“That’s true,” answered Gobo thoughtfully, “but if it gets too hard for me I’ll just go back to Him. Why should I go hungry? I really don’t need to.”
Without a word, Bambi turned round and walked away.
Gobo now was alone with Marena, and he began to talk about Bambi. “He doesn’t understand me,” he said. “Bambi is good, but he thinks I’m still just stupid, little Gobo, like I used to be. He still can’t understand that I’ve been changed into something special. The danger! Why is he always on about danger? I’m sure he means the best for me. But danger is something for him and for those like him, not for me!”
Marena agreed with him. She loved him, and Gobo loved her, and the two of them were very happy.
“You see,” he said to her, “no-one understands me as well as you do! Anyway, I can’t complain. Everyone respects and honours me, but it’s you who understands me best. The others ... I’ve told them so many times how good He is but they won’t listen to me. I’m sure they don’t think I’m lying but they keep on thinking he must be terrible!”
“I always believed in Him,” said Marena with enthusiasm.
“Really?” Gobo replied glibly.
“Don’t you remember,” Marena went on, “that day when you stayed lying in the snow? I said that one day He would come to us here in the woods and play with us ...”
“No,” retorted Gobo, speaking very slowly, “I can’t remember that at all.”
A couple of weeks went by, and one morning, just as the sun was rising, Bambi and Faline, Gobo and Mareni, were all together in the old thicket of hazel bushes that they saw as home. Bambi and Faline had just come back home from their wanderings, they had gone past the oak and wanted to seek out their place to rest when they came across Gobo and Marena. Gobo was just about to go out onto the meadow.