From that day on, Marena and Gobo were always together.
[CHAPTER] 19
Bambi looked for the elder. He would walk around all through the nights, wandered about at the time the sun rose and when the morning sky was red, all along uncharted ways, without Faline.
There were times when he still felt an urge to go to her, sometimes he was still as happy to be with her as he had been before, he found it beautiful to walk about with her, to hear her chatting, to have a meal with her at the edge of a thicket; but now these were things that did not satisfy him as much as they had done.
Before, it was rare for him to think of the elder when he was with Faline, and even then it was only fleetingly. Now he was out searching for the elder, he felt an inexplicable yearning to see him and remembered about Faline only once. He could always find her whenever he wanted her. He felt little urge to be together with the others though, Gobo or Auntie Ena. He avoided them whenever he could.
Bambi was unable to stop thinking about the phrase that the elder had used about Gobo. He had been remarkably struck by it. From the first day that he had come back Gobo’s reappearance had seriously disturbed him. Bambi did not know why, but when Gobo looked at him it immediately seemed to make him suffer. Bambi was ashamed of Gobo but did not know why; he was worried about him without knowing why. But now, whenever he was with the incautious, self conscious, complacent and haughty Gobo, that phrase came to his mind: You poor thing! He could not get it out of his head.
But one dark night, in which Bambi had once again assured the owlet, just to please him, that he had been dreadfully startled by him, it suddenly occurred to Bambi to ask where the elder might be.
The owlet replied, in his cooing voice, that he did not have the slightest idea. But Bambi could see that he did not really want to say.
“No,” he said, “I don’t believe you. You’re so clever, you know about everything that goes on in the forest. I’m sure you know where the elder is hiding.”
The owlet went back down into a nice, soft, grey-brown ball, turned his big, clever, eyes a little, as he always did when he felt like it and asked, “Well then, do you really have such respect for me? Why’s that then?”