Now they were both silent. The hours passed. A damp wind blew cold and hostile through the tree tops.
“Oh ... now ...” said the second leaf, “... I ...” His voice broke off. He was gently removed from his place and fluttered down to the earth. - Winter had come.
[CHAPTER] 10
Bambi noticed that the world had changed. It was hard for him to get by in this altered world. They had all been living like rich people and now they began to find themselves in poverty. But wealth was all that Bambi had ever known. He took it as a matter of course to be surrounded by the greatest excess and the finest luxury on all sides, to have no worries about finding food, to sleep in a beautiful room hung with green that no-one could see into, and to walk about in a majestically smooth, glossy, red coat.
Everything was different now, and he had not really noticed it, not properly. The change which had taken place had been, for him, just a sequence of short-lived appearances. He found it entertaining when milky-white veils of mist drew the morning dampness up from the meadow, or when they would suddenly sink down from the twilight sky. They were so beautiful as they dissipated in the sunlight. He liked the frost too, which surprised him when he saw the ground and the meadow strewn with white. He spent much time luxuriating in the sound of his grown-up relatives, the stags, as they shouted. The whole forest would rumble from the voices of these kings. Bambi would listen and be very afraid, but his heart would thump in admiration whenever he heard this thunderous call. He thought about the crowns worn by these kings, so big and with so many branches, like a majestic oak, and he would think their voices were just as powerful as their crowns. Their imperious commands rolled out in the deepest tones, the monstrous groans of noble blood as it rushed around their bodies and seethed with the ancient power of yearning, haughtiness and pride. Whenever Bambi heard these voices he felt overwhelmed by them, but he was proud to have such distinguished relatives. At the same time he felt a peculiar, excited irritation at their being so unapproachable. That hurt him, that humiliated him, although he did not know exactly why or how, or even how he could come any closer to knowing.
It was only when the kings’ time for lovemaking was over, and their thunderous cries went silent, that Bambi started paying attention to other things once more. When he walked through the woods by night or lay in his room by day he heard the whisperings of the leaves as they fell through the trees. The rustling sounds, as they trickled down through the air from every tree top, every twig, were incessant. The gentle, silvery light of the moon ran continuously down to the earth. It was wonderful to wake up to it, and it was delicious to go to sleep with this mysterious, sad whispering. The leaves at that time lay deep and loose on the ground, and when you walked through them they crackled loudly and they rustled quietly. It was fun to have to push them aside with each step because their layers were so deep. They made a shhh-shhh noise that was very fine, very light and silvery. This was also very useful, as during these times there was no need to make great effort with listening and smelling. Everything could be heard from a long way off. The leaves rustled from the slightest movement, they cried out Shhh! Who could possibly sneak up on you? No-one.
But then came the rain. From early morning to late in the evening it poured down, it struck and splattered from late in the evening and all through the night until back to the morning, eased off for a little while and then began again with new strength. The air seemed full of cold water, the whole world seemed full of it. Your mouth was filled with water if you only tried to gather a few blades of grass and if you pulled at a bush then water would gush down into your eyes and up your nose. The leaves on the ground no longer rustled. They lay there soft and heavy, pressed down by the rain, and made no sound at all. Bambi, for the first time, learned how vexing it was to have water streaming down on you all through the day and all through the night and to be soaked to the skin. He was still not very cold, but he yearned for warmth and he thought it was miserable to have to move about while soaked through and through.
But then, when the stormy weather came down from the north, Bambi learnt what it really means to be cold. It was little help to cuddle up close to his mother. At first, of course, he liked it very much to lie there and be nice and warm, at least on one side. But the stormy winds raged all through the night and all through the day and all through the forest. It seemed to be driven by an incomprehensible, ice-cold fury, an insane rage that wanted to tear all the trees up by the roots and carry them away or to destroy them in some other way. The trees roared as they put up powerful resistance, they fought bravely against this immense attack. You could hear their long drawn out groans, the sighs of their creaking, there was a loud bang when one of their mighty boughs split, the angry crack when, here and there, the trunk of a tree would break, the cry of pain from all its wounds as its body was overpowered, split and killed. But then it became impossible to hear anything more, as the storm fell onto the forest with even greater violence and its roars drowned out any other voice.
Bambi now understood that a period of need and poverty had begun. He saw how much the rain and the storms had changed the world. There were now no leaves on any of the trees or bushes. They stood there robbed of all they had, their whole body was naked and could be clearly seen, they looked pitiful as they stretched their naked, brown arms up to the sky. The grass on the meadow was limp and dark brown and so short it seemed to have been burnt to the ground. Even the place where Bambi and his mother slept seemed pitiful and bare now. Since its green walls had disappeared it offered no privacy, and the wind blew in from every side.
One day a young magpie flew over the meadow. Something white and cold fell into her eye, then another, then another, and laid a light veil over her sight. Little, soft, dazzling-white flakes were dancing all around her. The magpie flapped her wings and nearly stopped, but then directed herself upward and went higher in the sky. In vain! The soft, cool flakes were there again and again they fell onto her and into her eyes. Once again she directed herself upward and rose even higher.