Bambi by Felix Salten Page B

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.
    â€œNow,” 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.
    â€œCan 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.
    â€œBambi!”
    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.
    â€œWhere’s you