Bambi (10 page)

He looked around. All sorts of creatures were swarming past, scampering
blindly over one another. A pair of weasels ran by like thin snakelike streaks. The eye
could scarcely follow them. A ferret listened as though bewitched to every shriek that
desperate Friend Hare let out.

A fox was standing in a whole flurry of fluttering pheasants. They paid no
attention to him. They ran right under his nose and he paid no attention to them.
Motionless, with his head thrust forward, he listened to the onrushing tumult, lifting
his pointed ears, and snuffed the air with his nose. Only his tail moved, slowly wagging
with his intense concentration.

A pheasant dashed up. He had come from where the danger was worst and was
beside himself with fear.

“Don't try to fly,” he shouted to the others.
“Don't fly, just run! Don't lose your head! Don't try to fly!
Just run, run, run!”

He kept repeating the same thing over and over again as though to
encourage himself. But he no longer knew what he was saying.

“Ho! ho! Ha! ha!” came the death cry, from quite near
apparently.

“Don't lose your head,” screamed the pheasant. And at
the same time his voice broke in a whistling gasp and, spreading his wings, he flew up
with a loud whir. Bambi watched how he flew straight up, directly between the trees,
beating his wings. The dark metallic blue and greenish-brown markings on his body
gleamed like gold. His long tail feathers swept proudly behind him. A short crash like
thunder sounded sharply. The pheasant suddenly crumpled up in mid-flight. He turned head
over tail as though he wanted to catch his claws with his beak, and then dropped
violently to earth. He fell among the others and did not move again.

Then everyone lost his senses. They all rushed toward one another. Five or
six pheasants rose at one time with a loud whir. “Don't fly,” cried
the rest and ran. The thunder cracked five or six times and more of the flying birds
dropped lifeless to the ground.

“Come,” said Bambi's mother. Bambi looked around. Ronno
and Karus had already fled. Old Nettla was disappearing. Only Marena was still beside
them. Bambi went with his mother, Marena following them timidly. All around them was a
roaring and shouting, and the thunder was crashing. Bambi's mother was calm. She
trembled quietly, but she kept her wits together.

“Bambi, my child,” she said, “keep behind me all the
time. We'll have to get out of here and across the open place. But now we'll
go slowly.”

The din was maddening. The thunder crashed ten, twelve times as He hurled
it from His hands.

“Watch out,” said Bambi's mother. “Don't
run. But when we have to cross the open place, run as fast as you can. And don't
forget, Bambi, my child, don't pay any attention to me when we get out there. Even
if I fall, don't pay any attention to me, just keep on running. Do you understand,
Bambi?”

His mother walked carefully step by step amidst the uproar. The pheasants
were running up and down, burying themselves in the snow. Suddenly they would spring out
and begin to run again. The whole Hare family was hopping to and fro, squatting down and
then hopping again. No one said a word. They were all spent with terror and numbed by
the din and thunderclaps.

It grew lighter in front of Bambi and his mother. The clearing showed
through the bushes. Behind them the terrifying drumming on the tree trunks came crashing
nearer and nearer. The breaking branches snapped. There was a roaring of “Ha, ha!
Ho, ho!”

Then Friend Hare and two of his cousins rushed past them across the
clearing. Bing! Ping! Bang! roared the thunder. Bambi saw how one hare struck an elder
in the middle of his flight and lay with his white belly turned upward. He quivered a
little and then was still. Bambi stood petrified. But from behind him came the cry,
“Here they are! Run! Run!”

There was a loud clapping of wings suddenly opened. There were gasps,
sobs, showers of feathers, flutterings. The pheasants took wing and the whole flock rose
almost at one instant. The air was throbbing with repeated thunderclaps and the dull
thuds of the fallen and the high, piercing shrieks of those who had escaped.

Bambi heard steps and looked behind him. He was there. He came bursting
through the bushes on all sides. He sprang up everywhere, struck about Him, beat the
bushes, drummed on the tree trunks and shouted with a fiendish voice.

“Now,” said Bambi's mother. “Get away from here.
And don't stay too close to me.” She was off with a bound that barely
skimmed the snow. Bambi rushed out after her. The thunder crashed around them on all
sides. It seemed as if the earth would split in half. Bambi saw nothing. He kept
running. A growing desire to get away from the tumult and out of reach of that scent
which seemed to strangle him, the growing impulse to flee, the longing to save himself
were loosed in him at last. He ran. It seemed to him as if he saw his mother hit but he
did not know if it was really she or not. He felt a film come over his eyes from fear of
the thunder crashing behind him. It had gripped him completely at last. He could think
of nothing or see nothing around him. He kept running.

The open space was crossed. Another thicket took him in. The hue and cry
still rang behind him. The sharp reports still thundered. And in the branches above him
there was a light pattering like the first fall of hail. Then it grew quieter. Bambi
kept running.

A dying pheasant, with its neck twisted, lay on the snow, beating feebly
with its wings. When he heard Bambi coming he ceased his convulsive movements and
whispered: “It's all over with me.” Bambi paid no attention to him and
ran on.

A tangle of bushes he blundered into forced him to slacken his pace and
look for a path. He pawed the ground impatiently with his hoofs. “This way!”
called someone with a gasping voice. Bambi obeyed involuntarily and found an opening at
once. Someone moved feebly in front of him. It was Friend Hare's wife who had
called.

“Can you help me a little?” she said. Bambi looked at her and
shuddered. Her hind leg dangled lifelessly in the snow, dyeing it red and melting it
with warm, oozing blood. “Can you help me a little?” she repeated. She spoke
as if she were well and whole, almost as if she were happy. “I don't know
what can have happened to me,” she went on. “There's really no sense
to it, but I just can't seem to walk . . .”

In the middle of her words she rolled over on her side and died. Bambi was
seized with horror again and ran.

“Bambi!”

He stopped with a jolt. A deer was calling him. Again he heard the cry.
“Is that you, Bambi?”

Bambi saw Gobo floundering helplessly in the snow. All his strength was
gone; he could no longer stand on his feet. He lay there half buried and lifted his head
feebly. Bambi went up to him excitedly.

“Where's you mother, Gobo?” he asked, gasping for
breath. “Where's Faline?” Bambi spoke quickly and impatiently. Terror
still gripped his heart.

“Mother and Faline had to go on,” Gobo answered resignedly. He
spoke softly, but as seriously and as well as a grown deer. “They had to leave me
here. I fell down. You must go on, too, Bambi.”

“Get up,” cried Bambi. “Get up, Gobo! You've
rested long enough. There's not a minute to lose now. Get up and come with
me!”

“No, leave me,” Gobo answered quietly. “I can't
stand up. It's impossible. I'd like to, but I'm too weak.”

“What will happen to you?” Bambi persisted.

“I don't know. Probably I'll die,” said Gobo
simply.

The uproar began again and re-echoed. New crashes of thunder followed.
Bambi shrank together. Suddenly a branch snapped. Young Karus pounded swiftly through
the snow, galloping ahead of the din.

“Run,” he called when he saw Bambi. “Don't stand
there if you can run!” He was gone in a flash and his headlong flight carried
Bambi along with it. Bambi was hardly aware that he had begun to run again, and only
after an interval did he say, “Goodbye, Gobo.” But he was already too far
away. Gobo could no longer hear him.

He ran till nightfall through the woods that was filled with shouting and
thunder. As darkness closed in, it grew quiet. Soon a light wind carried away the
horrible scent that spread everywhere. But the excitement remained.

The first friend whom Bambi saw again was Ronno. He was limping more than
ever.

“Over in the oak grove the fox has a burning fever from his
wound,” Ronno said. “I just passed him. He's suffering terribly. He
keeps biting the snow and the ground.”

“Have you seen my mother?” asked Bambi.

“No,” answered Ronno evasively, and walked quickly away.

Later during the night Bambi met old Nettla with Faline. All three were
delighted to meet.

“Have you seen my mother?” asked Bambi.

“No,” Faline answered. “I don't even know where my
own mother is.”

“Well,” said old Nettla cheerfully. “Here's a nice
mess. I was so glad that I didn't have to bother with children any more and now I
have to look after two at once. I'm heartily grateful.”

Bambi and Faline laughed.

They talked about Gobo. Bambi told how he had found him, and they grew so
sad they began to cry. But old Nettla would not have them crying. “Before
everything else you have got to get something to eat. I never heard of such a thing. You
haven't had a bite to eat this livelong day!”

She led them to places where there were still a few leaves that had not
completely withered. Old Nettla was wonderfully gentle. She ate nothing herself, but
made Bambi and Faline eat heartily. She pawed away the snow from the grassy spots and
ordered them to eat with, “The grass is good here.” Or else she would say,
“No, wait. We'll find something better farther on.” But between whiles
she would grumble. “It's perfectly ridiculous the trouble children give
you.”

Suddenly they saw Aunt Ena coming and rushed toward her. “Aunt
Ena,” cried Bambi. He had seen her first. Faline was beside herself with joy and
bounded around her. “Mother,” she cried. But Ena was weeping and nearly dead
from exhaustion.

“Gobo is gone,” she cried. “I've looked for him. I
went to the little place where he lay when he broke down in the
snow . . . there was nothing there . . . he is
gone . . . my poor little Gobo. . . .”

Old Nettla grumbled. “If you had looked for his tracks it would have
been more sensible than crying,” she said.

“There weren't any tracks,” said Aunt Ena.
“But . . . His . . . tracks were there. He found
Gobo.”

She was silent. Then Bambi asked despondently, “Aunt Ena, have you
seen my mother?”

“No,” answered Aunt Ena gently.

Bambi never saw his mother again.

Chapter Eleven

A
T LAST THE WILLOWS SHED their catkins. Everything was turning green, but the young leaves on the trees and bushes were still tiny. Glowing with the soft, early morning light they looked fresh and smiling like children who have just awakened from sleep.

Bambi was standing in front of a hazel bush, beating his new antlers against the wood. It was very pleasant to do that. And an absolute necessity besides, since skin and hide still covered his splendid antlers. The skin had to come off, of course, and no sensible creature would ever wait until it split of its own accord. Bambi pounded his antlers till the skin split and long strips of it dangled about his ears. As he pounded on the hazel stems again and again, he felt how much stronger his antlers were than the wood. This feeling shot through him in a rush of power and pride. He beat more fiercely on the hazel bush and tore its bark into long pieces. The white body of the tree showed naked and quickly turned a rusty red in the open air. But Bambi paid no attention to that. He saw the bright wood of the tree flash under his strokes and it heartened him. A whole row of hazel bushes bore traces of his work.

“Well, you are nearly grown now,” said a cheerful voice close by.

Bambi tossed his head and looked around him. There sat the squirrel observing him in a friendly way. From overhead came a short, shrill laugh, “Ha! Ha!”

Bambi and the squirrel were both half frightened. But the woodpecker who was clinging to an oak trunk called down, “Excuse me, but I always have to laugh when I see you deer acting like that.”

“What is there to laugh at?” asked Bambi politely.

“Oh!” said the woodpecker, “you go at things in such a wrongheaded way. In the first place, you ought to try big trees, for you can't get anything out of those little wisps of hazel stalks.”

“What should I get out of them?” Bambi asked.

“Bugs,” said the woodpecker with a laugh. “Bugs and grubs. Look, do like this.” He drummed on the oak trunk, tack! tack! tack! tack!