“Oh, yes,” he stammered, “much handsomer, excuse me, I only meant . . .”
“Whatever you meant is all one to me,” the butterfly replied. He arched his thin body affectedly and played with his delicate feelers.
Bambi looked at him, enchanted. “How elegant you are!” he said. “How elegant and fine! And how splendid and white your wings are!”
The butterfly spread his wings wide apart, then raised them till they folded together like an upright sail.
“Oh,” cried Bambi, “I know that you are handsomer than the flowers. Besides, you can fly and the flowers can’t because they grow on stems, that’s why.”
The butterfly spread his wings. “It’s enough,” he said, “that I can fly.” He soared so lightly that Bambi could hardly see him or follow his flight. His wings moved gently and gracefully. Then he fluttered into the sunny air.
“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.
Chapter Three
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST WAS A little glade that belonged to Bambi’s mother. It lay only a few steps from the narrow trail where the deer went bounding through the woods. But no one could ever have found it who did not know the little passage leading to it through the thick bushes.
The glade was very narrow, so narrow that there was only room for Bambi and his mother, and so low that when Bambi’s mother stood up her head was hidden among the branches. Sprays of hazel, furze and dogwood, woven about each other, intercepted the little bit of sunlight that came through the treetops, so that it never reached the ground. Bambi had come into the world in this glade. It was his mother’s and his.
His mother was lying asleep on the ground. Bambi had dozed a little, too. But suddenly he had become wide awake. He got up and looked around.
The shadows were so deep where he was that it was almost dark. From the woods came soft rustlings. Now and again the titmice chirped. Now and again came the clear hammering of the woodpecker or the joyless call of a crow. Everything else was still, far and wide. But the air was sizzling in the midday heat so that you could hear it if you listened closely. And it was stiflingly sweet.
Bambi looked down at his mother and said, “Are you asleep?”
No, his mother was not sleeping. She had awakened the moment Bambi got up.
“What are we going to do now?” Bambi asked.
“Nothing,” his mother answered. “We’re going to stay right where we are. Lie down, like a good boy, and go to sleep.”
But Bambi had no desire to go to sleep. “Come on,” he begged, “let’s go to the meadow.”
His mother lifted her head. “Go to the meadow,” she said, “go to the meadow now?” Her voice was so full of astonishment and terror that Bambi became quite frightened.
“Can’t we go to the meadow?” he asked timidly.
“No,” his mother answered, and it sounded very final. “No, you can’t go now.”
“Why?” Bambi perceived that something mysterious was involved. He grew still more frightened, but at the same time he was terribly anxious to know everything.
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