She bleated again, “Baoh! Leave me,” she went on, “I can’t help it, I have to bleat. Baoh, baoh, baoh!”
The stag was standing in the little clearing, looking for tidbits in the grass.
Fresh courage came to Bambi who had one eye on the hysterical Faline, the other on the placid stag. With the encouragement he had given Faline he had conquered his own fears. He began to reproach himself for the pitiful state he was in whenever he saw the old stag, a state of mingled terror and excitement, admiration and submissiveness.
“It’s perfectly absurd,” he said with painful decision. “I’m going straight over to tell him who I am.”
“Don’t,” cried Faline. “Don’t! Baoh! Something terrible will happen. Baoh!”
“I’m going anyway,” answered Bambi.
The stag who was feasting so calmly, not paying the slightest attention to the weeping Faline, seemed altogether too haughty to him. He felt offended and humiliated. “I’m going,” he said. “Be quiet. You’ll see, nothing will happen. Wait for me here.”
He went, but Faline did not wait. She hadn’t the least desire or courage to do so. She faced about and ran away crying, for she thought it was the best thing she could do. Bambi could hear her going farther and farther away, bleating, “Baoh! Baoh!”
Bambi would gladly have followed her. But that was no longer possible. He pulled himself together and went forward.
Through the branches he saw the stag standing in the clearing, his head close to the ground. Bambi felt his heart pounding as he stepped out.
The stag immediately lifted his head and looked at him. Then he gazed absently straight ahead again. The way in which the stag gazed into space, as though no one else were there, seemed as haughty to Bambi as the way he had stared at him.
Bambi did not know what to do. He had come with the firm intention of speaking to the stag. He wanted to say, “Good day, I am Bambi. May I ask to know your honorable name also?”
Yes, it had all seemed very easy, but now it appeared that the affair was not so simple. What good were the best of intentions now? Bambi did not want to seem ill-bred as he would be if he went off without saying a word. But he did not want to seem forward either, and he would be if he began the conversation.
The stag was wonderfully majestic. It delighted Bambi and made him feel humble. He tried in vain to arouse his courage and kept asking himself, “Why do I let him frighten me? Am I not just as good as he is?” But it was no use. Bambi continued to be frightened and felt in his heart of hearts that he really was not as good as the old stag. Far from it. He felt wretched and had to use all his strength to keep himself steady.
The old stag looked at him and thought, “He’s handsome, he’s really charming, so delicate, so poised, so elegant in his whole bearing. I must not stare at him, though. It really isn’t the thing to do. Besides, it might embarrass him.” So he stared over Bambi’s head into the empty air again.
“What a haughty look,” thought Bambi. “It’s unbearable, the opinion such people have of themselves.”
The stag was thinking, “I’d like to talk to him, he looks so sympathetic. How stupid never to speak to people we don’t know.” He looked thoughtfully ahead of him.
“I might as well be air,” said Bambi to himself. “This fellow acts as though he were the only thing on the face of the earth.”
“What should I say to him?” the old stag was wondering. “I’m not used to talking. I’d say something stupid and make myself ridiculous … for he’s undoubtedly very clever.”
Bambi pulled himself together and looked fixedly at the stag. “How splendid he is,” he thought despairingly.
“Well, some other time, perhaps,” the stag decided and walked off, dissatisfied but majestic.
Bambi remained filled with bitterness.
XIV
The forest sweltered under a scorching sun. Since it rose it had driven even the tiniest cloudlet from the sky, and shone all alone in the wide blue depths that were pallid now with heat. Over the meadows and the treetops the air quivered in glassy, transparent ripples as it does over a flame. Not a leaf was moving, not a blade of grass. The birds were silent and sat hidden among the shady leaves, never stirring from their places. All the paths and trails in the thicket were empty. Not a creature was abroad. The forest lay as though hurt by the blinding light. The earth and the trees, the bushes, the beasts breathed in the intense heat with a kind of sluggish satisfaction.
Bambi was asleep.
He had made merry with Faline all night. He had pranced around with her until broad daylight, and in his bliss had even forgotten to eat. But he had grown so tired that he did not feel hungry any more. His eyes fell shut. He lay down where he happened to be standing in the middle of the bushes, and fell asleep at once.
The bitter acrid odor that streamed from the sun-warmed juniper, and the penetrating scent of spurge laurel, mounted to his head while he slept and gave him new strength. Suddenly he awoke in a daze. Had Faline called him? Bambi looked around. He remembered seeing Faline as he lay down, standing close beside him near the whitethorn, nibbling the leaves. He had supposed she would remain near him, but she was gone. Apparently she had grown tired of being alone by now and was calling for him to come and look for her.
As Bambi listened he wondered how long he could have slept and how often Faline had called. He wasn’t sure. Veils of sleep still clouded his thought.
Then she called again. With a sidewise spring Bambi turned in the
