Suddenly close behind him a cry shrilled.
Rigid with fright, Shah turned to see the little hoot owl measuring him with glowing eyes.
“Did I scare you?” the hoot owl asked.
The sight of an owl—even such a very small owl—broke the cat’s proud spirit entirely. Shah didn’t want to fight now. Terrified, he wanted only to escape.
Wistfully the hoot owl called, “Hello! I think you’re nice!”
But the frantic Persian fled.
The sociable hoot owl floated after him. “Are you in a great hurry? Wait a minute! Let’s have a little chat!”
Shah didn’t answer. He leaped, scrambling and tumbling through the trees, thumped and scratched by the boughs. Finally he bounded to the ground and went springing like a hare, faster than he had ever run in his life. Behind him floated the little hoot owl, like some fearful spirit, it seemed to Shah, calling “Wait! Wait!”
But Shah didn’t wait. On he bounced and bounded until at last he reached the familiar garden gate. Never had it looked so dear to him! Over it he sailed and—nearly overcome by a sense of safety—staggered on toward the barn.
“Whew, that was a close call!” he gasped, slipping thankfully through the stable door. “I’ll never go to that murderous place again!” he vowed, shuddering. “Really, never again!”
Beyond the garden, the puzzled and disappointed little hoot owl floated back to the forest.
Chapter 32
ON THE SPLENDID SPRING DAY after Shah’s fateful night Martin the hunchback wandered through the forest. He was alone. When a grazing roe fled, or another stayed and looked at him with confidence, he smiled.
A stag leaped across his path. Martin stood without moving.
The stag stopped too, stared at the man calmly, then comfortably departed. Martin heard his steps through the thicket. Pleased, he continued on his way to his lookout platform. Just before he reached it, something rustled in the grass.
The fox!
Frightened, the red one stood still and stared at Martin.
“What a wise face,” thought Martin, holding himself very still. “It’s almost like the head of a good dog . . . but the expression isn’t good. He looks as if he had a bad conscience.”
The two were barely five paces apart. The fox seemed hypnotized by the benevolent look of these human eyes.
“Poor fellow,” thought Martin, “you have a hard time in your world of freedom. I don’t begrudge you the hare or the pheasant you capture.”
The fox sneaked away, turning his head suspiciously again and again, until finally his watcher could no longer see him.
Martin climbed up to the platform, sat down and looked around. Like a thirsty man drinking, he drew air into his humped chest.
“Nowhere else,” he said to himself, “can I breathe so easily as up here. Nowhere else does my heart feel free.”
His glance swept across the ocean of green treetops and over the plowed fields in the distance. He put his field glasses to his eyes, and searched the preserve he knew so well.
There were many roes in the meadows grazing, ambling, sometimes fleeing when a stag appeared.
He saw a pheasant stroll along with bobbing head. In three different places he saw festive processions of king pheasants.
“Good,” he murmured and let his field glasses drop. “That’s good to see. I thank God for this little world unto itself, this forest world of mine, and all its free and lovely creatures.”
Again his glance slipped tenderly over treetops which were like great soft green pillows, richly prepared as if for the bed of a giant. His eyes lifted toward the sky arching blue and high over the countryside.
“At this moment, the sky too, is mine,” he thought.
For a long time he sat still, his head lifted, his eyes shining. And his heart was full.
Felix Salten was an author and critic in Vienna, Austria. He was the author of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. His most famous work is Bambi.
Learn more at Authors.simonandschuster.com/Felix Salten
ALADDIN
Simon & Schuster, New York
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Also by Felix Salten
Bambi
Renni the Rescuer
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Aladdin hardcover edition October 2013
Text copyright © 1942 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company, copyright renewed © 1970 by Anna Katharina Wyler-Salten and Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Jacket illustration and interior chapter spot illustrations
copyright © 2013 by Richard Cowdrey
Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
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Interior designed by Hilary Zarycky
Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Jacket illustration by Richard Cowdrey
The text of this book was set in Yana.
Library of Congress Control Number 2013933921
ISBN 978-1-4424-8638-6 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8637-9 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8681-2 (eBook)
Felix Salten, A Forest World
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