Now, it again occurred to Bambi, and it occurred to him very suddenly, that the very first thing the elder had said to him had been that he had to stay alone. That had been when Bambi was still a child and was calling for his mother. Then the elder had come up to him and asked, “Are you not able to be alone?”
Bambi walked on.
[CHAPTER] 24
The forest lay once more under snow and was silent under its thick, white coat. All that could be heard was the cawing of the crows, only now and then came the anxious croaking of a magpie or the shy, gentle, twittering conversations of the tits. Then the frost became harder, and everything was silent. Now, the coldness made the air itself ring.
One morning the deep quiet was torn apart by the barking of dogs.
It was an incessant, hurried barking that drove its way quickly through the forest, a sharp, curt and belligerent yapping that made him sound insane.
In the chamber under the fallen beech trunk Bambi raised his head and looked at the elder who was lying next to him.
The elder answered Bambi’s look. “It’s nothing, nothing that need concern us.”
The two of them nonetheless listened.
They lay in their chamber, they had the old beech trunk as a protective roof over them, icy draughts were kept out by the height of the snow, and the tangle of bushes hid them like a dense grid from any spying eye.