There was less danger in the fields.
One night Hops and Plana were sitting in the middle of a broad stretch of land.
The starry sky arched its mighty vault over the fields, and the black, rigid wall of the forest stood near at hand and silent.
Hops and Plana had just satisfied their hunger.
They were not nibbling any more, for the abundance had vanished and there was nothing more to nibble.
They already had some difficulty in finding tasty food. Whenever they did find something now, they would settle down and eat sensibly until they were satisfied.
“It’s so beautifully quiet,” said Plana.
Hops let both his ears droop and said, “It’s generally quiet here.”
“You can breathe for once,” Plana went on, “and feel yourself safe.”
Hops grew thoughtful, held his head tilted abruptly upward, twitched his nose and said, “We can breathe all right. Oh, yes . . . but we rabbits can never feel safe . . . never! Don’t ever forget that!”
Plana crept up very close to him. “You’re so clever,” she said, flatteringly, “much cleverer than I . . .”
His whiskers quivering, he answered, “I simply want to live . . . and I want you to live, too, Plana.”
Away off in the distance two fiery points gleamed, close to the ground. Shortly afterward they grew to big flaming eyes. A moment later they were two palely glowing suns. A bright radiance streamed dazzlingly from them, along the surface of the field.
Hops and Plana barely had time to lift their ears, to sit up on their hind legs.
The two suns raced on, the dazzling glow grew more blinding, drawing nearer.
A hollow rolling, creaking and whirring swelled deafeningly.
Both rabbits ran, stumbling, half mad with fear, amazement and curiosity.
They were bathed in the white, alluring light of those two suns that fascinated them, and yet filled them with terror.
It was not until the last moment that Hops, almost blinded, bounded to one side into the hollow that served them as a trail. Plana leaped after him.
The monster thundered by, rattling amidst its stench. A moment and it was gone. A moment and the dazzling light of its two suns, gleaming from afar, was already dancing and glancing at a distance across the fields.
Soon it had disappeared entirely.
Hops and Plana lay in the darkness that now seemed to them much darker than before.
“What was it?” Plana asked in bewilderment.
Hops, too, was struggling for composure, “A . . . terrible . . . danger!”
But Plana insisted, “What was it?”
With an effort Hops collected himself. “It was . . . He!”
Plana did not believe him. “He? . . . No, that can’t have been He.”
“It was certainly He,” Hops persisted, “what else could it have been?”
Plana grew heated, “I can’t tell you that! But He . . . ? He? . . . It never can have been He!”
Unaccustomed to contradiction by the gentle Plana, Hops, too, wavered. “If it wasn’t He . . .” he began.
“It wasn’t,” Plana interrupted.
“Then . . . then I don’t know what it was,” said Hops.
“We ought to be thankful that we escaped,” Plana said impressively.
Hops wanted to guard his superiority and concluded, “You see now how right I was. Our kind can never feel safe.”
Chapter Twelve
ONE NIGHT THE FOREST RESOUNDED with strange noises. They were deep, full sounds, and quite short. They sounded here and there from the most tangled thickets, they rose from the middle of the clearings.
The young rabbits were startled. They had never heard anything like this before. But they were hardly frightened at all. They knew that the voices belonged to the forest, that there was nothing threatening in them. They understood. The voices were calling, “Come.” They were calling, “Where are you?” They were calling, “Desire!”
Hops and Plana soon discovered to whom they belonged.
The whole forest cracked and crackled under the trampling of the restless elk.
The rustle of withered leaves revealed their comings and goings.
The slender branches of the bushes snapped when one of the elk kings barred the way.
The antlers of the bounding beasts hammered against the stems of the bushes that made a clear, lively, ringing, sound.
The elk princesses wandered by, young and old. Their manner was quite innocent, apparently indifferent, as if they were aware of nothing at all, as if they were merely driven by an unappeasable hunger. But they were just like the elk, astir every hour of the day and night. They were always pretending to be seeking nourishment. They plucked the leaves from the bushes, remained for long intervals beside the young trees, affecting, with outstretched necks and noses lifted high, to reach the lower branches, then nibbling at them so that the boughs, which had been tugged down for several moments, flew back with an audible snap. Or they would lie down in the open woods and remain there till a stag startled them. Or they would bound in senseless flight, in wild commotion, through the forest, through the midst of the thicket, and out across the meadow. It left everybody in fear and excitement; like them, everyone took madly to flight. Then they saw that it had all been nothing more than a coquettish sally, a whimsy.
But one night, in the hour before day came and the dew, loud cries boomed through the distance. They began with deep, short outbursts, three or four, one after the other. A lowing moan from the chest, that seemed to burst, then the cry rolled out, dark, powerful, tremulous with its own strength, seething with passion.
Other elk answered here and there in the distance. The same deep voices. Then lighter, fainter voices that soon grew mute.
Hops and Plana sat very close together near the edge of a little glade. They saw Brabo, the majestic, pacing from the thicket to the glade, from the glade to the thicket. On his proud, branching antlers, shimmered sixteen bright ivory-hued prongs that rose smooth and perfectly bare from the branches, which were almost black and thickly covered with big black pearls. His thick-set neck was hidden beneath his shaggy mane. He held it outstretched, held his head outstretched, so that his mighty crown of antlers lay almost on his back. And while he bellowed, roaring, moaning, his great, soft, beautiful eyes flashed wildly. The blood flooded his head and colored the whites of his eyes red. The breath puffed in a cloud from his steaming mouth, so that the thunder of his voice hovered visibly about his head. And all his marvelously graceful body, radiating energy, steamed in the chill of the morning with the fire of his passion.
Brabo had five princesses around him. They stood trembling, enraptured, in tense anticipation.
The season of love had come.
Meanwhile, through the tangled undergrowth, Zebo was slinking, cautious, timid, but nevertheless obstinate, urged on by desire. He was slenderer than the gigantic Brabo. He had no stately mane, and his antlers had only eight white prongs.
He was young.
He slunk up to the very edge of the glade. Very close. In the middle were standing the five princesses, and Brabo was jealously guarding all five of them.
Zebo advanced as noiseless as a cat, as furtive, as stealthy and watchful as a fox. Presently he was standing, screened by the trellis of thinly leaved, tall bushes, peering out.
Yonder—ah yes, yonder was the lovely Astalba—there with the others. But the others didn’t concern him. Let Brabo keep them. Only she, the splendid, the desired! Only she . . . !
Astalba seemed to expect Zebo.
As if by chance, she detached herself from the herd and strolled past the thicket.
Brabo had just turned his back. His cries were booming in the other direction.
“Come,” whispered Zebo, “come, beloved! I’m waiting, come!”
Astalba glided up to him.
Hops and Plana heard them talking, in pressing haste and excitement.
“Let us flee,” pleaded Zebo
.
“I don’t trust myself,” Astalba said hesitantly.
“Only a few steps, softly . . . then, as fast as we can,” he implored her.
She remained undecided. “We won’t succeed . . .”
“Don’t you love me?” Zebo begged.
“Can you ask?” Astalba answered quickly.
“Then come, come with me!”
“I’m afraid . . .” She broke off in the middle of her words.
For Brabo had turned around meanwhile, had missed the charming little princess immediately and was roaring horribly, “Where is Astalba?”
He was beside himself, but he knew that there was not a moment to lose. His bellow boomed out incessantly. “Where is she? Where?” He raged around the four remaining females. He beat them with the flat of his antlers. They huddled together fearfully.
Then he saw Astalba reappear, innocent, guileless, as if she had just made a little excursion to while away the time.
But he knew what that meant! Oh how well he knew women and their wiles! He bellowed, furious with anger, and hurled himself into the thicket. “Who’s there?” he kept roaring incessantly, his voice choking with fury. “Who dares to come here? Who’s there?”
In his heart of hearts was a tiny hope that there would be no one and that Astalba’s faithfulness might be confirmed. But at the first bound into the bushes he snuffed Zebo’s scent. And immediately after he heard his rival who was attempting quietly to withdraw. A furious bellow broke from Brabo. The bushes cracked, rustled and snapped under the fury of his onrush.
Then right before him he perceived his opponent’s glossy flank.
Opponent? Was he really an opponent? That mere nothing! That weakling! He was a thief! A common thief!
But Zebo had no sooner heard the storm that came raging behind him than he gave up his soft slinking and vanished with a crackling and snapping, bounding in flight, swift as the wind.
Brabo checked himself.
Let him run! The important thing now was not to leave the women alone! Back! He turned and hurried, panting, to the narrow glade.
“Let him come back, the sneaking thief!” he thought. “I’ll get him sooner or later . . .”
Exultant, with the feeling of a conqueror, he strode up to the princesses. His cry resounded triumphant and vibrant with passionate tenderness.
Hops turned to Plana, “Let’s get away from here!”
Plana’s ears rose quickly. “What for?”
“One can’t tell what may happen,” Hops said. His ears hung down limply at both sides of his neck. His charming whiskers were twitching nervously. Hops looked excited.
But Plana was in high spirits. “What can happen?” she asked loftily and sat bolt upright, her ears raised high.
Hops blinked at her and thought her bewitching. In matters affecting little Plana, he had become almost will-less of late and had begun to notice it. It gave him pleasure to submit to his friend. Only in things involving caution did he still strive to assert his will.
“They are so powerful,” he began after a short pause, “they are so powerful—these kings—and they are absolutely frantic. It’s dangerous . . .”
“No, it isn’t.” Plana was happy and quieted him. “They don’t pay the slightest attention to us.”
Hops flattened his ears thoughtfully. “It might happen . . . without their meaning to . . .”
“No, no,” cried Plana, “let’s stay . . . just a little longer. I’m so curious . . .”
“If only it isn’t too late then,” Hops warned. For the first time he decided not to go alone and immediately. For the first time he did not compel his friend to follow him simply by beginning to run. He was surprised at himself.
“How can it be too late?” Plana retorted, “we’re watching sharply. Besides, we’re so small and so quick . . . and you’re so . . .”
A booming cry ended her speech in the middle. It came from behind them. It was another king, not Brabo. The newcomer was standing, to all appearances, not very far away. Scarcely a few bounds.
The two rabbits crouched flat against the ground.
Once more the cry rang out, boomed out on four, five, frightful, roaring, opening tones—dreadful, like the announcement of some mighty decision.
Brabo tossed his antlered head high. He stiffened to iron. All five princesses stretched but their necks, alarmed and faithless. Then Brabo answered the challenge. His voice was as powerful as that of his invisible foe. “Come on!” he roared.
“Keep quiet, and get along with you!” was the thunderous retort.
Brabo was furious. “I’m standing here, waiting for you.”
“Don’t wait,” roared the other, “save your life while you can.”
Brabo stamped several times impatiently, a series of short, angry stamps. Then the cry rattled from his breast, “Save yourself, you coward!”
“Boaster! Idle boaster!” came the raging answer from quite near.
Brabo knew this encounter would decide things. He had fought many such battles and had always triumphed. Hence his lordship year after year. Hence he possessed the right to choose his own mates year after year. No one in the forest had ever yet been able to deprive him of that right. Not one out of all those who were forever striving to. He stood still and listened to the other’s snorting breath, heard the snapping of the branches, the rustling and crackling of the dry leaves under the hoofs of his oncoming foe, heard the sharp, clear sound with which the other’s antlers struck against the branches and tree trunks.
At last he plunged out, furiously at first, dashing out headlong. Then, at the sight of his opponent, slow and threatening.
Brabo recognized him at once. It was Pasto, with whom he had fought two or three years before, and who had fled so precipitately with a gash in his neck. Through Pasto’s thick mane Brabo saw the long, livid streak of that old wound. He noticed that Pasto’s antlers were very lofty, if not so widespreading as his own. And he noticed that his crown bore ten long, gleaming, white prongs.
Of course, at that moment, both stags were deaf and blind to all else. Had He been there then, He could very easily have stretched them both out on the green turf. For it was against one another that both were now tensely concentrated. Their fury had reached a point at which it almost resembled serenity, at which it was keen-sighted, full of the most exquisite consciousness the most exquisite deliberation.
Pasto attacked, meaning to drive his antlers into his enemy’s flank, but his lowered forehead struck hard against Brabo’s lowered forehead. There was a hollow, cracking sound. Then both stood for a few moments, head pressed to head, apparently motionless. But a tremor ran, barely perceptible, over their bodies while each concentrated every ounce of strength in his neck.
Tense, with the utmost intentness, the princesses watched the two antagonists and shifted nervously from one leg to another without actually taking a step.
Spellbound, Hops and Plana watched the wild drama. They never once noticed that Zebo had again slunk up quietly and was hiding at the edge of the bushes. They did not notice how Astalba suddenly tossed her head high and listened and then, very slowly, with pretended innocence, drew nearer and nearer to the thicket.
Brabo and Pasto broke away from each other at the same moment, made a simultaneous lunge at each other’s flanks, and, by a simultaneous parry, collided once more forehead to forehead. But more violently, more furiously than before.
“Now!” whispered Zebo through the net of leaves. “Now or never!”
It sounded louder than before, more excited, fuller of hope. No one heard it but Astalba. She stood hesitating.
“Come,” he urged, “come quickly, and we’re free!”
Astalba moved her legs, undecided, but driven by desire.
“Quickly, beloved one!” pleaded Zebo. “We’ll be lucky.”
Astalba cast a quick glance at the two combatants, assumed an expression in which falseness and joy were mingled, and disappeared in the thicket.
&
nbsp; There was a slight rustling, scarcely audible. But Brabo heard it, for all his senses were incredibly alert. “She’s running away from me,” he thought. A wave of jealousy surged through his blood. “She wants to get away! She wants to be untrue!” His seething anger scalded him cruelly. “I’ll get her back,” he raged. “I’ll get her back soon enough! But first I’ll settle accounts with this scoundrel here! First I’ll beat him to a pulp!”
Recoil! Attack! Recoil! Attack! Brabo had lost his control and patience. Time and again he sought his enemy’s flank, his chest, his shoulder, strove to grapple him, to rend his belly, and time and again he encountered only Pasto’s rocklike forehead. Time and again they clashed their antlers together with a dry, clear sound. Once there was a peculiar snapping noise. Something white flashed before Brabo’s eyes; a tremor passed over him and a shudder of despondency. Under Pasto’s mighty onset a prong had splintered from his crown. But he had no time to reflect, and no longer the strength of spirit.
He heard a loud rustling and crackling that grew distant. He knew it was Astalba, who was lost to him, who was running away with her young lover. But what did Astalba mean to him now? Only little remnants of jealousy, of pain, of his outraged right of possession provoked him in the fury of the fight. He was fighting for the mastery he had so long maintained. He was struggling for his proud existence, for his own majesty, without which he could no longer live. He was struggling for love. Of course not for love of any one maiden, whether her name was Astalba or anything else. It involved love above all, but it involved everything!
Again they were standing forehead to forehead. Pushing, pressing, their heads lowered farther and farther. Their breath came in loud snorts. Their eyes stood out immense, bloodshot and flashing fire.
Brabo felt that he was obliged to give ground to maintain his balance. He felt that he was giving way. Had to give way! Compelled by the other’s strength, which was superior to his own. Unspeakable astonishment spread through him, an insidious mortification awoke in him and threatened to weaken him. Desperately he resolved to try a sudden charge, a mighty onslaught. It couldn’t be possible that he was beaten. Impossible that the other should compel him to give up his place, him, Brabo!