His mother raised her head. “To the meadow? Now ... to the meadow ...?” She sounded so astonished and so full of alarm that Bambi became quite frightened.
“Can’t we go to the meadow now, then?” he asked shyly.
“No,” came his mother’s answer, and it sounded quite conclusive. “No, that isn’t possible right now.”
“Why not? asked Bambi as he became aware that there was something very strange going on here. He became more afraid, but at the same time he felt the urge to learn about everything. “Why can’t we go onto the meadow now?”
“You’ll learn about all that later, when you’re a bit older ...,” his mother reassured him.
Bambi was insistent. “Why won’t you tell me now?”
“Later,” his mother repeated. “You’re still just a little child,” she continued gently, “and you don’t talk about things like this with little children.” She had become very serious. “Now ... on the meadow ... I just don’t want to think of it. In broad daylight ...!”
“But when we went on the meadow,” Bambi objected, “it was broad daylight then, too.”
“That was different,” his mother explained, “that was early in the morning.”
“Can you only go there early in the morning then?” Bambi had become too inquisitive.