It happened that, by a clear night, Chaman woke up and heard a voice who was calling him in the reeds: “Chaman, Chaman…” Rising on his trembling legs and winking his eyes, he left his mother’s side and got to the pond, taking care to not arouse the venerable does, the herd’s mothers, who were sleeping near the banks. And he pushed the tall shivering herbs with his muzzle, and sought who was speaking to him in such a stealth way. When he leant himself on the water, he got surprised to see the fields of the sky, and the hundred lamps of gods, seeming so near. “Chaman, Chaman…” He heard a second time, although that time the fawn was clearly convinced that the voice wasn’t coming from the place he was standing on, but from his very spirit. He almost shouted, believing he was articulating an answer, because although he was dead to humanity, he however had not forgot the language he was speaking a long time ago… But he contained himself and just glanced beside him. His muffled wail didn’t woke up to anybody, and didn’t even stop the frogs who were cawing under the big, tortuous roots of the willows.
“Here am I” thought the fawn, because his mother told him one day that the gods and the invisible beings of the Forest weren’t deaf to mute words. “Bend your legs Chaman, last born of the Farseeing Herd” answered imperiously the voice in a rustle of reeds. “Bend your legs and your neck, because you’re walking on a soil I made sacred.” Then the fawn bent on his front legs, fearful, and touched the earth with his forehead. When this was made, the voice said: “blissful be the one who humiliate himself in front of the gods, without having seen them.” And without moving or answering, Chaman waited the permission to rise, because the bank’s stones were hurting him cruelly. But the voice kept silent, and only the frogs were making heard their hoarse singing in the darkness.