Now the magpies were also coming out of the same part of the thicket as the crows had come, three or four at a time. “Look out, look out!” they cried. They still could not be seen, but their loud warnings could be heard one after another: “Look out, look out!” Now they came nearer, continued to flap their wings, shocked and disturbed.
“Hakh!” the jays cried, yapping loud in their alarm.
Suddenly, and all at the same time, all the deer came together. It had seared through them as if they had been hit by something. Now they stood still and breathed heavily.
It was Him.
There was a frenzy of smelling the air like never before. There was now nothing left to examine. The smell entered their noses, befogged their senses and made their hearts freeze.
The magpies were still playing about, the jays above them were yapping, but now there was agitated movement everywhere. The tits swished between the branches, hundreds of little feathery balls, and they chirruped “away, away!” The blackbirds rushed dark and lightning-fast above the trees, with long drawn out screams of chirping as they flew. The deer looked down at the white snow through the network of bare twigs on the bushes, and saw a confused rush of small shadowy figures as they ran to and fro. They were the pheasants. Further away there was a shimmer of red. That was actually the fox, but no-one was afraid of him now, for continuous, broad waves of that dreadful smell wafted to them, breathing alarm into their minds and uniting them all into one crazy fear and into one feverish desire to flee, to save themselves.
This mysterious, overpowering scent permeated the wood with such power that they could tell that He was not alone this time but seemed to have come with all His friends, and things were at their most extreme.
They did not move, they watched the tits as they hurried away with frantic flapping of their wings, The blackbirds, the squirrels rushed away leaping from one tree top to another; they thought these little ones had no good reason to be afraid, but they nonetheless understood why they fled when He could be smelt. There was no creature in the forest who could bear to have Him anywhere near.
Now our friend, the hare, hopped away hesitantly, sat still, and hopped further.
“How does it look?” Karus called to him, impatiently.