He walked behind his mother on a narrow track that ran through the midst of the bushes. How pleasant it was to walk there. The thick foliage stroked his flanks softly and bent supplely aside. The track appeared to be barred and obstructed in a dozen places, and yet they advanced with the greatest ease. There were tracks like this everywhere, running crisscross through the whole woods. His mother knew them all, and if Bambi sometimes stopped before a bush as if it were an impene­trable green wall, she always found where the path went through, without hesitation or searching.

Bambi questioned her. He loved to ask his mother questions. It was the pleasantest thing for him to ask a question and then to hear what answer his mother would give. Bambi was never surprised that question after question should come into his mind continually and without effort. He found it perfectly natural, and it delighted him very much. It was very delightful, too, to wait expectantly till the answer came. If it turned out the way he wanted, he was satisfied. Sometimes, of course, he did not understand, but that was pleasant also because he was kept busy picturing what he had not understood, in his own way. Sometimes he felt very sure that his mother was not giving him a complete answer, was intentionally not telling him all she knew. And at first, that was very pleasant, too. For then there would remain in him such a lively curiosity, such suspicion, mysteriously and joyously flashing through him, such anticipation, that he would become anxious and happy at the same time, and grow silent.

Once he asked, “Whom does this trail belong to, Mother?”

His mother answered, “To us.”

Bambi asked again, “To you and me?”

“Yes.”

“To us two?”

“Yes.”

“Only to us two?”

“No,” said his mother, “to us deer.”

“What are deer?” Bambi asked, and laughed.

His mother looked at him from head to foot and laughed too. “You are a deer and I am a deer. We’re both deer,” she said. “Do you understand?”

Bambi sprang into the air for joy. “Yes, I understand,” he said. “I’m a little deer and you’re a big deer, aren’t you?”

His mother nodded and said, “Now you see.”

But Bambi grew serious again. “Are there other deer besides you and me?” he asked.

“Certainly,” his mother said. “Many of them.”

“Where are they?” cried Bambi.

“Here, everywhere.”

“But I don’t see them.”

“You will soon,” she said.

“When?” Bambi stood still, wild with curiosity.

“Soon.” The mother walked on quietly. Bambi followed her. He kept silent for he was wondering what “soon” might mean. He came to the conclusion that “soon” was certainly not “now.” But he wasn’t sure at what time “soon” stopped being “soon” and began to be “a along while.” Suddenly he asked, “Who made this trail?”

“We,” his mother answered.

Bambi was astonished. “We? You and I?”

The mother said, “Well, we . . . we deer.”

Bambi asked, “Which deer?”

They walked on. Bambi was in high spirits and felt like leaping off the path, but he stayed close to his mother. Something rustled in front of them, close to the ground.