One morning, something very bad happened to Bambi.
The feeble grey of dawn was creeping its way through the forest. A
milky-white mist rose from the meadow and the quiet that breathes the
change in the time of day stretched itself out everywhere.
The crows were still not awake, nor the magpies, and even the jay was
asleep.
Bambi had come across Faline in the night. She looked sadly at him and
was very shy.
“I’m by myself so much,” she said quietly.
“I’m by myself too,” Bambi replied hesitantly.
Faline seemed disheartened and asked, “Why don’t you stay with me any
more?” and it pained Bambi to see that Faline, once so gay, once so
bold, had become earnest and downtrodden.
“I have to be alone,” he replied. He had wanted to say it in a
soothing way, but it sounded hard. He heard it himself.
Faline looked at him and quietly asked, “Do you still love me?”
Bambi did not hesitate and answered, “I don’t know.”
She went calmly away and left him alone.
There he stood under the great oak tree at the edge of the meadow,
looked carefully out there to see that all was safe, and drank in the
morning wind. Every time there had been a storm the air was moist and
refreshing, it smelt of the earth, of dew and grass and of wet
wood. Bambi breathed deep. He suddenly felt free in a way he had not
felt for a long time. He felt gay as he stepped out onto the misty
meadow.
Then came a clap of thunder.
Bambi felt as if something had shoved him and it made him stagger.
In a panic he leapt back into the woods and continued running. He did
not understand what had happened, he was quite unable to collect his
thoughts but just kept on running. His terror kept a tight grip on his
heart and took his breath away as he blindly rushed forward. But then,
suddenly, a piercing pain ran through him, he did not think he would
be able endure it. He felt how it ran hotly over his left thigh, a
narrow, burning thread starting from the place where he had first felt
the pain. It forced him to stop running. It forced him to walk more
slowly. Then his shoulders and legs seemed to go lame. He collapsed to
the ground.
He was seen by Labsal as he just lay there resting.
“Get up Bambi! Get up!” The elder stood beside him and pushed him
gently on his shoulder.
Bambi wanted to retort, “I can’t,” but the elder said again, “Get up!
Get up!” and there was such urgency in his voice and such tenderness
that Bambi said nothing. Even the pain he felt in every part of his
body abated for a moment.
Now the elder spoke hurriedly and in fear. “Get up! You’ve got to get
away from here, son!” Son ... it seemed to be as soon as this word
slipped out of his mouth that Bambi hurried back up on his feet.
“Right, then!” said the elder. He took a deep breath and continued to
urge Bambi on. “Now, come with me, just stay with me all the time
...!”
He hurried forward. Bambi followed him, even though he was yearning to
drop to the ground, to lay still and rest.
The elder seemed able to see this and spoke to Bambi without pause.
“Whatever the pain is you’ve now got to just bear it, you can’t even
think about lying down ... never think of that at all, as that by
itself will make you tired! Now you’ve got to just save yourself
... do you understand, Bambi? ... save yourself ... otherwise you’re
lost ... just bear in mind that He’s coming after you ... do you
understand, Bambi? ... He won’t show any mercy ... He’ll just kill you
... come with me ... just come with me ... it’ll soon be gone ... it’s
got to go ...” Bambi no longer even had the strength to think of
anything. The pain surged up in every step he took, robbed im of his
breath and of his senses, and the line of heat that burned down into
his shoulder brought a deep, delirious excitement into his heart.
The elder went round in a broad circle. It took a long time. Through
his veil of pain and weakness Bambi was astonished to see that they
were suddenly beside the great oak once more.
The elder stopped and smelt the ground. “Here!” he whispered, “here
... He’s here ... here too ... the dog ... come with me ... faster!”
They ran on. The elder suddenly stopped.
“Can you see ...!” he exclaimed, “this is where you were lying on the
ground.”
Bambi saw where the grass had been pressed down and saw a broad pool
of his own blood soaking down into the ground.
The elder smelt the place carefully. “They’ve already been here ...
Him and the dog ...” he said. “Now, come with me!” He walked slowly
on, continually stopping to smell the ground.
Bambi noticed the drops of red on the leaves of the bushes and on the
grass. “We’ve already been past here,” he thought, although he was not
able to speak out loud.
“Good!” said the elder, almost gaily, “now we’ve got behind them ...”
He went for a while in the same direction. Then he turned suddenly to
one side and set off in a new circle. Bambi staggered on behind him.
They arrived at the big oak tree once again, though this time from the
other direction, they arrived once again at the place where Bambi had
fallen, and then, once again, the elder took a new direction.
“Eat some of this!” he ordered, he had stopped, pushed the grass to
one side and pointed to some tiny leaves, short and dark green, fat
and fluffy, that were sprouting out of the bare ground.
Bambi did as he was told. The leaves were horribly bitter and had a
repulsive smell.
After a while the elder asked, “How are you feeling now?”
“I’m feeling better,” Bambi promptly answered. All of a sudden he was
able to speak again, he could think clearly, he felt less tired.
After another pause the elder ordered him, “You go ahead now,” and
after he had been walking behind Bambi for some time he said, “At
last!” They stopped. “Your blood has stopped running out from your
wound, so it won’t show where you are any more, He and His dog won’t
be able to find where to go to take your life.”
The elder looked very tired, but there was cheer in his voice. “Come
on then,” he continued, “now you need to have a rest.”
They arrived at the broad gulley that Bambi had never been across. The
elder climbed down into it, Bambi tried to follow but it took him a
lot of effort to climb up the steep slope on the other side.
The fierce pain he felt began once more to go through him. He fell
over, pulled himself back up, fell over again and began to gasp for
breath.
“I can’t help you here,” said the elder, “you’ve got to get up here
yourself!” And Bambi did get up to the top. He began once more to feel
the hot band of pain that shot down his shoulder and felt for the
second time that he was losing his strength.
“You’re bleeding again,” said the elder, “that’s what I expected. It’s
not too much, though ... and ...,” he added in a whisper, “it doesn’t
matter any more.”
They made their way very slowly through a grove of beech trees, as
high as the sky. The ground was soft and smooth. It did not take too
much effort to go through it. Bambi yearned to just lay himself down
here, to stretch himself out and not to move a finger. He just could
not go any further. His head hurt, there was a buzzing in his ears,
his nerves were quivering and his fever began to shake him. His eyes
went dim. There was nothing more inside him than the yearning for rest
and a vague astonishment at how his life had suddenly been interrupted
and altered, at how he had once used to go through the forest in good
health and without injury ... just that morning ... just an hour
earlier ... it seemed to him now like the happiness of a distant time
that had long since vanished.
They passed through a low thicket of oaks and dogwood. The fallen
trunk of a beech tree lay across their path, deeply embedded in the
bushes. It was very big and they could see no way of getting past it.
“Now we’ve got there ...” Bambi heard the elder say. He walked the
length of the beech trunk and Bambi followed him, nearly falling into
a hole in the ground.
“Alright!” said the elder. “You can lie down here.”
Bambi sank down and did not try to move any more.
He saw that the hole in the ground under the fallen beech trunk was
deeper than it had seemed, creating a small chamber. The bushes at the
edge of it closed over him as he entered so that nobody could see
in. Once he was down there it was as if he had disappeared.
“You’ll be safe here,” said the elder. “Stay here and don’t go
anywhere.”
Days went by.
Bambi lay in the warm earth, the bark of the fallen tree slowly
rotting above him, it listened to his pain as it grew inside his body,
became stronger, then abated, became weaker and went down, steadily
softer and softer. Sometimes he would struggle outside where he would
stand, weak and unsteady, on his tired and unreliable legs, and take a
few steps to look for food. He began to eat herbs that he had never
before noticed. Now they had suddenly begun to offer themselves to
him, called to him with their scent that had a strange and tempting
sharpness. What he had until then despised, what he would have thrown
away if he inadvertently got it between his lips, now seemed tasty and
spicy. Many little leaves, many short stalks continued to seem
unappetizing even now, but he nonetheless ate them under some kind of
compulsion, and his wounds healed more quickly and he could feel how
his strength was coming back to him.
He had been saved. But he still did not leave his chamber. He would
only come out at night and take a few steps around, but in the daytime
he would remain quietly in his bed. It was only now, when his body was
feeling no more pain, that Bambi realized all that had happened to
him, he was able to think once more, and a feeling of great horror
arose within him, his character had been shattered. He was not able to
simply wipe it away, not able to stand up and run about as he had
before. He lay there and felt many emotions, alternately disgusted,
ashamed, astonished, disheartened, but soon afterwards full of
melancholy, soon afterwards full of happiness.
The elder was nearby at all times. At first he was at Bambi’s side day
and night. Then there were times when he left him alone for short
periods, especially when he saw that Bambi was lost in his
thoughts. But there was no time when he was not close by.
One day there had been storm and thunder and lightning, the sky had
been swept clean and that evening the sun, as it went down, shone over
a sky that was blue. The blackbirds sang out loudly from the tree
tops, the finches flapped their wings, the tits whispered in the
undergrowth, in the grass and under the bushes close to the ground the
metallic bursts of the pheasants’ cries could be heard, the woodpecker
laughed in loud celebration and the pigeons cooed from the yearning
for love that was inside them.
Bambi stepped out from his underground chamber. Life was good. The
elder was standing there as if he had been waiting.
The wandered slowly off together.
But Bambi never went back across that gulley, never went back to see
the others.