A Forest World

by Felix Salten

  In a whisper, Tambo asked, “Did you belong to one of us? To me?”

  “Oh, no!” She shuddered. “I was still too young. I escaped . . .”

  “You won’t find love anywhere now,” he said gently.

  Debina shook her head. “It’s not that kind of love I want.”

  A little touched, he said, “Now I’m not crowned anymore. I’m just like all the others.”

  Timidly Debina took a tiny step toward him.

  “You’re not like the others. You are—” She paused. “It makes me happy just to see you—to be with you.”

  Tambo, falling mute, turned away and stepped very slowly through the leafless thicket. Just as slowly she followed him. They did not talk to each other. But Debina followed her chosen one, humbly, silently, faithfully, that day and for many days.

  Tambo found himself growing strangely used to her. He became restless when he could not see her. And this time his period of baldness seemed less bothersome. Still his comradeship with Debina showed only in her constant presence, and in no other way at all.

  Chapter 15

  SPRING APPROACHED, MILD AND gentle, without down-pouring rain or storm. Occasional light clouds floated in the sky, then again its dome arched flawless, the palest greenish blue.

  “Soon the loveliest season of all will be here,” said Babette as she stood in the garden beside Martin.

  “Spring comes to us like a healthy child, gay and smiling,” Martin replied. He was holding a chestnut-leaf bud between his fingers and examining it. It had a coarse brown hull and was bursting with sap.

  Genina, the mother roe, bounded about in front of the barn with her youngsters, Mena and Loso. In only a little while they would be almost fully grown.

  Manni, frisking, joined them, for he was their devoted friend and playmate. Witch and Devil ambled sedately to and fro. Whenever they approached, the young roes fled.

  “Still shy,” grumbled Devil.

  “They’re afraid of you,” Witch said.

  “Why?”

  “You know very well. Gray told you. They’re frightened because you get such angry fits.”

  “Boring things!”

  “No, they’re good, gentle creatures.”

  Devil was jealous. “Just look—they go up to the cow and the calf without fear.”

  “They’re relatives and the fat mother is so placid. She doesn’t scare them as you do.”

  The stallion said bitterly, “Except for me, they seem to like their life here.”

  “Yes, they’ve adapted themselves wonderfully. Do you know, I—” Witch hesitated.

  “You what?”

  “Maybe I’m wrong, of course—but I really think it’s true. I think those two young ones like their good safe life with us better than the horrid freedom their mother considers so precious.”

  Devil stared at the frolicking twins. “I believe you’re right!” He stamped. “But why shouldn’t they? What sensible creature wouldn’t? What could be better than safety and plenty to eat without having to fight for it?”

  “Of course I agree with you,” Witch nodded.

  The air was still sharp with the breath of snow, yet the roe family no longer slept in the stall. Mena and Loso wanted to, but their mother drove them outside, insisting that they sleep in the garden thicket by day and stay awake at night. When they protested shrilly, the mild Genina grew almost angry with her offspring. The animals who lived in the stable noticed that she wore an increasingly worried look.

  Up in the forest, Genina knew, there had been no trace of snow for several weeks, though its breath still came from the distant mountains. A fine light-green veil overspread the trees and bushes in the garden as she watched the young leaves announce their opening.

  In the grass beside the wilting snowdrops, primroses bloomed. Here and there, tightly hugging the earth, a violet spread its fragrance. And the earth breathed a strong promise which filled all its wild creatures with hope and expectancy.

  Morning and night on the highest treetops the blackbirds sang—short trial flights of their full summer melody.

  With a strange abstraction the mother roe listened to these familiar fragments of music.

  One evening near twilight she called her two children and led them hurriedly into the barn. Well-behaved, Mena and Loso stood behind their mother while she delivered a little speech to the stable animals.

  “We’re going home now,” she told them softly. “Back to the forest—to freedom. Farewell to you all! And thank you. You’ve been very good to us—you and He—and we’ll never forget it. But it’s time now to take our leave. Come, little ones.”

  The animals clustered around, talking all at once.

  “Stay a while longer, at least,” Manni begged.

  “You’ll be sorry when you’re back there fleeing from danger,” said Lisa.

  “Why must you ever leave at all?” Witch pleaded.

  The mother roe was silent, looking at her youngsters.

  “Oh, mother, we don’t want to go!” Mena wept.

  “It’s much better here—we’re warm and comfortable,” declared Loso. “We get fed and cared for.”

  “Maybe it would have been better,” Genina said in a low voice, “if we had stayed in the forest.” Then quickly she put an end to conversation. “Farewell, friends! Come, you two!” She turned and ran out of the barn into the dusk, the twins reluctantly at her heels.

  Devil shook his mane. “We’ll never see them again.”

  “It’s a great pity,” Manni observed. “I liked those graceful three.”

  “I hope nothing evil happens to them,” Witch sighed.

  “Don’t worry,” Lisa raised her booming voice. “Whatever happens is fate and they chose it themselves.”

  Devil threw his head up high, yet kept still. Witch sighed again.

  The calf too blew a sigh. “I’m sorry for them. Poor Mena and Loso—having to go back. But I envy them too.”

  “What a silly idea,” Lisa said. The others stared at the calf, uncomprehending.

  * * *

  Meanwhile the three roes were slowly climbing uphill. They set their thin legs precisely one before the other. When they reached the forest they paused, their ears playing incessantly, their noses scenting the air eagerly.

  “Here’s our home,” said the mother roe, moved; “the forest where you were born.”

  “Do you remember exactly where it was?” asked one of the youngsters.

  “Certainly, Mena, my daughter.”

  “Take us there, mother!” demanded the other.

  “That’s exactly where I’m taking you, Loso.”

  And they pressed deeper into the forest. Genina soon found the trail the roes usually trod, closed in among bushes on which the young shoots bloomed invitingly, roofed over by high trees.

  Mena called, “Why, it’s beautiful here!”

  “Isn’t it!” said Genina with satisfaction.

  “I remember—” Loso began softly.

  “Really?” Genina was surprised. “That seems hardly possible, my son.”

  Still softer, Loso whispered: “I think I remember . . .”

  “It only seems so to you.”

  Mena admitted, “I remember nothing. Everything is new and wonderful to me!”

  “Yes!” Loso repeated, still whispering. “I do remember! I’m seeing pictures. They’re hazy, but I know I’ve seen them before. I feel I’ve been here before.”

  “Well, my children,” said Genina, her heart beating in violent excitement at being again in the forest, “you’re both experiencing something good. To you, it’s new, but it will soon be familiar to you, for we are home again.” She was so moved she could not continue.

  “And you, mother?” Mena crowded to her side. “How do you feel about it?”

  Genina did not answer.

  “You, mother”—Loso rubbed his forehead on her flank—“you have our feelings—and your own too.”

  A crackling and shaking from above the
m saved Genina the need for answer. Perri climbed down, waving her pert flag and jumping up and down with curiosity. “And who may you be?” she cried.

  Genina sniffed at her. “Don’t you know me anymore, Perri?”

  “What? Genina? You alive?” Perri leaned back against her bushy tail, her eyes amazed.

  “You can see I’m alive. My young ones too.”

  “I’m so glad!” The squirrel pressed her forepaw to her breast. “Everybody will be glad! We thought you’d suffered the choking torture death—you and your children. So many died miserably that way.”

  “That’s why we went away.”

  Perri rushed up the tree. “I must tell everybody you’re alive!” And she vanished.

  Silently Genina and her children walked along the winding trail.

  Eppi the weasel fled by, as fast as a red tongue of flame licking along the ground. Mena leaped into the air.

  “You!” she cried. “I want to take a look at you!”

  “Let Eppi alone,” Genina chided her. “He’s a robber.”

  Mena was surprised. “So small, and still a thief?”

  “Yes, and a bloodthirsty one.”

  “Is there such a thing in the forest?” Loso asked innocently.

  “There are many more besides Eppi,” the mother warned. “Big murderers, too. We must be careful.”

  She turned off the path, slipped into the underbrush to reach a tiny hollow. “This is where it was, children! This is where you were born.”

  “Oh!” said Loso and Mena together. They looked around the narrow space fenced in by branches and believed they ought to feel something. But they felt nothing in particular.

  Genina, on the other hand, was deeply touched. She lowered her head and stared at the ground.

  She was remembering—remembering those far-off, painful, happy, busy hours. Fighting down her excitement, she turned to the silent Loso, to the mute Mena.

  “Come on—let’s go!”

  Legs delicately lifting, she led the way back to the path. Relieved, the youngsters followed her. Not a single word was spoken. Presently a second trail united with the main one on which they were walking.

  A stately roebuck was pulling and nibbling at the sprouting leaves of a hazel bush. His crown, though not yet fully developed, towered high and thickly covered.

  Genina recognized him immediately. “Rombo!”

  He paid no attention and did not move from where he was.

  “Greetings, my Rombo!” called Genina. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  “Certainly,” he said in a brief, distant tone.

  “But you’re so indifferent—” Genina hesitated, a foreleg in the air. “It’s I! Genina! These are your children!”

  “Better say your children,” was the annoyed retort.

  “Our children—” She stammered in confusion.

  His head thrown high, Rombo said haughtily, “You didn’t care what happened to me.”

  “Oh, I did. But—”

  Carelessly he concluded, “I can’t bother with you now—with any of you.”

  He disappeared into the thicket. Genina heard only the rustling of branches bent aside by his passage. Ashamed, she sniffed after him, inhaling his familiar odor. Puzzled like their mother, Loso and Mena sniffed too.

  Finally Loso took courage. “Was that our father?”

  Mena wanted an explanation. “Is he angry at us?”

  “No,” Genina pacified them. “He is only in a bad mood.”

  “He’s unpleasant,” Loso whispered.

  “Oh, no, Loso. When we meet him again—”

  “When will that be?” asked Mena quickly.

  “I don’t know. Come, children.” Genina tore a few young shoots from the bushes. “Eat this, it’s wonderfully fresh. And good for you.”

  They moved forward slowly, enjoying whatever offered itself by the way.

  “Mmm!” Mena smacked her lips.

  “We should always have things as good as this,” was Loso’s opinion.

  Genina kept still. She was thinking of Rombo.

  In front of them the bushes thinned out. The open space of a meadow spread wide before them. Genina slowed her pace, scenting the air carefully.

  Above her on a long branch of a tree Perri shrilled, “Here they are!”

  Hardly had they stepped out of the brush than they were surrounded by a whole herd of roes.

  “Genina! How nice you’re alive! . . . How good to see you again! . . . I’m glad, Genina! . . . And the beautiful children! . . . Why, you already have your red summer coats. . . . Things seem to have gone pretty well with you. . . . Where have you all been?”

  Cheered by the friendly reception, Genina told them, “With Him!”

  Full of sudden reserve, they all backed away. One mother roe nudged her kid and both galloped off, frightened.

  “Why this fear?” Genina called after them. “You have no reason to be afraid.”

  An old roe explained gravely: “It’s dislike.”

  “There’s no reason for that either.”

  “It’s in our blood,” the old roe insisted, “and so it must be right.”

  “But you don’t know Him. You don’t know anything about Him. First you must learn to know Him—as we do.”

  A few pushed closer curiously; the others, gathering courage, pushed no less eagerly after them.

  “Tell us about it, Genina. . . . Tell us everything. . . . What a strange adventure you must have had! . . . Did nothing bad happen to you? . . . Or to the young ones?”

  Genina told how they had gone down to the Lodge and lived in the stable. None of the roes could grasp what a stable was.

  Then Genina remembered a hunting hut that stood in the forest. “You know the hide-out that He built here?”

  “You mean that funny thing that never grows? That thing He runs into so as not to be seen?”

  “Yes. Well, it’s like that but many times bigger. And there are horses inside.”

  “Horses! How many?”

  “Two giant ones, one of them very wild.”

  “Weren’t you or the youngsters ever afraid?”

  “Oh, we were frightened often enough,” Genina admitted, “for the fiery horse always fought with the cow and the donkey. At least, argued with them.”

  “What! A cow there too?”

  “A donkey too? And who else?”

  “No one else. Only the young ones and I. It was wonderfully warm. Outside there was frost and snow, but inside we were cozy.”

  “Then that’s why you already have your summer coats, isn’t it?”

  “What? Why—probably,” Genina said with surprise as though she hadn’t thought of it before. “We could go out in the open as often as we felt like it. But the children—” She caught herself up, ashamed. She lifted her head. “Of course we went outdoors all the time. The board that closed the stable moved. All we had to do was lean our foreheads against it—and it turned.”

  Perri, crouching on the lowest branch, was listening. She whistled. “What a lot of miracles! You need courage for a life like that—full of surprises! You must have been happy too—eh?”

  Genina raised her head higher. “Happy—no, I wasn’t. I’m happy now. I felt safe, it’s true. I knew I wouldn’t lose the children to the torture death. But no, it wasn’t easy to live that way. Big as it was, that space made me feel—like a prisoner. And then I—I grew afraid the children would lose their love of freedom—”

  “What about the others with you there? Aren’t they free?”

  “No, not at all. They don’t even know what freedom is. They belong to Him. Even the tomcat, who thinks he’s free. They must all obey and serve their master.”

  “Obey? . . . Serve? . . . Master? . . .” Heads lifted questionably.

  Genina shook her ears helplessly. “I don’t know how to explain. It’s—it’s something strange and—terrible. They have no wills of their own.”

  “What about Him?” demanded the oldest roe. “Is He
dreadful?”

  “No—and yes,” Genina said reflectively. “We shuddered when He came close to us and touched us.”

  “With the thunder-stick?”

  “No! He had no thunder-stick. He touched us very gently. With His hands.”

  “How horrible!”

  “Yes, it was horrible. But He didn’t harm us. On the contrary, He was very good to us. The most terrible thing is His smell. It drives sorrow and fear into your heart. Flight is your only feeling then.”

  “But still you didn’t flee,” the oldest roe pointed out.

  “We often wanted to. At least—I did—” Genina grew confused again. She hurried on. “But in the middle of winter we couldn’t. We feared the choking danger in the forest.”

  “You poor things!”

  “Yes, we had to control ourselves. It took a long time until we could even halfway endure that gruesome scent.”

  “Tell us more!” urged some of the younger roes.

  “Later, perhaps. Now we must go on alone.” Genina made a lithe leap and called, “Children!”

  Mena and Loso, who had been listening demurely, jumped to their mother’s side. She ordered, “Forward!”

  Swiftly she galloped around the clearing, circling back to their starting place. Breathlessly the twins followed her.

  “Ah! That was magnificent, wasn’t it? I haven’t done that for a long time. You never did. Shall we do it again?”

  “Yes! Yes!” cried the youngsters.

  Again they galloped across the clearing, crisscross, back and forth. Loso and Mena enjoyed the running. They breathed lightly and rejoiced in the young strength of their nimble limbs. They were so caught up by the momentum of their running that they had to spread their forelegs to stop when Genina came to a sudden halt.

  From out of the wilted grass the leek pointed its new green leaves. Mena and Loso wanted to get at it; the strong smell tempted them.

  “Don’t eat any of it,” their mother ordered; “it’ll make you sick. We’ll nibble the fresh shoots at the edge of the thicket instead.”

  The twins abandoned the leek to stalk slowly behind their mother along the edge of the forest, picking at hazel and elderbushes. They were hungry.

  The return of the mother and her offspring was the big event of the forest. Roes joined them one after the other, wanting to hear the tale.