felt safer than the pheasant for it all
happened in broad daylight. The terrible hardship that seemed to have no end spread
bitterness and brutality. It destroyed all their memories of the past, their faith in
each other, and ruined every good custom they had. There was no longer either peace or
mercy in the ­forest.

“It's hard to believe that it will ever be better,”
­Bambi's mother sighed.

Aunt Ena sighed too. “It's hard to believe that it was ever
any better,” she said.

“And yet,” Marena said, looking in front of her, “I
always think how beautiful it was before.”

“Look,” old Nettla said to Aunt Ena, “your little one is
trembling.” She pointed to Gobo. “Does he always tremble like
that?”

“Yes,” Aunt Ena answered gravely, “he's shivered
that way for the last few days.”

“Well,” said old Nettla in her frank way, “I'm
glad that I have no more children. If that little one were mine I'd wonder if
he'd last out the winter.”

The future really didn't look very bright for Gobo. He was weak. He
had always been much more delicate than Bambi or Faline and remained smaller than either
of them. He was growing worse from day to day. He could not eat even the little food
there was. It made his stomach ache. And he was quite exhausted by the cold, and by the
horrors around him. He shivered more and more and could hardly stand up. Everyone looked
at him sympathetically.

Old Nettla went up to him and nudged him good-naturedly.
“Don't be so sad,” she said encouragingly, “that's no way
for a little prince to act, and besides it's unhealthy.” She turned away so
that no one could see how moved she was.

Ronno, who had settled himself a little to one side in the snow, suddenly
sprang up. “I don't know what it is,” he mumbled and gazed around.

Everyone grew watchful. “What is it?” they asked.

“I don't know,” Ronno repeated. “But I'm
restless. I suddenly felt restless as if something were wrong.”

Karus was snuffing the air. “I don't smell anything
strange,” he declared.

They all stood still, listening and snuffing the air. “It's
nothing, there's absolutely nothing to smell,” they agreed one after
another.

“Nevertheless,” Ronno insisted, “you can say what you
like, something is wrong.”

Marena said, “The crows are calling.”

“There they go calling again,” Faline added quickly, but the
others had already heard them.

“They are flying,” said Karus and the others.

Everybody looked up. High above the treetops a flock of crows flapped by.
They came from the farthest edge of the forest, the direction from which danger always
came, and they were complaining to one another. Apparently something unusual had
happened.

“Wasn't I right?” asked Ronno. “You can see that
something is happening.”

“What shall we do?” Bambi's mother whispered
anxiously.

“Let's get away,” Aunt Ena urged in alarm.

“Wait,” Ronno commanded.

“But the children,” Aunt Ena replied, “the children.
Gobo can't run.”

“Go ahead,” Ronno agreed, “go off with your children. I
don't think there's any need for it, but I don't blame you for
going.” He was alert and serious.

“Come, Gobo. Come, Faline. Softly now, go slowly. And keep behind
me,” Aunt Ena warned them. She slipped away with the children.

Time passed. They stood still, listening and trembling.

“As if we hadn't suffered enough already,” old
­Nettla began. “We still have this to go through. . . .”
She was very angry. Bambi looked at her, and he felt that she was thinking of something
horrible.

Three or four magpies had already begun to chatter on the side of the
thicket from which the crows had come. “Look out! Look out, out, out!” they
cried. The deer could not see them, but could hear them calling and warning each other.
Sometimes one of them, and sometimes all of them together, would cry, “Look out,
out, out!” Then they came nearer. They fluttered in terror from tree to tree,
peered back and fluttered away again in fear and alarm.

“Akh!” cried the jays. They screamed their warning loudly.

Suddenly all the deer shrank together at once as though a blow had struck
them. Then they stood still snuffing the air.

It was He.

A heavy wave of scent blew past. There was nothing they could do. The
scent filled their nostrils, it numbed their senses and made their hearts stop
beating.

The magpies were still chattering. The jays were still screaming overhead.
In the woods around them everything had sprung to life. The titmice flitted through the
branches, like tiny feathered balls, chirping, “Run! Run!”

The blackbirds fled swiftly and darkly above them with long-drawn
twittering cries. Through the dark tangle of bare bushes, they saw on the white snow a
wild aimless scurrying of smaller, shadowy creatures. These were the pheasants. Then a
flash of red streaked by. That was the fox. But no one was afraid of him now. For that
fearful scent kept streaming on in a wider wave, sending terror into their hearts and
uniting them all in one mad fear, in a single feverish impulse to flee, to save
themselves.

That mysterious overpowering scent filled the woods with such strength
that they knew that this time He was not alone, but had come with many others, and there
would be no end to the killing.

They did not move. They looked at the titmice, whisking away in a sudden
flutter, at the blackbirds and the squirrels who dashed from treetop to treetop in mad
bounds. They knew that all the little creatures on the ground had nothing to fear. But
they understood their flight when they smelled Him, for no forest creature could bear
His presence.

Presently Friend Hare hopped up. He hesitated, sat still and then hopped
on again.

“What is it?” Karus called after him impatiently.

But Friend Hare only looked around with bewildered eyes and could not even
speak. He was completely terrified.

“What's the use of asking?” said Ronno gloomily.

Friend Hare gasped for breath. “We are surrounded,” he said in
a lifeless voice. “We can't escape on any side. He is everywhere.”

At the same instant they heard His voice. Twenty or thirty strong, He
cried, “Ho! ho! Ha! ha!” It roared like the sound of winds and storms. He
beat on the tree trunks as through they were drums. It was wracking and terrifying. A
distant twisting and rending of parted bushes rang out. There was a snapping and
cracking of broken boughs.

He was coming.

He was coming into the heart of the thicket.

Then short whistling flutelike trills sounded together with the loud flap
of soaring wings. A ­pheasant rose from under His very feet. The deer heard the
wing beats of the pheasant grow fainter as he mounted into the air. There was a loud
crash like thunder. Then silence. Then a dull thud on the ground.

“He is dead,” said Bambi's mother, trembling.

“The first,” Ronno added.

The young doe, Marena, said, “In this very hour many of us are going
to die. Perhaps I shall be one of them.” No one listened to her, for a mad terror
had seized them all.

Bambi tried to think. But His savage noises grew louder and louder and
paralyzed Bambi's senses. He heard nothing but those noises. They numbed him while
amidst the howling, shouting and crashing he could hear his own heart pounding. He felt
nothing but curiosity and did not even realize that he was trembling in every limb. From
time to time his mother whispered in his ear, “Stay close to me.” She was
shouting, but in the uproar it sounded to Bambi as if she were whispering. Her
“Stay close to me” encouraged him. It was like a chain holding him. Without
it he would have rushed off senselessly, and he heard it at the very moment when his
wits were wandering and he wanted to dash away.