Suddenly a blackbird flew up to the top of a fir tree. He flew right up to the very highest, thinnest point, reaching into the air. He sat high up there and looked out over all the other trees, near and far while the pale grey sky, still tired from the night, began to glow in the east and come to life. Then the bird began to sing. She was only a tiny dark spot if you glimpsed her from the ground. In the distance her little black body looked like a wilted leaf. But her song spread out all over the forest in great celebration. And then everything came to life. The finches struck up and the robins and the goldfinches made their voices heard. Pigeons rushed from one place to another with wide flapping and swishing of their wings. The pheasants shouted out loud as if their throats would burst. The sound of their wings was gentle but powerful as they swooped down to earth from the trees where they had been sleeping. On the ground they repeated their metallic, bursting cry many more times, and then they would coo gently. High in the sky, the falcons called out their sharp and joyful ‘yayaya!’ .
The sun had risen.
‘Diu-diyu!’ rejoiced the oriole. As he flew back and forth between the twigs and branches his round, yellow body shone in the beams of the morning sun like an exhilarated ball of gold.
Bambi stepped under the big oak tree on the meadow. It sparkled in the morning dew, had a scent of grass, flowers and wet earth, it whispered of the thousand lives it had led. There sat Bambi’s friend, the hare, and he seemed to be thinking about something very important. There was a haughty pheasant there, walking slowly. He pecked at the stalks of grass and looked carefully all around himself. His dark blue neck sparkled in the sunlight like a jewel necklace. But close in front of Bambi there stood one of the princes, very near to him. Bambi had never seen him before, had never even seen any of the fathers this close up. He stood there before him, very close to a hazel bush and still slightly concealed behind its twigs. Bambi did not move. He hoped the prince would come out fully from behind the bush, and he wondered whether he could dare to speak to him. He wanted to ask his mother and glanced around for her, but his mother had already gone ahead and stood a long way away with Auntie Ena. Just then, Gobo and Faline came out of the woods and ran onto the meadow. Bambi did not move but wondered about what he should do. If he wanted to get over to his mother and the others he would have to pass by the prince. He thought that would be unseemly. So what? he thought, I don’t need to get my mother’s permission first. It was the old prince who spoke to me first and I didn’t tell my mother anything about it. I will speak to the prince, I’ll see if I can. I’ll say to him: Good morning your highness. There’s nothing about that that might make him cross. And if he is I can just run away. Bambi wondered whether he had made the right decision, and it kept on making him feel unsteady on his feet.
Now the prince stepped away from the hazel bush and onto the meadow.
Now ... thought Bambi.
Just then there was a loud clap of thunder.
Bambi recoiled and did not know what had happened.
He saw how the prince jumped high into the air in front of him and saw him rush past him into the woods.
Bambi looked hard all around himself, he felt as if he could still hear the thunder clap. He saw his mother, Auntie Ena, Gobo and Faline, some way away, had fled into the woods, he saw his friend the hare rush away in a panic, saw the pheasant run away with his neck stretched out ahead of him, and he could not understand what it all could be about. The prince lay there, a broad wound had torn his shoulder open, he was bloody and dead.