Bambi (18 page)

“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.

“But,” Bambi had once objected, “we two are always together now.”

“Not for very much longer,” the old stag had answered quickly. That was a few weeks ago. Now it occurred to Bambi again, and he suddenly remembered how even the old stag's very first words to him had been about singleness. That day when Bambi was still a child calling for his mother, the old stag had come to him and asked him, “Can't you stay by yourself?”

Bambi wandered on.

Chapter Twenty-Three

T
HE FOREST WAS AGAIN UNDER snow, lying silent beneath its deep white mantle. Only the crows' calls could be heard. Now and then came a magpie's noisy chattering. The soft twittering of the titmice sounded timidly. Then the frost hardened and everything grew still. The air began to hum with the cold.

One morning a dog's baying broke the silence.

It was a continuous hurrying bay that pressed on quickly through the woods, eager and clear and harrying with loud yelps.

Bambi raised his head in the hollow under the fallen tree and looked at the old stag who was lying beside him.

“That's nothing,” said the old stag in answer to ­Bambi's glance, “nothing that need bother us.”

Still they both listened.

They lay in their hollow with the old beech trunk like a sheltering roof above them. The deep snow kept the icy draft from them, and the tangled bushes hid them from curious eyes.

The baying grew nearer. It was angry and panting and relentless. It sounded like the bark of a small hound. It came constantly closer.

Then they heard panting of another kind. They heard a low labored snarling under the angry barking. Bambi grew uneasy, but the old stag quieted him again. “We don't need to worry about it,” he said. They lay silent in their warm hollow and peered out.

The footsteps drew nearer and nearer through the branches. The snow dropped from the shaken boughs and clouds of it rose from the earth.

Through the snow and over the roots and branches the fox came springing, crouching and slinking. They were right; a little, short-legged hound was after him.

One of the fox's forelegs was crushed and the fur torn around it. He held his shattered paw in front of him, and blood poured from his wound. He was gasping for breath. His eyes were staring with terror and exertion. He was beside himself with rage and fear. He was desperate and exhausted.

Once in a while he would face around and snarl so that the dog was startled and would fall back a few steps.

Presently the fox sat down on his haunches. He could go no farther. Raising his mangled forepaw pitifully, with his jaws open and his lips drawn back, he snarled at the dog.

But the dog was never silent for a minute. His high, rasping bark only grew fuller and deeper. “Here,” he yapped, “here he is! Here! Here! Here!” He was not abusing the fox. He was not even speaking to him, but was urging on someone who was still far behind.

Bambi knew as well as the old stag did that it was He the dog was calling.

The fox knew it too. The blood was streaming down from him and fell from his breast into the snow, making a fiery red spot on the icy white surface, and steaming slowly.

A weakness overcame the fox. His crushed foot sank down helpless, but a burning pain shot through it when it touched the cold snow. He lifted it again with an effort and held it quivering in front of him.

“Let me go,” said the fox, beginning to speak, “let me go.” He spoke softly and beseechingly. He was quite weak and despondent.

“No! No! No!” the dog howled.

The fox pleaded still more insistently. “We're relations,” he pleaded, “we're brothers almost. Let me go home. Let me die with my family at least. We're ­brothers almost, you and I.”

“No! No! No!” the dog raged.

Then the fox rose so that he was sitting perfectly erect. He dropped his handsome pointed muzzle on his bleeding breast, raised his eyes and looked the dog straight in the face. In a completely altered voice, restrained and embittered, he growled, “Aren't you ashamed, you traitor!”

“No! No! No!” yelped the dog.

But the fox went on, “You turncoat, you renegade.” His maimed body was taut with contempt and hatred. “You spy,” he hissed, “you blackguard, you track us where He could never find us. You betray us, your own relations, me who am almost your brother. And you stand there and aren't ashamed!”

Instantly many other voices sounded loudly round about.

“Traitor!” cried the magpie from the tree.

“Spy!” shrieked the jay.

“Blackguard!” the weasel hissed.

“Renegade!” snarled the ferret.

From every tree and bush came chirpings, peepings, shrill cries, while overhead the crows cawed, “Spy! Spy!” Everyone had rushed up, and from the trees or from safe hiding places on the ground they watched the contest. The fury that had burst from the fox released an embittered anger in them all. And the blood spilled on the snow, that steamed before their eyes, maddened them and made them forget all caution.

The dog stared around him. “Who are you?” he yelped. “What do you want? What do you know about it? What are you talking about? Everything belongs to Him, just as I do. But I, I love Him. I worship Him. I serve Him. Do you think you can oppose Him, poor creatures like you? He's all-powerful. He's above all of you. Everything we have comes from Him. Everything that lives or grows comes from Him.” The dog was quivering with exaltation.

“Traitor!” cried the squirrel shrilly.

“Yes, traitor!” hissed the fox. “Nobody is a traitor but you, only you.”

The dog was dancing about in a frenzy of devotion. “Only me?” he cried; “you lie. Aren't there many, many others on His side? The horse, the cow, the sheep, the chickens, many, many of you and your kind are on His side and worship Him and serve Him.”