CHAPTER 6

 Time passes, and Bambi learns how good grass tastes, how tender the buds of leaves are, and how sweet clover is. When he presses himself against his mother to get some refreshment¹ she often pushes him away. “You’re not a little child any more,” she says. Sometimes she will be even more direct and say, “Go away, leave me in peace.” Sometimes his mother would even stand up in the middle of the day in their little place in the wood and just walk away without looking to see whether Bambi is following her or not. There are even times when she is walking along the familiar paths when she seems not to notice whether Bambi is trotting² behind her like a good boy. One day his mother was not there, and Bambi does not know how that is possible, cannot understand it. But his mother is gone and Bambi, for the first time, is alone.

 

He is bewildered, he becomes uneasy, he becomes nervous and anxious, and he begins to long for her quite pitifully. Very sadly he stands there and calls to her. No-one answers, no-one comes.

 

He listens, he smells the air. Nothing. He calls again. Gently, inside himself, imploringly³, he calls, “Mother ... Mother ...” All in vain.

 

Now he is gripped with doubt as to whether he can endure it, so he begins to walk.

 

He wanders along all the paths he knows, stops and calls out, walks on with hesitant steps, fearful and unable to understand. He is very sad.

 

He carries on walking and finds himself on paths where he has never been before, he finds himself in parts of the wood which are strange to him. He is lost.

 

Then he hears the voices of two children who are calling out like him:

 

“Mother ... mother ...!”

 

Surely that is Gobo and Faline. It must be them.

 

He runs quickly towards the voices and soon sees their red coats shining through between the leaves. Gobo and Faline. There they stand next to each other under a dogwood, looking forlorn and calling, “Mother ... mother ...!”

 

They’re glad that they can hear something rusting⁴ in the undergrowth, but they are disappointed when they see it is only Bambi. But they are a little bit glad to see him. And Bambi is glad that he is not quite so alone any more.

 

“My mother’s gone away somewhere,” says Bambi.

 

“Ours is gone too,” lamented⁵ Gobo.

 

They look at each other in their dismay.

 

“But where could they be?” asks Bambi, almost in tears.

 

“I don’t know,” sighs Gobo. His heart is beating fast and he is feeling quite miserable⁶.

 

Suddenly, Faline says, “I think ... they’re with our fathers ...”

 

Gobo and Bambi look at each other in astonishment⁷. They are immediately gripped by a sense of awe⁸. “You mean ... with our fathers?” asked Bambi and shudders⁹.

 

Faline shudders too, but she makes a face that seems to be saying a lot. She looks like someone who knows more than he is willing to say. She does not really know anything at all of course; she does not even know where she got the idea from. But as Gobo repeats, “Do you really mean that?,” she makes herself look clever and says each time, “Yes, I think so.”

 

That is, of course, a guess, but it is at least worth thinking about. It does not make Bambi any less uneasy though. He is not now capable of thinking, he is too anxious and too sad.

 

He moves away. He does not like to spend too much time on one spot. Faline and Gobo go with him a little way; all three of them call “Mother ... mother ...” But now Gobo and Faline have stopped; they do not dare to go any further. Faline says, “Where are we going? Our mother knows where we should be. So let’s stay there so that she can find us when she comes back.”

 

Bambi walks on by himself. He wanders through a thicket¹⁰ where there is a little bare patch. In the middle of the bare patch Bambi stops. It is as if he is held there by his roots and cannot leave the spot.

 

There, at the edge of the bare patch, in a tall hazel bush, he could make out a form. Bambi has never seen a form like this. At the same time a scent¹¹ came to him in the air, a scent he has never smelt¹² before. It is a strange aroma¹³, heavy and sharp and exciting, enough to make you mad.

 

Bambi stares at the form. It is remarkably¹⁴ erect¹⁵, exceptionally narrow, and it has a pale face which is quite naked on the nose and around the eyes. Horribly naked. This is a face that projects a dreadful horror. Cold and gruesome. This face has a monstrous¹⁶ power to it, a power that could leave you crippled. This face is painful to behold¹⁷, hardly bearable to behold, but Bambi nonetheless stands there and stares at it, captivated.

 

The form remains¹⁸ there motionless for a long time. Then it reaches one leg out, a leg that is positioned high up, and puts it near its face. Bambi has not noticed that it was there at all. This terrible leg stretches right out into the air, and it is merely this gesture that sweeps Bambi away like a candle in the wind. In an instant he is back in the thicket he has just left. And he runs.

 

Suddenly his mother is back with him. She leaps through bush and undergrowth next to him. The two of them run as fast as they can. His mother leads the way, she knows the path, and Bambi follows. In this way they keep running until they are at the entrance to their chamber¹⁹.

 

“Did you ... did you see that?” asks his mother gently. Bambi cannot answer, he has no breath left. He merely nods.

 

“That was ... that was Him!” she says.

 

The two of them shuddered²⁰ in horror.

1 refreshment   

n.恢复，精神爽快，提神之事物；（复数）refreshments:点心，茶点

参考例句：

• He needs to stop fairly often for refreshment.他须时不时地停下来喘口气。
• A hot bath is a great refreshment after a day's work.在一天工作之后洗个热水澡真是舒畅。

2 trotting   

小跑，急走( trot的现在分词 )； 匆匆忙忙地走

参考例句：

• The riders came trotting down the lane. 这骑手骑着马在小路上慢跑。
• Alan took the reins and the small horse started trotting. 艾伦抓住缰绳，小马开始慢跑起来。

3 imploringly   

adv. 恳求地, 哀求地

参考例句：

• He moved his lips and looked at her imploringly. 他嘴唇动着，哀求地看着她。
• He broke in imploringly. 他用恳求的口吻插了话。

4 rusting   

n.生锈v.（使）生锈( rust的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There was an old rusting bolt on the door. 门上有一个生锈的旧门闩。 来自辞典例句
• Zinc can be used to cover other metals to stop them rusting. 锌可用来涂在其他金属表面以防锈。 来自辞典例句

5 lamented   

adj.被哀悼的，令人遗憾的v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• her late lamented husband 她那令人怀念的已故的丈夫
• We lamented over our bad luck. 我们为自己的不幸而悲伤。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 miserable   

adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的

参考例句：

• It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他，这是可耻的。
• Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。

7 astonishment   

n.惊奇，惊异

参考例句：

• They heard him give a loud shout of astonishment.他们听见他惊奇地大叫一声。
• I was filled with astonishment at her strange action.我对她的奇怪举动不胜惊异。

8 awe   

n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧

参考例句：

• The sight filled us with awe.这景色使我们大为惊叹。
• The approaching tornado struck awe in our hearts.正在逼近的龙卷风使我们惊恐万分。

9 shudders   

n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• It gives me the shudders. （（口语））它使我战栗。 来自辞典例句
• The ghastly sight gave him the shudders. 那恐怖的景象使他感到恐惧。 来自辞典例句

10 thicket   

n.灌木丛，树林

参考例句：

• A thicket makes good cover for animals to hide in.丛林是动物的良好隐蔽处。
• We were now at the margin of the thicket.我们现在已经来到了丛林的边缘。

11 scent   

n.气味，香味，香水，线索，嗅觉；v.嗅，发觉

参考例句：

• The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
• The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。

12 smelt   

v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼

参考例句：

• Tin is a comparatively easy metal to smelt.锡是比较容易熔化的金属。
• Darby was looking for a way to improve iron when he hit upon the idea of smelting it with coke instead of charcoal.达比一直在寻找改善铁质的方法，他猛然想到可以不用木炭熔炼，而改用焦炭。

13 aroma   

n.香气，芬芳，芳香

参考例句：

• The whole house was filled with the aroma of coffee.满屋子都是咖啡的香味。
• The air was heavy with the aroma of the paddy fields.稻花飘香。

14 remarkably   

ad.不同寻常地，相当地

参考例句：

• I thought she was remarkably restrained in the circumstances. 我认为她在那种情况下非常克制。
• He made a remarkably swift recovery. 他康复得相当快。

15 erect   

n./v.树立，建立，使竖立；adj.直立的，垂直的

参考例句：

• She held her head erect and her back straight.她昂着头，把背挺得笔直。
• Soldiers are trained to stand erect.士兵们训练站得笔直。

16 monstrous   

adj.巨大的；恐怖的；可耻的，丢脸的

参考例句：

• The smoke began to whirl and grew into a monstrous column.浓烟开始盘旋上升，形成了一个巨大的烟柱。
• Your behaviour in class is monstrous!你在课堂上的行为真是丢人！

17 behold   

v.看，注视，看到

参考例句：

• The industry of these little ants is wonderful to behold.这些小蚂蚁辛勤劳动的样子看上去真令人惊叹。
• The sunrise at the seaside was quite a sight to behold.海滨日出真是个奇景。

18 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

19 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

20 shuddered   

v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动

参考例句：

• He slammed on the brakes and the car shuddered to a halt. 他猛踩刹车，车颤抖着停住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I shuddered at the sight of the dead body. 我一看见那尸体就战栗。 来自《简明英汉词典》