“They won’t stop here,” said Mamp. “Let’s run with them. Watch out!”
“Why do you want to risk it?” Hops objected. “He’s everywhere out there.”
Mamp crept along the edge of the thicket, then came back and reported. He had found out that there were only a few game-beaters, placed in such a way that the pheasants could not run out.
Sitting up as tall as he could, his ears elegantly erect, he delivered himself of this speech: “Let us all make our getaway, pheasants! I mean it for your own good! Let us get away! As for me, I’ll run between the legs of the tall gentry, then I’ll be quite safe.” He spoke pompously.
The elk charged in wild flight. Without hesitating, Mamp hurled himself into their midst and rushed away with them.
There was a trampling, a crackling, a snapping of dry branches. Then the cries that He uttered. Then silence. No thunder.
Mamp had saved himself.
Those who remained behind were thrilled and breathless.
“As if he’d done the same thing who knows how many times before!” said Fosco after a while.
“A clever boy, that Mamp,” Hops’ mother declared.
The thunder kept crashing nearer.
“I believe we can risk it now,” suggested Hops, who had long been uneasy and troubled.
“We have to,” cried Fosco, his fears mounting.
All four rabbits ran.
Outside in the forest lane they heard the roaring of the game-beaters. But the rabbits simply separated farther, one from another, and ran on. A few pheasants ran after them.
They reached the next thicket where it was still and solitary. They did not stop but ran through the second, through the third; and passed at an easy run through the fourth and fifth thickets.
The thunder rumbled steadily, fainter and farther away.
The rabbits did not remain in one place, they went farther and farther on. High above them flew those pheasants that had escaped without being hit.
At last they arrived at a great assemblage. Elk were standing close together, haughty and exclusive, as if they were alone in the world. Deer were keeping timidly to one side. Several pheasants were strutting back and forth excitedly, with apparent aimlessness. A fox slunk slyly through the confusion and vanished before he could spread terror.
Mamp was sitting with a number of other rabbits as lively as ever.
“Well,” he called out to them, “wasn’t I right?”
Whole salvoes of thunder pealed in the distance.
“Do you think so?” said Hops’ mother vehemently. “Our brothers are dying now.”
“But we’re still alive,” Mamp answered quickly. Then he grew embarrassed. “Do you remember,” he asked Hops, “how Trumer always used to say: ‘Everyone for himself’?”
“Trumer is dead,” Hops declared gloomily.
Mamp felt that the conversation had taken too serious a turn. He nudged the tired Hops in the side. “Look, one meets old acquaintances here.”
Lugea and Klipps were approaching. A little farther off Olva lay flat on the ground. On the farther side Sitzer was crouching all alone.
“Oh! how nice!” cried Plana delighted. “What a strange meeting!”
Meanwhile the thunder crashed faintly.
“Oh! Plana,” gushed Lugea, “how pretty you’ve grown, and how handsome Hops is. Do you still live out there on the meadow? Yes. Well, we’ve moved in here. Klipps and I, that is. It was my decision. Though after all, it really was his, wasn’t it, Klipps? Oh! he lords it so . . . you have no idea!”
No one else could get in a word.
Klipps made an attempt which, as usual, failed. “W—we are de—de—delighted. . . .” He could get no further. He stammered, but whether he had got into the habit as a result of Lugea’s talkativeness, or whether it was a congenital defect could never be decided.
Lugea finished his speech for him. “Of course we’re delighted. It’s positively unnecessary to say so. I can’t bear superfluous words.”
She was very dainty, was little Lugea, and well she knew it. But of her own loquacity she had not even the faintest suspicion. She did not even know that she tyrannized over the worthy Klipps.
“Well, I declare,” she chattered on, “there’s Sitzer over there. No, my dear, we don’t have anything to do with him now. He’s such a rough. And do you know,” she bent quite close to Plana, “he has designs on me. That’s why he hates Klipps so. Oh, these men! My dear, I tell you!” For a moment she was still. “And that mussy person over there is Olva. No, no, she doesn’t live here. I’m sincerely thankful for that. Just to think that she’s in love with Klipps! What did you say?”
A pheasant interrupted the torrent of Lugea’s talk.
He came in rapid flight from the direction in which the thunder was constantly pealing. He alighted very quickly, in the midst of the rabbits, so suddenly, and so little heedful of them, that they had to spring apart in order to make room for him.
As it was, his wings brushed Hops and Lugea. He did not notice them. He was no longer flying, he plunged when he was close above the ground. He had already lost consciousness and remained lying, his wings outspread, without stirring again.
The rabbits stared terrified at the inanimate creature that had carried its own death so far through the air.
Lugea wanted to begin chattering some sentimental nonsense.
But Hops commanded her sternly, “Keep quiet!”
Lugea kept quiet.
Plana admired him.
Even Klipps and the others were grateful to him.
More pheasants flew in, fluttered down with outspread wings, which they then folded, and strutted about, sound and good-humored, like creatures that have just come safely through a great peril.
One pheasant whirred up and started to flutter as if his strength had failed him. He turned somersaults in the air and, tumbling over and over, plunged between the limbs of the trees, through the bushes, to the ground. Ruffled almost beyond recognition, he lay still. It seemed to be all over with him. But after a while he stretched his neck, turned his little head and whispered, “Where am I?”
Then he rose, shook his feathers to rights and muttered, “Terrible, the way I look!” He ran a few steps, stopped, sank down. “I’m sick . . . ,” he sighed to himself. “Odd, that it should be so sudden!” Again he rose, again ran a few steps, again stopped. “Pains,” he murmured, “sharp pains . . .” He ran further as if he were in haste and vanished in the depths of the thicket.
A royal pheasant flew up proudly. His plumage was all splashed with gold and richly burnished, with white points. His long train was extremely imposing.
But he could not stand. He was shot through both feet. He had to lie on his breast. With all his splendor he made a sorry spectacle.
Then, as he touched the ground and sat on his wounded legs, he felt pierced by a burning pain. But he did not let anything be noticed. “I’m a little tired,” he said quietly while the pain threatened to rend him to pieces. “They won’t get me,” he thought, “not me.”
When no one was looking, he crept on his belly into the deepest part of the thicket.
“We had better go farther on,” Hops advised.
Plana was ready at once. “Yes . . . anywhere where there are no horrible sights . . .”
Hops looked into her eyes. “Where is there such a place? Where in the whole forest are there no horrible sights?”
“But . . .” Plana pleaded, “but there’s some happiness, too. . . .”
Hops raised his ears erect, and there was confidence in his bearing. “Yes, certainly. That’s why we go on living! That’s why we cling so to life.”
They wandered through the evening twilight. It had become still after the uproar of the men.
As they passed through the undergrowth the pheasant, who had plunged down so abruptly, was sitting there. He was well hidden but breathing heavily.
They did not find the royal pheasant anywhere.
&nbs
p; Plana’s heart was wrung.
Hops comforted her. “If no dog catches them—and no fox—they may get well again. . . .”
Chapter Seventeen
IT BEGAN TO SNOW AGAIN, this time in earnest. All day long, with very short pauses, the white flakes hovered down, soft, delicate, pure. They capered merrily through the air, as if it was never their intention, their purpose and their destiny to reach the ground. Or sometimes they would drive down in straight streaks, as though some simple childish hand were sketching in the colorless streaking of rain against the now colorless background of nature.
Soon the snow lay deep and heavy on the earth. It was all one in what fashion it had managed to fall. It lay, exhaling its cold, and its layers grew, often from hour to hour, from one to two feet.
Flight became difficult; no creature in the forest could be as swift as before. The deer made leaps that carried them over the bushes. But their leaping lacked its former lightness. It took strength to pull their legs free of the cold, clinging mass. The frost pierced their slender limbs and they moved about less often.
To the rabbits the condition of the ground was a real calamity. They sank almost completely in the icy depth of the snow. Their beautiful easy running was impossible now. Even a long bound did not take them far forward. Then followed the soft, ineluctable sinking and they had to pluck up heart again for a new leap.
Hops and Plana sat quietly in the deep snow and nibbled the withered, frozen stems of the grasses. They were rather hungry at times, and at times felt a little faint. But Hops had discovered that as long as they kept still they were protected in the snow and that it was even warming, if they sat quiet.
“You’re so clever, Hops,” said Plana, snuggling up to him, “much cleverer than I am. I’ve found that out, too . . .”
“Stop it.” Hops was pleased and at the same time embarrassed to be so praised.
They slept much of the time.
But Murk could not accommodate himself to the hard conditions. He wandered about restlessly, sought to vary the old paths to which he was accustomed, and which all lay under snow. He imagined that all the other rabbits were living very falsely and, in his unsettled mind, hoped to succeed in discovering the one true way. The snow pained him; his eyes smarted from its blinding whiteness, the cold disrupted his shattered nerves completely. He clung fast to the conviction that somewhere there must be fresh, green grass growing, juicy leaves, dry ground, sun, and warmth. It was only his longing for such abundance, which now amounted to madness, but he had fastened on this idea and could not be dislodged. Whenever the other rabbits saw him, his afflicted body and his manner, distorted by sorrow, grief and envy, gave them the impression that he had some important matter in hand, or some great secret.
In the course of one of his perpetual wanderings, Murk was suddenly stopped by some unknown obstacle and could not get away. In the midst of his struggles he felt a painful tug at his neck and had to lie down. He was terrified and bewildered and felt the impossibility of moving as long as that thin, hard loop was pressing into his neck.
He lay thoughtfully for a long while, pondering.
What could it be?
How long would this new torment last?
He took the trap into which he had blundered to be one of the numerous accompaniments of winter, unpleasant but transient.
He waited patiently. Like the assurance with which a mortally sick man hopes for his recovery, a remarkable peacefulness came over Murk, for long intervals together. For the first time in months, he no longer felt afraid. The ironlike loop was cutting into his neck, but he waited, almost in high spirits and with mounting desire to live, for a miracle.
But the miracle did not happen.
“Well, it’s high time now,” thought Murk at last, “I probably ought to be going.” He gave a bound which, of course, succeeded only in part. He fell back piteously, his neck strangling, fell, to his terrified astonishment, on his back. It was difficult for him to right himself again. With difficulty he forced the little breath remaining to him, through his mouth and nose.
Time and time again Murk leaped, rallied all his strength and leaped—forward, backward, to the side. The harder he leaped, the tighter grew the noose around his neck, the more cruelly it choked him.
Then such terror as he had never before known swept over him, a terror that quickly turned to desperation, and then to frenzy.
Murk sprang wildly, without method, without plan, almost without hope. He sprang into the air, simply for the sake of springing. He sprang because he was still living, because his whole heart was consumed with desire to live, and yet felt nothing but the imminence of death.
The snow grew powdery from the captive’s leaps. When he fell to the ground the noose would slacken. But he would always leap into the air anew—and the noose would tighten.
A pair of crows passed by, Hops and Plana came, even Olva appeared. All stood around and watched solicitously as Murk struggled for his life against an incomprehensible, mysterious power.
Murk lay in the snow after the frenzy of his last terrified leaps. He lay on one side, almost unconscious, completely exhausted. The noose was choking him tighter than before. His eyes protruded, big and bloodshot, from his head. His breath came, whistling, short and labored; a bitter-tasting fever parched the roof of his mouth and tongue. He lay in a miserable kind of trance. His frenzy had barely diminished the terror he was suffering, and not at all the pain. In his trancelike condition the despair that overwhelmed him escaped him only in dull moans, as if from a distance, from somewhere else.
Faline, the mother doe, looked at the bush on which one branch shook violently whenever Murk jerked the noose.
“Poor thing,” she whispered. “When I was still raising children, I lost a little son that way.” She stopped. Then she said much more softly, “There’s no escape from that.”
She turned and went slowly away with the other deer. “I can’t bear to look at it,” she murmured.
The rabbits, too, withdrew, reluctantly, forbearingly, as one departs from someone who must not know that the leave-taking is final.
Murk remained alone. He lay quite still. He was sleeping, his breath rattling—the sleep of the exhausted.
When it was dark, Murk heard the step of the two-legged one, heard Him coming, nearer and nearer. Once more Murk made an effort, once more he attempted to escape, and, with all his senses now fully awake, once more suffered the most excruciating pain.
Then the forest heard his death shriek. It rose thin and wailing, like the terrible cry of some human child.
Chapter Eighteen
FOR SEVERAL DAYS A DOG had been roaming around the forest. It was one of the pointers that He always took with Him when He hunted. There was much disquietude, much alarm, much fear and flight as a result of the presence of the dog.
Something unusual must have happened to him. They heard him whining softly to himself, heard him at times howl loudly and piteously. Then he would be silent again, and wander restlessly, his ears drooping, his tail between his legs, through the snow. He was very sad.
At first none of them put any faith in him. They took all his strange actions for slyness and fled from him. But gradually it became quite apparent that this big, brown and black spotted dog, who looked so pitiable, meant well.
The squirrel ventured to speak to him. He came scampering down the huge beech-tree so fast that the snow was scattered from its branches. Inquisitively, his head cocked to one side, he rocked back and forth on the lowest branch, not sitting down, but ready at any moment to race up the limb.
“What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed the squirrel.
The dog sat down on his haunches under the tree and wept softly. Then he looked up.
“Oh! you kind creature,” he answered, “thank you for your question.”
“You don’t belong to us,” cried the squirrel, growing bolder. “Leave us in peace.”
The dog replied, “I want to belong to you . . . It wou
ld be better for me.”
“Things are as they are,” the squirrel said curtly.
“I do leave you in peace,” the dog whimpered, “why don’t you trust me?”
The squirrel began to insult him. “We know you and your kind.”
“Only listen to me,” pleaded the dog.
“Oh, yes,” said the squirrel, “I’ll be glad to let you catch me!”
He bounded upward, twitching his tail. He remained sitting for a moment on a higher limb, peered down and vanished in a flash among the branches of his native tree. It was not easy for the dog.
But the squirrel reported the conversation everywhere.
Pretty soon the fox, too, knew of the matter.
One night he had captured a wild duck, had dragged it into the thicket and was about to begin his meal. There was a crackling in the bushes; dull steps padded along, and in front of the fox stood the big, brown and black spotted dog who looked so pitiable. The fox waited for him, his head lowered, his lips drawn back in a threatening snarl.
“Give me that,” the dog began at once.
“Catch one yourself,” snapped the fox crossly.
“I’m so hungry,” the dog said softly.
“So am I,” barked the fox.
“But you’re cleverer than I,” the dog confessed, “you’ll soon catch another.”
The fox lay flat on the ground, his forepaws tightly clutching the duck. Then he began to mock the dog.
“What did you come into the forest for, you blockhead? Did you think for a moment that you could be free the way we are?”
“I will be free!” cried the dog with a piteous tone in his voice. “Free! Free!”
The fox looked him over contemptuously. “All your life long you’ve served Him,” he said, “have betrayed us to Him. Do you understand for a moment what it means to be free? You fool! Go back to Him!”
The dog wagged his tail very feebly. “I want to be your comrade. After all, we’re related.”
“Go along with your ‘related,’” growled the fox. “I’ve never yet had anything but annoyance from relatives. And now you want to take what’s mine from me!”