Bambi quotes

“Why not?” asked Bambi, relieved.

“Because we never kill anything,” said his mother simply.

Loud cries were coming from a young ash tree which stood near their path. The mother went along without noticing them, but Bambi stopped inquisitively. Overhead two jays were quarreling about a nest they had plundered.

In the forest he had seen only a stray sunbeam now and then, or the tender, dappled light that played through the branches. Suddenly he was standing in the blinding hot sunlight whose boundless power was beaming upon him.

He stood in the splendid warmth that made him shut his eyes but which opened his heart.

Bambi was as though bewitched. He was completely beside himself with pleasure. He was simply wild. He leaped into the air three, four, five times. He had to do it. He felt a terrible desire to leap and jump. He stretched his young limbs joyfully.

“I only sat still that long on your account,” he said balancing in the air in front of Bambi. “Now I’m going.”

That was how Bambi found the meadow.

Then they both grew serious and all three heads drew together. Gobo thought a while. He made a special effort to remember for he saw how curious Bambi was for the answer.

“Danger,” he whispered, “is something very bad.”

“Yes,” Bambi declared excitedly, “I know it’s something very bad, but what?” All three trembled with fear.

Suddenly Faline cried out loudly and joyfully,

“I know what danger is⁠—it’s what you run away from.”

She sprang away. She couldn’t bear to stay there any longer and be frightened. In an instant, Bambi and Gobo had bounded after her. They began to play again.

“Let’s remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we’d burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid nights. …”

“Now the nights are dreadful,” the second leaf complained, “and there is no end to them.”

“We shouldn’t complain,” said the first leaf gently. “We’ve outlived many, many others.”

In each one of them they were unconsciously seeking for some way to propitiate this dark power, or some way to escape it.

“What difference does it make,” young Karus asked quite despondently, “how far away He is when He kills you?”

“Didn’t your clever crow explain that to you?” old Nettla mocked.

Marena looked at all of them out of her big, calm, shining eyes.

“Love is no nonsense,” she said. “It has to come.”

Old Nettla turned away. “I’m going to look for something to eat,” she said, and trotted off.

Aunt Ena sighed too.

“It’s hard to believe that it was ever any better,” she said.

“And yet,” Marena said, looking in front of her, “I always think how beautiful it was before.”

“No,” answered Aunt Ena gently.

Bambi never saw his mother again.

Everyone was silent. The old stag looked at Gobo for a long time, piercingly and sadly.

“You poor thing!” he said softly at last, and turned and was gone.

In the astonished silence that followed, the squirrel began to chatter again. “As I was saying, a cousin of mine stayed with Him, too. He caught him and shut him up, oh, for the longest while, till one day my father …”

“But why?” Bambi said, “I don’t understand it.”

“It’s enough that you feel it. You will understand it later,” the old stag said.

“Goodbye.”

Bambi said quietly,

“It isn’t dreadful. It’s only hard.”

“Well,” Gobo declared grandly, “if it gets too hard for me I’ll simply go back to Him. Why should I go hungry? There’s no need for that.”

The old stag said slowly,

“We must learn to live and be cautious.”

“But,” Bambi had once objected, “we two are always together now.”

“Not for very much longer,” the old stag had answered quickly.

That was a few weeks ago. Now it occurred to Bambi again, and he suddenly remembered how even the old stag’s very first words to him had been about singleness.

The cold broke, and there was a warm spell in the middle of the winter.

The earth drank great draughts of the melting snows so that wide stretches of soil were everywhere visible.

The blackbirds were not singing yet, but when they flew from the ground where they were hunting worms, or when they fluttered from tree to tree, they uttered a long-drawn joyous whistle that was almost a song. The woodpecker began to chatter now and then.