Bambi: Felix Salten Omnibus Page 12

  He continued to work away, slowly exerting all his strength. Suddenly the noose broke with a loud snap. The Hare slipped out and was free, without realizing it for a moment. He took a step and sat down again dazed. Then he hopped away, slowly and timidly at first, then faster and faster. Presently he was running with wild leaps.

  Bambi looked after him. “Without so much as a thank you,” he exclaimed in surprise.

  “He’s still terrified,” said the old stag.

  The noose lay on the ground. Bambi touched it gently. It creaked, terrifying Bambi. That was a sound such as he had never heard in the woods.

  “He?” asked Bambi softly.

  The old stag nodded.

  They walked on together in silence. “Take care when you’re going along a trail,” said the old stag, “test all the branches. Prod them on all sides of you with your antlers. And turn back at once if you hear that creak. And when you’ve shed your antlers be doubly cautious. I never use trails any more.”

  Bambi sank into troubled thought.

  “He isn’t here,” he whispered to himself in profound astonishment.

  “No, He’s not in the forest now,” the old stag answered.

  “And yet He is here,” said Bambi, shaking his head.

  The old stag went on and his voice was full of bitter­ness. “How did your Gobo put it . . . ? Didn’t Gobo tell you He is all-powerful and all-good?”

  “He was good to Gobo,” Bambi whispered.

  The old stag stopped. “Do you believe that, Bambi?” he asked sadly. For the first time he had called Bambi by his name.

  “I don’t know,” cried Bambi, hurt, “I don’t understand it.”

  The old stag said slowly, “We must learn to live and be cautious.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ONE MORNING BAMBI CAME TO grief.

  The pale gray dawn was just creeping through the forest. A milky-white mist was rising from the meadow and the stillness that precedes the coming of light was everywhere. The crows were not awake yet, nor the magpies. The jays were asleep.

  Bambi had met Faline the night before. She looked sadly at him and was very shy.

  “I’m so much alone now,” she said gently.

  “I’m alone too,” Bambi answered with some hesitation.

  “Why don’t you stay with me any more?” Faline asked sorrowfully, and it hurt him to see the gay and lively Faline so serious and downcast.

  “I want to be alone,” he replied. And gently as he tried to say it, sounded hard. He felt it himself.

  Faline looked at him and asked softly, “Do you love me still?”

  “I don’t know,” Bambi answered in the same tone.

  She walked silently away from him, leaving him alone.

  He stood under the great oak at the meadow’s edge and peered out cautiously, drinking in the pure and odorless morning air. It was moist and fresh from the earth, the dew, the grass and the wet woods. Bambi breathed in great gulps of it. All at once his spirit felt freer than for a long time. He walked happily onto the mist-covered meadow.

  Then a sound like thunder crashed.

  Bambi felt a fearful blow that made him stagger.

  Mad with terror, he sprang back into the thicket and kept running. He did not understand what had happened. He could not grasp a single idea. He could only keep running on and on. Fear gripped his heart so that his breath failed as he rushed blindly on. Then a killing pain shot through him, so that he felt that he could not bear it. He felt something hot running over his left shoulder. It was like a thin, burning thread coming from where the pain shot through him. Bambi had to stop running. He was forced to walk slower. Then he saw that he was limping. He sank down.

  It was comfortable just to lie there and rest.

  “Up, Bambi! Get up!” The old stag was standing beside him, and nudging his shoulder gently.

  Bambi wanted to answer, “I can’t,” but the old stag repeated, “Up! Up!” And there was such compulsion in his voice and such tenderness that Bambi kept silent. Even the pain that shot through him stopped for a minute.

  Then the old stag said hurriedly and anxiously, “Get up! You must get away, my son.” My son! The words seemed to have escaped him. In a flash Bambi was on his feet.

  “Good,” said the old stag, breathing deeply and speaking emphatically, “come with me now and keep close beside me.”

  He walked swiftly ahead. Bambi followed him but he felt a burning desire to let himself drop to the ground, to lie still and rest.

  The old stag seemed to guess it and talked to him without stopping. “Now you’ll have to bear every pain. You can’t think of lying down now. You mustn’t think of it even for a moment. That’s enough to tire you in itself. You must save yourself, do you understand me, Bambi? Save yourself. Or else you are lost. Just remember that He is behind you, do you understand, Bambi? And He will kill you without mercy. Come on. Keep close to me. You’ll soon be all right. You must be all right.”

  Bambi had no strength left to think with. The pain shot through him at every step he took. It took away his breath and his consciousness. The hot trickle, ­burning his shoulder, seared him like some deep heartfelt ­trouble.

  The old stag made a wide circle. It took a long time. Through his veil of pain and weakness, Bambi was amazed to see that they were passing the great oak again.

  The old stag stopped and snuffed the ground. “He’s still here,” he whispered. “It’s He. And that’s His dog. Come along. Faster!” They ran.

  Suddenly the old stag stopped again. “Look,” he said, “that’s where you lay on the ground.”

  Bambi saw the crushed grasses where a wide pool of his own blood was soaking into the earth.

  The old stag snuffed warily around the spot. “They were here, He and His dog,” he said. “Come along!” He went ahead slowly, snuffing again and again.

  Bambi saw the red drops gleaming on the leaves of the bushes and the grass stems. “We passed here before,” he thought. But he couldn’t speak.

  “Aha!” said the old stag and seemed almost joyful, “we’re behind them now.”

  He continued for a while on the same path. Then he doubled unexpectedly and began a new circle. Bambi staggered after him. They came to the oak again but on the opposite side. For the second time they passed the place where Bambi had fallen down. Then the old stag went in still another direction.

  “Eat that,” he commanded suddenly, stopping and pushing aside the grasses. He pointed to a pair of short dark-green leaves growing close together near the ground.

  Bambi obeyed. They tasted terribly bitter and smelled sickeningly.

  “How do you feel now?” the stag asked after a while.

  “Better,” Bambi answered quickly. He was suddenly able to speak again. His senses had cleared and his fatigue grew less.

  “Let’s move on again,” the old stag commanded after another pause. After Bambi had been following him for a long time he said, “At last!” They stopped.

  “The bleeding has stopped,” said the old stag, “the blood’s stopped flowing from your wound. It isn’t ­emptying your veins now. And it can’t betray you any more either. It can’t show Him and His dog where to find you and kill you.”

  The old stag looked worried and tired but his voice sounded joyful. “Come along,” he went on, “now you can rest.”

  They reached a wide ditch which Bambi had never crossed. The old stag climbed down and Bambi tried to follow him. But it cost him a great effort to climb the steep slope on the farther side. The pain began to shoot violently through him again. He stumbled, regained his feet, and stumbled again, breathing hard.

  “I can’t help you,” said the old stag, “you’ll have to get up yourself.” Bambi reached the top. He felt the hot trickle on his shoulder again. He felt his strength ebbing for the second time.
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  “You’re bleeding again,” said the old stag. “I thought you would. But it’s only a little,” he added in a whisper, “and it doesn’t make any difference now.”

  They walked very slowly through a grove of lofty beeches. The ground was soft and level. They walked easily on it. Bambi felt a longing to lie down there, to stretch out and never move his limbs again. He couldn’t go any farther. His head ached. There was a humming in his ears. His nerves were quivering, and fever began to rack him. There was a darkness before his eyes. He felt nothing but a desire for rest and detached amazement at finding his life so changed and shattered. He remembered how he had walked whole and uninjured through the woods that morning. It was barely an hour ago, and it seemed to him like some memory out of a distant long-vanished past.

  They passed through a scrub oak and dogwood thicket. A huge, hollow beech trunk, thickly entangled with the bushes, lay right in front of them, barring the way.

  “Here we are,” Bambi heard the old stag saying. He walked along the beech trunk and Bambi walked beside him. He nearly fell into a hollow that lay in front of him.

  “Here it is,” said the old stag at the moment, “you can lie down here.”

  Bambi sank down and did not move again.

  The hollow was still deeper under the beech trunk and formed a little chamber. The bushes closed thickly across the top so that whoever was within lay hidden.

  “You’ll be safe here,” said the old stag.

  Days passed.

  Bambi lay on the warm earth with the moldering bark of the fallen tree above him. He felt his pain intensify and then grow less and less until it died away more and more gently.

  Sometimes he would creep out and stand swaying weakly on his unsteady legs. He would take a few steps to look for food. He ate plants now that he had never noticed before. Now they appealed to his taste and attracted him by their strange, enticing acrid smell. Everything that he had disdained before and would spit out if it got accidentally into his mouth seemed appetizing to him. He still disliked many of the little leaves and short, coarse shoots, but he ate them anyway, as though he were compelled to, and his wound healed faster. He felt his strength returning.

  He was cured, but he didn’t leave the hollow yet. He walked around a little at night, but lay quietly on his bed by day. Not until the fever had entirely left his body did Bambi begin to think over all that had happened to him. Then a great terror awoke in him, and a profound tremor passed through his heart. He could not shake himself free of it. He could not get up and run about as before. He lay still and troubled. He felt terrified, ashamed, amazed and troubled by turns. Sometimes he was full of despair, at others of joy.

  The old stag was always with him. At first he stayed day and night at Bambi’s side. Then he left him alone at times, especially when he saw Bambi deep in thought. But he always kept close at hand.

  One night there was thunder and lightning and a downpour of rain, although the sky was clear and the setting sun was streaming down. The blackbirds sang loudly in all the neighboring treetops, the finches ­warbled, the titmice chirped in the bushes. Among the grasses or from under the bushes, the metallic, throaty cackling of the pheasants sounded at intervals. The woodpecker laughed exultantly and the doves cooed their fervid love.

  Bambi crept out of the hollow. Life was beautiful. The old stag was standing there as though he expected Bambi. They sauntered on together.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ONE NIGHT WHEN THE AIR WAS whispering with the autumnal fall of leaves the screech owl shrieked piercingly among the branches. Then he waited.

  But Bambi had spied him already through the thinning leaves, and stopped.

  The screech owl flew nearer and shrieked louder. Then he waited again. But Bambi did not say anything.

  Then the owl could restrain himself no longer. “Aren’t you frightened?” he asked, displeased.

  “Well,” Bambi replied, “a little.”

  “Is that so?” the screech owl cooed in an offended tone. “Only a little. You used to get terribly frightened. It was really a pleasure to see how frightened you’d get. But for some reason or other you’re only a little frightened now.” He grew angrier and repeated, “Only a little!”

  The screech owl was getting old, and that was why he was so much vainer and so much more sensitive than before.

  Bambi wanted to answer, “I wasn’t ever frightened before either,” but he decided to keep that to himself. He was sorry to see the good old screech owl sitting there so angry. He tried to soothe him. “Maybe it’s because I thought of you right away,” he said.

  “What?” said the screech owl, becoming happy again, “you really did think of me?”

  “Yes,” Bambi answered with some hesitation, “as soon as I heard you screech. Otherwise, of course, I’d have been as scared as ever.”

  “Really?” cooed the owl.

  Bambi hadn’t the heart to deny it. What difference did it make anyhow? Let the little old child enjoy himself.

  “I really did,” he assured him, and went on, “I’m so happy, for a thrill goes through me when I hear you so suddenly.”

  The screech owl fluffed up his feathers into a soft, brownish-gray, downy ball. He was happy. “It’s nice of you to think of me,” he cooed tenderly, “very nice. We haven’t seen each other for a long time.”

  “A very long time,” said Bambi.

  “You don’t use the old trails any more, do you?” the screech owl inquired.

  “No,” said Bambi slowly, “I don’t use the old trails any more.”

  “I’m also seeing more of the world than I used to,” the screech owl observed boastfully. He didn’t mention that he had been driven from his old hereditary haunts by a pitiless younger rival. “You can’t stay forever in the same spot,” he added. Then he waited for an answer.

  But Bambi had gone away. By now he understood almost as well as the old stag how to disappear suddenly and noiselessly.

  The screech owl was provoked. “It’s a shame . . .” he cooed to himself. He shook his feathers, sank his bill deep into his breast and silently philosophized. “You should never imagine you can be friends with great folks. They can be as nice as pie but when the time comes they haven’t a thought for you, and you’re left sitting stupidly by yourself as I’m sitting here now. . . .”

  Suddenly he dropped to the earth like a stone. He had spied a mouse. It squeaked once in his talons. He tore it to pieces, for he was furious. He crammed the little morsel faster than usual. Then he flew off. “What do all your great folks mean to me?” he asked. “Not a thing.” He began to screech so piercingly and ceaselessly that a pair of wood doves whom he passed awoke and fled from their roost with loud wing beats.

  The storm swept the woods for several days and tore the last leaves from the branches. Then the trees stood stripped.

  Bambi was wandering homeward in the gray dawn in order to sleep in the hollow with the old stag.

  A shrill voice called him once or twice in quick succession. He stopped. Then the squirrel scampered down from the branches in a twinkling and sat on the ground in front of him.

  “Is it really you?” he shrilled, surprised and delighted. “I recognized you the minute you passed me but I couldn’t believe . . .”

  “Where did you come from?” asked Bambi.

  The merry little face in front of him grew quite troubled. “The oak is gone,” he began plaintively, “my beautiful old oak, do you remember it? It was awful. He chopped it down!”

  Bambi hung his head sadly. His very soul felt sorry for the wonderful old tree.

  “As soon as it happened,” the squirrel related, “everybody who lived in the tree fled and watched how He bit through the trunk with a gigantic flashing tooth. The tree groaned aloud when it was wounded. It kept on groaning and the tooth kept gnawing; it was dreadful to hear it. Then the
poor beautiful tree fell out on the meadow. Everybody cried.”

  Bambi was silent.

  “Yes,” sighed the squirrel, “He can do anything. He’s all-powerful.” He gazed at Bambi out of his big eyes, and pointed his ears. But Bambi kept silent.

  “Then we were all homeless,” the squirrel went on. “I don’t even know where the others scattered to. I came here. But I won’t find another tree like that in a hurry.”

  “The old oak,” said Bambi to himself. “I knew it from the time I was a child.”

  “Oh well,” said the squirrel. “But to think it’s really you,” he went on delightedly. “Everybody said you must be dead long ago. Of course there were some people now and then who said you were still alive. Once in a while someone said he had seen you. But nobody could find out anything definite. And so I thought it was only gossip,” the squirrel gazed at him inquisitively, “since you didn’t come back any more.”

  Bambi could see how curious he was and how he was fishing for an answer.

  Bambi kept silent. But a gentle anxious curiosity was stirring in him, too. He wanted to ask about Faline, about Aunt Ena, and Ronno and Karus, about all his childhood companions. But he kept silent.

  The squirrel still sat in front of him, studying him. “What antlers!” he cried admiringly. “What antlers! Nobody in the whole forest, except the old Prince, has antlers like that.”

  Once Bambi would have felt elated and flattered by such praise. But he only said, “Maybe.”

  The squirrel nodded quickly with his head. “Really,” he said, surprised, “you’re beginning to get gray.”

  Bambi wandered on.

  The squirrel perceived that the conversation was over and sprang through the bushes. “Good day,” he shouted down. “Goodbye. I’m very glad I met you. If I see any of your acquaintances I’ll tell them you’re still alive. They’ll all be glad.”

  Bambi heard him and again felt that gentle stirring in his heart. But he said nothing. When he was still a child the old stag had taught him that you must live alone. Then and afterward the old stag had revealed much wisdom and many secrets to him. But of all his teachings this had been the most important: you must live alone. If you wanted to preserve yourself, if you understood existence, if you wanted to attain wisdom, you had to live alone.