“I’ve been looking for you,” said Porro. “Where shall I sleep? I’m homeless.”
Perri stared at him. Homeless! Now for the first time the magnitude of the disaster dawned on her. She too was homeless.
She did not care where Porro might sleep. She was not even concerned for herself. At that moment she was overcome with a despair such as she had never known; it broke her heart.
“My tree! My kind, lovely, only tree!” she wailed. For a while there was nothing but this plaint—“My tree! My only tree!” She had never known before how dearly she loved the oak. The oak had simply been there . . . home, familiar scene of Perri’s whole existence. She never fell asleep, never woke up, except in that ancient treetop. Perri knew the special scent of the oak, knew every knot on every branch, every knob and crack in the bark. She had taken all this as a matter of course, indifferently. Only now, with the tree lying dead on the ground, did Perri discover her love—too late, and with infinite pain.
“There are other trees in the woods,” Porro tried to console her.
“None like this one!” wept Perri. She hugged the trunk. “I’ll stay here,” she sobbed, “for tonight—I won’t leave my tree—I’ll stay this last night in my old nest!”
“And the weasel?” warned Porro. “The shrewmouse? They can get at you, and they will! They’ll strangle you in your sleep.”
Perri fled in terror, and as she hunted a place to hide she kept learning anew what she had lost.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
STORMS WHISTLED AND THUNDERED THROUGH the forest, followed by lashing rain. The sun seldom shone, and then only for a few hours, without warmth, enshrouded in heavy gray-black clouds.
Perri sometimes went from her new home to the place where her oak lay. She had found a nest high up in a fir. Between two thick branches there was a small hollow in the trunk, its entrance protected from wind and weather. Some other squirrel had once lived there, but the sleeping-space had long been deserted. Perri had little trouble in making herself comfortable.
Nor could she have forced herself to work very hard; Perri was strangely sluggish, and her sad state of mind was relieved only by the fact that she was constantly drunk with sleep.
She had picked the nest in the fir because the dark green of the needles consoled her now that all the other trees were bare. Besides, she could not make up her mind to live in another oak. She would have liked to be true to the oaks, and would have felt at home in their shelter; but after what she had seen she supposed all oak trees were marked for destruction, and she avoided them like the plague.
Once in a while she felt herself drawn toward her old, her murdered oak. There she met Porro, who also had a new nest. Porro, however, had no sentiment; he had taken up lodgings in the top of another oak, and spoke very well of his new dwelling.
“I offered it to you, Perri,” he said. “You may be sorry you didn’t take it.”
“I’m not sorry,” she contradicted.
“You’re just stupid,” he decided, “and so there’s no helping you.”
“I never asked for any help!” Perri retorted.
“Sure, all right,” he said soothingly, “but if you’d looked at the nest more carefully—”
“I wouldn’t have liked it anyhow,” she persisted. Why she would not have liked it she did not say, in order not to disturb Porro.
He confessed, “As a matter of fact I’m glad I have the place. It’s much nicer than my old home; it’s comfortable, warm, and quite out of reach. One is perfectly safe. No marauder can even discover it.”
They leaped about through the fallen trees, and rustled through the withered twigs. After all, this was the scene of their former gay life.
When they came back a few days later, they had another stunning surprise. They had stayed away because they had heard him making an uproar—grinding, hammering, yelling. They thought He was killing more trees, and they did not dare come near.
But He had murdered no more trees; he had lopped off the branches from the felled oaks. The amputated limbs were piled in great bundles. The naked trunks had been rolled close together. There they lay; now they were really dead—oak beside oak, corpse by corpse.
“You wouldn’t know them,” wailed Perri. “It’s too bad! But I know mine, and that’s what’s awful.”
Porro jumped upon the piled-up branches. “It’s enough to make you dizzy,” he cried. “Here are all our old paths side by side, mixed with strange ones!”
Perri poked around in the twigs with him a little. “I recognize them,” she said, “every bridge, every arm I walked on, seems to breathe at me. It’s the same old scent, but mixed with a smell that makes you shiver. I can’t bear it.”
“It hurts to look at them,” Porro agreed. “Let’s get away.”
“You’re right,” said Perri, “we can’t do any good. It’s dreadful to be little and powerless like this.”
A week later Perri looked out from her nest. Fat white flakes were falling softly from the sky. The snow clung to the fir branches, weighing them down. The whole forest was white, and an icy wind whipped nastily past Perri’s nose.
Perri jumped back plaintively. She rolled up, put her tail around her as a comforter, and sank into a sort of twilight sleep.
She dreamed. The forest rose green and blooming before her inner eye. As she darted through the branches in her sleep, she dreamed that the old joy in life had reawakened. Her mother was with her, as if she had never left her side. Her dream sent the past whirling in mad confusion. Memory pictures alternated with wish dreams. Green leaves rustled. Fleetingly Perri saw Annerle, the human child, saw the princely roebucks, the kingly stags. Proudly Bambi stalked past. She heard the magpie chatter, the jay screech, heard the hammering and laughter of the woodpecker.
Perri could not tell whether the melancholy, mocking song of the owl was dream or reality. She could not think in her trance, and never knew whether it was day or night outside. She was hungry, and her dreams called up luxuriant bushes heavily laden with hazelnuts, with elderberry platters. The pungent taste of juniper berries teased her dry palate; in her sleep she cracked countless bitter-sweet acorns.
But in reality her stomach was starved, so starved that it woke her up. Drunk with sleep, Perri crawled from her nest. She looked around in astonishment.
A pale sun hung in a foggy sky, and the whole forest was silent, wrapped in sparkling, blinding white snow. Perri had to dig into the hard, freezing crust of snow that covered the fir, and she was wretchedly cold.
Something to eat! Something to eat! The imperious urge hurried her on.
It was hopeless. She scrambled along the icy branches, racing by fits and starts, and warming herself a little with the exercise. This brought her to the near-by felled oaks. The spot was transformed, buried in snow—in the white shell which solemnly copies life and solemnly pronounces death.
The round trunks were copied on an enormous scale by frozen white waves, a monument to those that were. And the brush heaps, covered with snow, were like mountains.
Perri hurried on, snatching a wretched acorn here, nibbling greedily at a fir cone there, avidly gnawing the tips of the fir-needles. She intended to dig her hoard out of the deep snow when she had gathered a little strength.
The warning chatter of a lonely magpie scared Perri off. She whirled hastily up the fir, with snow dusting in all directions; her scrambling was audible far around.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ONCE MORE HUNGER SNATCHED Perri from her dreams. She had no idea how much time had passed while she slept rolled up in her nest—days, weeks—there was no way of telling.
Conquering her inertia, she went outside, and hurried straight for her objective—the hoard. At the foot of the old beech, in a hole in the trunk, she had stored up acorns, hazelnuts and beechnuts. It had been her mother’s instructions, which Perri had but half understood, yet luckily had followed because the abundance allowed it and the gathering was an entertaining game.
&n
bsp; For a long time Perri had forgotten this storehouse; now a dream memory brought the precious possession to mind. Her mouth watered at the thought.
The snow was already familiar, but she could not get to like it; it was painful to the touch. Its chill went through the paws to the whole body; it was numbing when it blew down from above.
Hunger called. Perri bounded from tree to tree, hurried down the beech, and plunged into the deep snow. She scratched madly, flinging clouds of white powder into the air. Hastily she scraped away the last layers, frozen almost too hard over the storehouse.
Now the treasure was uncovered; Perri began to feast. She was not yet satisfied when she heard the warning of the magpie. Almost at the same moment the jay screeched, “Danger!”
Perri gave all that was in her as she charged up the beech trunk. First to reach the treetop; then it was time enough to discover whence the danger threatened.
But she did not reach the top. The crown of the beech shook with a noiseless leap; the branches rattled, and a sharp scent came to Perri’s nose. The marten!
For a second she was motionless, paralyzed with fright. There he came, shooting at her from the side. Perri flashed off, always tight against the trunk, around and around the tree. Up, down, up again—the marten close upon her. She took care not to look into his eyes; their fiery glance would have fascinated and destroyed her. She did not dare get away from the trunk. To whip along a thin, swaying branch, and leap for the next tree, might have been salvation. But she could not expose herself to view, she did not trust the icy branch, and with horror she felt herself tiring. Still she spiraled around the trunk—breathless, panting. Her strength left her. Only her absolute terror still enabled her to flee. Already the last, despairing urge was felt—if only it were all over! She was ready to surrender, to be throttled, in order to find peace.
Suddenly the marten stopped chasing Perri; he scrambled for the treetop, and crouched down there. Perri remained glued to the spot. Her heart pounded like a hammer, its blows ringing in her ears. Her lungs pushed and pulled convulsively. A fog swam before her eyes. She could not imagine what was happening. If the marten had come just then, she would have sat still to receive the coup de grâce.
But he did not come. He cowered high above her. In her mad flight Perri had not heard the chattering of the magpie and the screech of the jay.
Now two dogs trotted up, a pointer and a dachshund. Noses to the ground, they seemed to be following a track through the snow. They stopped with a jerk in front of the beech, raised their heads, tried to jump up, and barked wildly. “There he is! Sitting up there!” they yelped.
Perri had always despised dogs, and had joined in when the other creatures abused them for talebearing traitors. But now they were saviors, rescuers in the hour of need. She owed them her life.
Perri clung to the trunk, waiting, without stirring from the spot. Her breath came more easily, and if her heart still hammered, it was with excitement at what was to come. Her eye cleared.
Then He approached. The dogs received him with insane barking. He circled about the tree, peering upward. At first He did not see the marten, and He put mysterious auxiliary eyes in front of his own. Finally He caught sight of him, dropped the eyes, which dangled on his chest, and took up his third hand.
The dogs fell silent. Perri shuddered. But He changed his position, and got out of Perri’s sight. Bing! went the shot.
The marten tumbled close past Perri; the branches cracked with the weight of the falling body. The fall seemed hesitant; then the marten plunked gently into the snow. Perri saw a red thread running from the body out on the white snow.
The dogs fell upon him, tugged and shook him, until He came up and picked him up. Perri watched how He took the marten away, carrying him by the hind legs. The terrifying marauder’s head dangled impotently back and forth. The dogs kept close behind, constantly sniffing at the bloody head.
He marched off through the snow. Perri, who soon lost sight of him, heard the warnings of magpies and jays farther and farther away, always ahead and to the side of him. What was there to warn of? she wondered. Now for once He had been a friend in need. His help came at the last moment, just as if He, undoubtedly omniscient, had made up his mind not to leave Perri in the lurch.
Her worst enemy was destroyed. Now Perri moved away from the beech trunk. Rejoicing filled her soul as she slipped homeward through the treetops. But this rejoicing could not find expression; nor did she go back to the storehouse. Her hunger was gone, her limbs stiff and feeble. Perri was exhausted, and wanted to sleep.
With a cozy feeling she rolled up in her nest.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
WINTER WENT AWAY; THE snow melted in the warm winds.
The pheasants crowed louder again as they came down from the trees in the morning. Their wings had a clearer rattle, and the bursting noise of their crowing was gayer. Magpies chattered busily the whole day, which grew longer and longer. The twitter of the blackbirds was heard more often, and sometimes it began to be a song, though it would break right off again. The woodpecker’s tattoo rattled in the trees. The titmice in the bushes whispered more busily than they had for months.
The forest was still leafless, and the bare branches still reached heavenward; but they were no longer despairing and beseeching, but full of hope and expectation. The sap was running in trunks and bushes, making the fat brown leaf-buds shiny and sticky.
Most of the fallen leaves on the ground had turned to rich earth, the remnants went the same way, if more slowly. Through it the white blossoms of the snowdrop nodded, and shy violets hid among them. Everywhere the leek sent up poisonously green shoots, simulating new life in thicket and meadow.
The deer were deceived, took eagerly to the new food, and were made sick by it. Their hair was matted, yellowish-brown. Sometimes they had bare spots as big as a man’s hand, where the winter hair had fallen out. The roebucks grew new antlers, thickly covered with velvet.
But the stags as yet had none to show, and they hid in herds in the coverts, as if ashamed of their defenseless heads.
Now that the cold hand of the snow no longer imprisoned the forest, all the good scents were set free; the sprouting earth, broken in many, many places, sent its odor into the air. The wood of the trees actually smelled of work going on; the meadow grass and the herbs opening in the shadowy thickets gave off a soft, aromatic scent.
When she woke up one morning, Perri thought she had slept but a single night. She had grown thin during her winter weeks of dreaming, and a healthy stomach demanded food, but neither thinness nor hunger had weakened her. Feeling gloriously fresh, she whipped out of her nest, tense with confidence in a splendid feast to come.
She raced along the branches, which gave under her feet. She nibbled the tips of the fir needles; they tasted superb. She ate as she ran, practicing long-neglected breakneck leaps. As she jumped she found tiny shoots and juicy leaf-buds. She embraced the trunks, running up them in her delight at seeing them again. She foregathered with the woodpecker and the magpie, and listened happily to their stories.
Suddenly it occurred to her to wonder: where is Porro?
Porro? Porro? Yes, of course; Porro. For a long time she had forgotten her companion. But now the longing for him was so strong that it gave her no peace. She had no fear for him; she never doubted for a moment that he was alive. But she was frightened by the thought that he might have forgotten her, and would disdain her. She put the thought aside.
Perri roamed widely, keeping a lookout from the highest treetops. Nothing. For some reason she could not bring herself to ask anyone about him. Often she was about to say, “Have you seen Porro?” But she could not get it out, and would run off bashfully.
This new feeling inside her was a complete puzzle. Of course Porro was a pleasant companion, but she had never been excited about his comings and goings. That was before. And this violent desire to see him and be with him was something different. Now it seemed as if only his presence w
ould make her happy, as if she could not live without him.
A voice called: “Perri! Little Perri!”
She listened intently.
“Little Perri!”
It was not his voice. The black squirrel hurtled up.
She flashed off in disappointment, the black squirrel hard on her heels.
“Listen! Do listen!” he begged.
She did not and would not listen. Then he caught up with her, bounded over her, and barred her path.
“Perri! I love you! You are so beautiful! The loveliest of them all, and the sweetest!”
“Let me be!” she barked, springing a few branches lower. But he jumped with her, and caught up again.
“I’m in love with you, Perri! You’ll be my mate. Say yes! I beseech you, say yes!”
“No!” she snapped at him.
“Why not? Why not?”
“You have a mate already, you wretch!”
“Pooh! That mate is gone, heaven knows where.” He made a contemptuous gesture.
“Then go look for her!” Perri fled.
He followed her, besieging her with petitions and promises.
Up tree and down went the wild chase. She ignored his courtship, and ran as hard as she could go. But during her breathless flight she had a sudden insight: This was love! She had a new glowing feeling: I love Porro, and only Porro!
She had no fear of the black squirrel, but only disgust. To avoid his intrusion, she ran.
He called after her, “You must be mine, sweet one!”
She fled the faster, thinking, “My sweet Porro!” Hot and panting she slipped into her nest, before bedtime.
“Until tomorrow,” piped the black squirrel outside. “Tomorrow you’ll be mine.”
“Never!” cried Perri. She rolled up cozily. That night she wanted to dream of Porro; but no dream came to her—nothing but sound, deep sleep.
But in the morning there was a cry: “Perri! Here I am!”