“Come closer ... don’t be afraid,” the elder said.
There He lay, his pale uncovered face looking upwards, His hat a little to the side of him in the snow, and Bambi, who knew nothing about hats, thought that that awful head had been struck into two pieces.
The hunter’s neck was exposed and showed a wound as if it had been cut through. It lay open like a little red mouth. There was still a gentle flow of blood from it, blood was in His hair, under His nose, and had formed a large pool in the snow, melting it with its warmth.
“Here we are then,” the elder quietly began, “we’re standing right beside Him ... and where’s the danger now?”
Bambi looked down at Him as he lay there, His form, His limbs, His hair all seemed to Bambi to be something gruesome but puzzling. He looked into those broken eyes that stared sightlessly back up at him, and he did not understand.
“Bambi,” the elder continued, “do you remember what Gobo said, what the dog said, about what everyone believed ... do you remember?”
Bambi was incapable of giving an answer.
“You can see him there, Bambi,” the elder went on, “you can see Him lying there like any one of us. Listen to me, Bambi, He is not almighty like they say he is. He is not the source from which everything comes, everything that grows and lives. He is not our superior! He is beside us, He is like us, and just like us He knows fear and need and sorrow. He can be overcome just like us and now He lies helpless on the ground, just like the rest of us, just as you see Him now.”
They remained silent.
“Do you understand me, Bambi?” the elder asked.