by Felix Salten
“Not often,” Faline admitted, “and then it’s during the day when they’re asleep and he has no duties.”
“You mean, they’ve never seen him?” Rolla was quite horrified.
“Never. But somehow we feel that he is near—that he is thinking of us and watching over us.”
“But don’t you ever call him?”
“Never. I’m not allowed to, you know.”
“Poor Faline!” Rolla said softly.
They grazed for a while before they spoke again; then Rolla said, as though she had reached a final, unchangeable decision:
“I shan’t call anyone, either.”
It was now full dark. The cry of the owl haunted the night: “Haah-ah, hahaha, haah-ah!”
Bats zigzagged in ghostly flight, darker than darkness, quieter than primeval quiet.
At the forest’s edge appeared a sturdy roebuck. He grazed eagerly, raising his antlered head the while to gaze about him. Gurri came running timidly to Faline.
“Is that Father?” she asked.
“No,” Faline told her, “that’s just one of the young bucks.”
“He’s handsome!” Gurri said.
Geno said to Boso: “Is the Prince over there your father?”
Sadly Boso replied: “We have no father, now. He died by the thunder-stick.”
“We never saw him,” Lana added. “It happened before we were born. But mother tells us lots about him.”
“My father’s the leader,” Geno said proudly.
Gurri came trotting back. “He’s just a young buck,” she announced disdainfully, “no one for us to think about.”
“What about the sparkly things?” Boso asked.
“I forgot to mention them!” Gurri stamped her forefoot in the grass. “Let’s go back.”
They hurried to the spot where Faline and Rolla had resumed their grazing.
“What are those pretty little sparkly things?” Lana cried.
Faline said, “They’re little stars that disobey their parents.”
“Oh, I don’t believe it!” Gurri said.
Faline shook her head. “Yes, they are. You see, when you’re young and foolish it doesn’t matter where you may be, you always think that you’ll be happier somewhere else. And so the little stars you see twinkling in the sky keep thinking: “Oh, how happy it must be down there on earth!”
“Of course, the big stars know better, because they’ve had a long time to see what goes on down here: how it’s so hot in summer that the green grass dries up for want of rain, and how in winter the streams freeze over and the snow comes down to cover everything.”
Geno started to say, “What’s snow?” but he caught his sister’s eye upon him and thought better of it.
Faline went on: “All the little stars are very happy at first, but some of them become inquisitive until they can’t bear not to know what’s going on down here, and so they fly down. And that’s a very dangerous thing to do.”
“Why is it dangerous?” Geno asked quickly.
“Some day, my son, you’ll fall into a pit, and then you’ll find out how much easier it is to go down than it is to come up again.”
“What’s a ‘pit’?”
“Oh, Geno!” Gurri cried angrily. “Please go on, Mother.”
“Well,” Faline said, “they fly down and down, but when they get here they are quite exhausted, and what with there being nothing to eat on the way and one thing and another, they become smaller and smaller, until finally all they can do is glitter and sparkle a very short while in the shadow of the bushes before they die.”
“How sad!” Lana murmured.
“It’s always so when people don’t know how well off they are,” Faline said wisely. “I heard an old buck tell the herd once that more of his generation died from thinking that the grass was greener in the next meadow than from any other reason.”
“Do you think the stars are happier where they are up there than we are down here?” Geno asked.
“Why, of course,” Faline said, “everybody knows that! There are always grass and flowing streams up there, and no fierce animals or thunder-sticks.”
“It seems to me that you’re as bad as the little stars, Mother,” Gurri said pertly.
She danced off in chase of the fireflies, followed by the others.
“I think it’s brave and splendid of them to come,” she said to Boso.
Geno heard her and chimed in: “Living and keeping safe is much more splendid.” He looked very superior and wise when he spoke.
Gurri tossed her head. “You would say that!” she mocked him.
Rolla and Faline watched them go.
“It’s wonderful to be young,” Faline sighed.
Rolla said, “Oh, I don’t know! There’s a lot they miss!” She glanced at the young buck out of the corners of her eyes. “How did you know all about the fireflies, Faline?”
“My mother told me about them when I was little. The stories go on. Forever, I sometimes think.”
“Do you know what I’ve noticed about them?” Rolla asked.
“What have you noticed?”
“That they come only once, at this season of the year when the grass is young and green and the cuckoo calls.”
“Oh?”
“And that,” Rolla said, “is also the time when the Princes come.”
The smile dawned again in Faline’s eyes. “But of course,” she said seriously, “that doesn’t interest you a bit!”
Rolla stared at her doubtfully. “You’re making fun of me,” she said at last. “But,” her voice grew heavy, “if you’d ever seen your mate struck down by the thunder-stick, broken and bleeding . . .”
“Poor Rolla!” Faline’s eyes were soft with compassion. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’m thoughtless. . . .”
From the end of the field Geno gave an excited call.
“Oh, look,” he cried, “here’s one that doesn’t move!”
The rest gathered round the glowworm quiet on a sorrel leaf.
“He’s resting,” Gurri declared, “resting before he flies back home again.”
The glowworm shimmered regularly as a pulsing heart.
“He’ll never get back,” Lana declared. “He’s far too tired.”
Gurri whispered softly to it, “You’ll get back, won’t you, little sky messenger! You’ll get back!”
Just then the glimmering pulse-beat slowly died.
“He’s gone out!” Geno cried with awe in his voice.
“Done for!” Boso said, and turned away.
All of them turned to leave except Gurri, who remained leaning close to the glowworm. As though by force of will she had pumped fresh life in it, it began hesitatingly to blink again.
“Geno!” she cried triumphantly, as the tiny torch was born again strongly. “Geno, it isn’t dead! It’s alive! Alive!”
The drumming of her triumphant hoofbeats rumbled on the turf.
Chapter Three
DAWN CAME AGAIN; THE TIME of play was over.
There was a hare beside the homeward path, sitting in a little open space in a thicket.
“Greetings, Friend Hare,” said Faline.
The hare raised both long ears.
“Greetings, greetings!” he muttered hurriedly. “Oh, yes, of course, most certainly—greetings!”
His whiskers trembled woefully. He seemed depressed.
“Are those your children?” he asked, rolling worried eyes at them. “Fine, healthy children, Ma’am, if I may say so! Oh, yes, indeed! Quite fine! Quite healthy!”
“Do you think so?” Faline echoed, pleasure in her voice.
“Oh, yes, I think so, Ma’am! Everyone must think so.” He dropped his ears when Geno looked at him. “Oh dear, my boy,” he said, “you must take care! I swear you must! Beware the cruel fox!”
His voice grew quite gloomy. His whiskers drooped.
“I can run faster than the fox,” Geno remarked.
“Run faster!” The hare’s nose qu
ivered with what might have been derision. “Have you ever seen me run? When I was younger—rasher, too, my boy—I ran some races! I daresay I’d have beaten you, when I was in my prime. But look you, sonny, running isn’t everything. There’s cunning, too, and treachery as well. Cunning and treachery!” he muttered. “Cunning and treachery!”
“I haven’t seen you in the meadow lately,” Faline said.
“Me, in the meadow! Ma’am, you must be joking; Ma’am, you must be! Forgive me if I do not laugh too heartily. The matter’s grown too serious. Here I sit by this thicket as you see. One jump, and I vanish, oh, quicker than trout, Ma’am, I assure you. I believe, Ma’am, on my honor, the quickest thing you’ve ever seen.”
He stiffened suddenly, rising up until his ears and body made an exclamation point. Geno jumped himself, his four legs taut.
“What is it?” he demanded nervously.
The hare’s short forelegs pawed the air with fruitless fear.
“Do you hear anything, Ma’am?” he quavered anxiously. “Is there something moving over there?” He leaped round like a jack-in-the-box. “Or is it there?”
Faline calmly sniffed the air. “There’s nothing, hare. You’re much too nervous.”
The hare was so shocked that he forgot to tremble.
“Ma’am, how can you? With those dear children, too!” He turned to Geno. “Son,” he said, “believe me, I’m the first in admiration of your mother. I swear I am, upon my whiskers! A remarkable woman, I always say, and I don’t care, within reason, who hears me say it. But I’m getting on in years, my boy, and I say to you, oh, yes, with emphasis I say it: you—cannot—be—too—nervous!” He came down on four feet and wiggled his ears.
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Gurri.
“Oh me! Oh my! Cunning and treachery! Cunning, my dear, and likewise treachery! You are young, of course, to know the depths of treachery and cunning to which some—who call themselves animals, mind you—can sink. Why, only yesterday . . .” He paused. His voice died.
“Yes?” Gurri prompted him.
“Only yesterday,” he went on faintly, “I swear to you I wasn’t a couple of jumps from the bushes. There was a dandelion, a very succulent vegetable to which I am, perhaps, too much addicted, and for once I swear I knew a little peace. Not two jumps from the bushes, mind you, as safe, I should have thought, as—as that poplar there, and then this scoundrel . . . Oh, my dear, in the blink of an eyelash, the fox jumps from the very spot from which I came. Can you imagine? I was there—I was gone,” he flicked his ears, “like that! But I’ve had palpitations ever since, and, at my time of life, that’s not so good.”
“Wouldn’t it be better,” Faline suggested, “if you went back into the field?”
“I’ve asked myself the question, Ma’am, really I have. But then there are the owls, you know, and which is worse, owl or fox, I really can’t decide. But this I do know,” and here the hare looked at Geno with ears as straight as candles, “I’ve only reached my present age by cultivating a state of continuous nervous prostration. I recommend it highly. It’s uncomfortable, but safe. At least I hope it is! Oh dear, indeed I do!”
Faline drew away, murmuring, “Goodbye, poor hare!” as she left and Geno and Gurri trotted close behind her. The last that Gurri saw of the hare was when he resumed his endless vigil, jerking first this way, then that, his forepaws trembling against his spotless belly.
The day wore on. The air was laden with the perfume of astringent fern, of grass that lay green in the sunlight, of flowers that bloomed along the mossy paths. Woodpeckers hammered at the bark of trees and laughed a while and used their surgeon’s bills again. The ruddy vest of the robin gleamed among the foliage of trees.
Faline and her children slept in contentment, lulled by none but reassuring sounds; yet suddenly Faline was wide awake.
“Geno!” she cried. “Gurri, wake up!”
“What is it?” Geno, stricken with a pang of fear, was on his feet at once. Gurri stood beside him trembling.
“Don’t stand there trembling,” Faline commanded with the full voice of authority. “It is your father!”
“Father!” they cried together; but Faline said, “Quiet, children, until your father speaks to you!”
She advanced proudly to where the brush was densest.
“Greetings, Bambi!”
The answer came in a deep, calm voice:
“Greetings, Faline!”
Majestically the great buck trod the underbrush, his head gravely proud, his dark eyes luminous and serene. Crowned with his mighty antlers, many-branched and armed with long bright points, he came into the clearing.
“Children!” he said. His might was gentled. They knew no fear of him.
“We see you, Father!” they replied.
“Are they good?” he queried of Faline. “Do they behave as they should?”
“They are good children,” Faline answered. “Perhaps Geno is overnervous.”
“That’s well, my son. You’ll live the longer. But I have heard that his politeness fails at times, Faline. Why is this?”
“I think it’s nervousness again.”
“I see. Then, my son, learn to be careful and cheerful at the same time. You may need friends, and courtesy is the way to make them. One day I will teach you. In the meantime pay good heed to your mother and obey her in all things.”
Geno hung his head beneath this reprimand and Gurri allowed her gaze to wander to her mother. When they looked for Bambi again, he was gone.
“Father!” Gurri cried in astonishment.
Faline stood quite still, her head thrown up, her nostrils twitching.
“Your father’s gone,” she said at last.
“But,” Geno stammered in bewilderment, “I never heard a sound!”
“Our father doesn’t make a sound,” Gurri responded proudly. “He’s the leader.”
“That’s right.” Faline settled herself back on her haunches. “Now for the rest of our sleep.”
They all three lay down side by side; but for a while Geno did not close his eyes.
“My goodness,” he was thinking, “I make more noise than that, even when I just breathe!”
A fly droned by on wings of mist. The fly made more sound than Bambi!
Chapter Four
THE HARE DISAPPEARED BEHIND A bunch of tall sedge grass as though he had been jerked there on a string. His old nose bobbing above the grass like a cork on troubled water, he drew a length of dandelion inside his working jaws.
“Oh, my soul and whiskers!” he muttered. “Oh, calamity!”
Faline and her children were watching from the edge of the wood. They had been to the pool to drink, the same pool on the far side of the meadow that had tempted the hare from his post beside the path to adventure in search of greenness.
They watched the fox, his red coat gray with dust, his long black tongue lolling from his jaws, limp toward the water.
There was no breeze. The red and acid morning stifled in a sulphur-laden calm. Even around the pool a rim of mud baked into crystal shapes.
The fox was thirsty.
Geno whispered nervously, “Let’s go, Mother!”
Faline did not move. “No,” she replied quietly. “The fox can’t scent us, nor the hare either. I hope the silly creature realizes that.”
Near a clump of rushes bordering the pool a heron stood motionless on one long, thin leg, his great bill buried in the feathers of his breast, his eyes lowered in scholastic brooding over the oily water. A brace of ducks, which had been floating aimlessly in his vicinity, scuttled for the deep cover of the rustling reeds. The heron glanced up, disturbed by their agitation.
“Oh, it’s you, is it!” he said in nasal, measured tones as the fox came to the water’s edge.
The fox hesitated momentarily. He had been misled before by this bird’s ancient, creaking appearance and knew the power and speed of that mighty bill.
“Ah, yes!” he said as expansively as the d
ryness of his throat would let him. “Just passed by for an eye-opener. I’m in rather a hurry, you know.”
The heron cocked a filmy eye at the copper fan of threatening light which the rising sun spread on the eastern hills.
“An eye-closer, I presume you mean,” he said pedantically.
The fox grinned obligingly. “Ah, yes, of course! Very good, ha, ha!” He lowered his muzzle to the water’s edge. “Do you mind?”
The heron carefully changed his weight from one leg to the other.
“Not in the slightest,” he admitted. “Only, don’t start anything around this pool. This is my territory. I—ah—have some standing hereabouts!”
“You certainly have,” the fox agreed, eying the heron’s slender, horny limb. “Though,” he added to himself jeeringly, “it’s difficult to believe!”
There was silence except for the steady lapping sound of the fox’s tongue. The hare remained petrified in shivering stillness, his front paws close as though in prayer.
Gurri said, regarding the fox, “He’s got a very pretty coat.”
“And an even prettier set of teeth!” Faline admonished.
“Then, what are we waiting for?” Geno whispered.
“The hare might need some help,” Faline said. “If the fox saw the hare and we made a disturbance, perhaps he would hesitate long enough to let the hare get away.”
“Couldn’t he catch us?” Geno asked distrustfully.
“No. We’ve got too good a start and he couldn’t scent us on this baked ground without a breeze helping him.”
“I wish a breeze would come—afterward, of course,” Geno said.
“What we need,” their mother told them, “is rain. Then the grass would grow green again and the forest plants fill, grow strong, with sap.” She sighed; but later she brightened up again. “At least,” she said, “when it’s dry, there are no midges.”
“Why is that?” Geno asked.
“Because they die of thirst, too, stupid!” Gurri rejoined scornfully.
“You’re quite wrong.” Faline reached upward to what looked to be a tender leaf without letting her attention wander from the drinking fox. “It’s because the midges’ eggs can only hatch in wet or marshy places. When the earth is dry and dusty, the eggs dry up and wither too.”