Moominland Midwinter

by Tove Jansson

  Now she could hear Too-ticky and Moomintroll talking under the rocking-chair – and at once she understood that they talked about her beloved Hemulen.

  ‘This is the limit,’ said Too-ticky’s voice in the dark. ‘We simply have to have some peace again. Ever since he started his bugle-tooting my musical shrew has refused to

  play the flute. Most of my invisible friends have gone away. The guests have a lot of nerves and colds from sitting under the ice all day long. And Sorry-oo hides in the cupboard until nightfall. Somebody has to tell him to leave.’

  ‘I haven’t the heart,’ said Moomintroll. ‘He’s so convinced that we like him.’

  ‘Then we’ll have to swindle him,’ said Too-ticky. ‘Tell him the hills in the Lonely Mountains are much higher and better than ours.’

  ‘There are no skiing grounds at all in the Lonely Mountains,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Only abysses and snaggy cliffs, and not even any snow.’

  Salome the Little Creep shivered, and her eyes suddenly filled with tears.

  Too-ticky replied: ‘Hemulens always manage. And do you suppose it’s better to have him understand that we don’t like him? Think about it.’

  ‘Can’t you do it?’ Moomintroll asked wretchedly.

  ‘He lives in your garden, doesn’t he?’ said Too-ticky. ‘Pull yourself together. Everybody’ll be the better afterwards. He too.’

  Then all was silent. Too-ticky had crawled out through the window.

  Salome the Little Creep lay awake and staring out in the darkness. They wanted to send the Hemulen and his horn away. They wanted him to tumble into abysses. There was only one thing to do. He had to be warned against the Lonely Mountains. But cautiously. So that he wouldn’t know that people wanted to get rid of him.

  Salome the Little Creep lay awake all the night, pondering. Her small head wasn’t accustomed to important thoughts like these, and towards morning she was fast asleep. She slept over morning coffee and dinner, and no one even remembered her existence.

  *

  After breakfast Moomintroll went up to the skiing slope.

  ‘Hello!’ cried the Hemulen. ‘Fun to see you here! May I teach you a very simple little turn that’s not dangerous in the least?’

  ‘Thanks, not today,’ said Moomintroll, feeling a big beast. ‘I just passed by for a chat.’

  ‘That’s great,’ said the Hemulen. ‘You’re not very chatty, none of you, I’ve noticed. You always seem to be in a hurry and going off somewhere or other.’

  Moomintroll cast him a quick look, but the Hemulen looked simply interested and beaming as usual. Moomintroll took a deep breath and said: ‘I happen to know that there are some really wonderful hills in the Lonely Mountains.’

  ‘Are there really?’ said the Hemulen.

  Oh, yes! Enormous!’ Moomintroll continued, nervously. ‘The most colossal ups and downs.’

  ‘Ought to give them a try,’ said the Hemulen. ‘But that’s far away. If ‘I’m off to the Lonely Mountains we mightn’t meet again this side of spring. And that’d be a pity, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Of course,’ Moomintroll replied untruthfully, blushing strongly.

  ‘But really, it’s quite an idea,’ the Hemulen mused on. ‘ That would be outdoor life indeed! The log-fire in the evenings, and new mountain tops to conquer every morning! Long ravine slopes, untouched snow, crisp and rustling under the rushing skis…’

  The Hemulen lapsed into day-dreams. ‘You’re really a splendid pal to take such interest in my skiing,’ he said thankfully after a while.

  Moomintroll stared at him. And then he broke out: ‘But they’re dangerous hills!’

  ‘Not to me,’ said the Hemulen calmly. ‘Kind of you to warn me, but I really love hills. The bigger the better.’

  ‘But they’re impossible!’ cried Moomintroll, beside himself now. ‘Nothing but steep precipices that don’t even hold any snow! I told you wrong, I told you wrong! I remember now that somebody told me that it’s quite impossible to ski there!’

  ‘Are you sure?’ said the Hemulen wonderingly.

  ‘Believe me,’ implored Moomintroll. ‘Please, won’t you stay with us instead? Besides, I’ve thought about learning to ski…’

  ‘Well, in that case,’ said the Hemulen. ‘If you really want me to stay.’

  After his conversation with the Hemulen, Moomintroll was far too upset to go home. Instead he wandered down to the shore and strolled along it. He made a large detour around the bathing-house.

  He felt more and more unburdened as he walked along. In the end he was nearly exhilarated. He started to whistle and kicked a lump of ice with great skill along his path. And then it slowly started to snow.

  It was the first snow-fall since before New Year, and Moomintroll was greatly surprised.

  One flake after the other landed on his warm snout and melted away. He caught several in his paw to admire them for a fleeting moment, he looked towards the sky and saw them sinking down straight at him, more and more, softer and lighter than bird’s down.

  ‘Oh, it’s like this,’ thought Moomintroll. ‘I believed it simply formed on the ground somehow.’

  The air was milder. There was nothing in sight except falling snow, and Moomintroll was caught by the same

  kind of excitement he used to feel at times when he was wading out for a swim. He threw off his bath-gown, and himself headlong in to a snowdrift.

  ‘So that’s winter too!’ he thought. ‘You can even like it!’

  *

  At dusk Salome the Little Creep awoke with an anxious feeling of being late for something. Then she remembered the Hemulen.

  She jumped down from the chest of drawers, first to a chair and then to the floor. The drawing-room was empty. Everybody had gone down to the bathing-house for supper. Salome the Little Creep climbed up to the window and with a lump in her throat crawled through the tunnel.

  No moon was up, and no northern lights were showing. There was nothing but densely falling snow that stuck to her face and dress and hindered her steps. She groped her way to the Hemulen’s igloo and looked inside. It was dark and forlorn.

  At this Salome the Little Creep was seized with a panic, and instead of waiting at the igloo she set out into the whirling snow.

  She cried for her beloved Hemulen, but it was like trying to cry through eider-down quilts. Her tracks were next to invisible and very soon hid by the falling snow.

  *

  Later in the evening the snow-fall stopped.

  It was as if a light curtain had been drawn away, and there was a clear view again over the ice. Far out a dark-blue wall of clouds was still hiding the place where the sun had set.

  Moomintroll watched the new and threatening weather rolling nearer. The sky darkened suddenly again. Moomintroll who had never seen a blizzard expected a thunderstorm and braced himself against the first claps of thunder that he thought would soon ring out.

  But no thunder came, and no lightning either.

  Instead a small whirl of snow rose from the white cap of one of the boulders by the shore.

  Worried gusts of wind were rushing to and fro over the ice and whispering in the wood by the shore. The dark-blue wall rose higher, and the gusts became stronger.

  Suddenly it was as if a great door had blown wide open, the darkness yawned, and everything was filled with wet, flying snow.

  This time it didn’t come from above, it darted along the ground. It was howling and shoving like a living thing.

  Moomintroll lost his balance and turned a somersault. In a trice his ears were full of snow, and he became frightened.

  Time and all the world were lost. Everything he could feel and look at had blown away, only a bewitched whirl of damp and dancing darkness was left.

  Any sensible person could have told him that this was the very moment when the long spring was born.

  But there didn’t happen to be any sensible person on the shore, but only a confused Moomin crawling on all fours against the wind, in a totall
y wrong direction.

  He crawled and crawled, and the snow bunged up his eyes and formed a little drift on his snout. Moomintroll became more and more convinced that this was a trick the winter had decided to play him, with the intention of showing him simply that he couldn’t stand it.

  First it had taken him in by its beautiful curtain of slowly falling flakes, and then it threw all the beautiful snow in his face at the very moment he believed that he had started to like winter.

  By and by Moomintroll became angry.

  He straightened up and tried to shout at the gale. He hit out against the snow and also whimpered a little, as there was nobody to hear him.

  Then he tired.

  He turned his back to the blizzard and stopped fighting it.

  Not until then did Moomintroll notice that the wind felt warm. It carried him along into the whirling snow, it made him feel light and almost like flying.

  I’m nothing but air and wind, I’m part of the blizzard,’ Moomintroll thought and let himself go. ‘It’s almost like last summer. You first fight the waves, then you turn around and ride the surf, sailing along like a cork among the little rainbows of the foam, and land laughing and just a little frightened in the sand.’

  Moomintroll spread out his arms and flew.

  ‘Frighten me if you can,’ he thought happily. ‘I’m wise to you now. You’re no worse than anything else when one gets to know you. Now you won’t be able to pull my leg any more.’

  And the winter danced him all along the snowy shore, until he stumbled across the snowed-in landing-stage and ploughed his snout through a snowdrift. When he looked up he saw a faint, warm light. It was the window of the bathing-house.

  ‘Oh, I’m saved,’ Moomintroll said to himself, a little crestfallen. ‘It’s a pity that exciting things always stop happening when you’re not afraid of them any more and would like to have a little fun.’

  When he opened the door, a wisp of steaming, warm air rushed out in the blizzard, and Moomintroll saw fuzzily that the bathing-house was chock-full of people.

  ‘There’s one of them!’ someone cried.

  ‘Who else?’ asked Moomintroll, drying his face.

  ‘Salome the Little Creep’s lost in the blizzard,’ said Too-ticky gravely.

  A glass of hot syrup came gliding through the air. ‘Thanks,’ said Moomintroll to the invisible shrew. Then he continued: ‘But I’ve never heard about Salome the Little Creep going out of doors.’

  ‘We don’t understand it either,’ said the oldest of the Whompers. ‘And it’s no use hunting for her until the blizzard ceases. She might be anywhere, and very probably she’s snowed in.’

  ‘Where’s the Hemulen?’ asked Moomintroll.

  ‘He’s gone out to make a search anyhow,’ replied Too-ticky. She added with a slight grin: ‘You seem to have had a talk about the Lonely Mountains.’

  ‘Well, what of it?’ Moomintroll asked vehemently.

  Too-ticky’s grin spread out. ‘You’ve got a great gift of persuasion,’ she said. ‘The Hemulen told us that the skiing grounds in the Lonely Mountains are simply wretched. And he was very happy because we all like him so much.’

  ‘I only meant to tell him…’ Moomintroll began. Take it easy,’ said Too-ticky. ‘It’s even possible that we’re beginning to like the Hemulen.’

  *

  The Hemulen perhaps had not very delicate perceptions, and perhaps he didn’t always feel what people around him thought about things. But his scent was even keener than Sorry-oo’s. (Besides Sorry-oo’s scent was spoiled for the time being by emotional thinking.)

  The Hemulen had found a couple of old tennis rackets in the attic and had made himself a pair of snow-shoes. Now he was calmly plodding along through the blizzard, keeping his snout close to the ground and trying to catch a whiff of the faint scent of the smallest Creep he had ever seen.

  On his way he looked into his igloo and caught the scent there.

  ‘Why, the little squeak’s been looking for me here,’ the Hemulen thought, good-naturedly. ‘I wonder…’ And suddenly the Hemulen had a fuzzy memory of Salome the Little Creep trying to tell him something some time but being too shy to do it properly.

  While he plodded along through the blizzard he saw one picture after the other with his inner vision: The Creep waiting for him beneath the hill… The Creep running in his ski-tracks… The Creep nosing at the horn… And the Hemulen thought, flabbergasted: ‘I say, I’ve been unkind to her!’ He didn’t feel any prick in his conscience, because Hemulens seldom do. But he became a little more interested in finding Salome the Little Creep.

  He now laid himself down on his knees so as not to lose her track. The scent went zigzagging and looping along, exactly as little beasts use to scuttle about when they are muddleheaded from fear. The Creep had even been down on the bridge once and gone dangerously near the edge. Then the scent returned, climbed the hill a bit and suddenly disappeared.

  The Hemulen stood thinking for a while, which was no mean effort.

  Then he started to dig. He dug for quite a time. And finally he came upon something very small and warm.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the Hemulen. ‘It’s only me.’

  He tucked the Creep between shirt and flannel vest, rose and started to plod back to the bathing-house.

  On his way back, as a matter of fact, he nearly forgot Salome the Little Creep and thought only of a glass of hot syrup and water.

  *

  The following day was Sunday, and the gale had calmed down. The weather was warm and cloudy, and people sank up to their ears in snow.

  The valley looked as strange as a moonscape. The drifts were enormous, rounded heaps or beautifully curved ridges with edges sharp as knives. Every single twig in the wood carried a large snow-cap. The trees looked most of all like big pastry-cakes made by a very fanciful confectioner.

  For once all the guests swarmed out in the snow and arranged an enormous snowball fight. The jam was nearly finished, and it had given them all much strength.

  The Hemulen sat on the wood-shed roof, blowing his horn with Salome the happy Creep at his side. He played ‘The King’s Hemulens’ and crowned this favourite piece of his with a special flourish. Then he turned to Moomintroll and said: ‘You’ll have to promise not to be angry with me, but I’ve made up my mind to go to the Lonely Mountains, come what may. I’ll be back again next winter and teach you to ski, instead.’

  ‘But I told you…’ Moomintroll began anxiously.

  ‘I know, I know,’ the Hemulen interrupted. ‘You were quite right, too. But after this blizzard the hills must be splendid. And just think how much fresher the air must be there!’

  Moomintroll looked at Too-ticky,

  She nodded. It meant: ‘Let him go. The thing’s settled now and everything is for the best.’

  Moomintroll went in and opened the shutters of the porcelain stove. First he softly called to his ancestor, a low signal, somewhat like: Tee-yooo, tee-yooo. The ancestor didn’t reply.

  ‘I’ve neglected him,’ Moomintroll thought. ‘But things that happen now really are more interesting than those that happened a thousand years ago.’

  He lifted out the big jar of strawberry jam. Then he took a piece of charcoal and wrote on the paper lid: ‘To my old friend, the Hemulen.’

  *

  That evening Sorry-oo had to struggle for a whole hour in the snow until he finally reached his wailing pit. Each time he had sat there with his longing, the wailing-pit had grown slightly larger, but now it was set deep in a snowdrift.

  The Lonely Mountains were wholly snow-clad now and shone before him in splendid whiteness. The night

  was moonless, but the stars were twinkling unusually bright. From far away came the rumbling of an avalanche. Sorry-oo sat down to wait for the wolves.

  Tonight he had to wait long.

  He imagined them running over snowy fields, grey and big and strong – and then they would suddenly stop when they heard his calling howl f
rom the edge of the wood.

  Perhaps they’d think: ‘Listen, there’s a pal. A cousin we could have for a companion…’

  This thought made Sorry-oo feel excited, and his imagination carried him further. He embroidered his daydream while he waited. He let the whole pack appear over the nearest hill. They came running towards him… They wagged their tails… Then Sorry-oo remembered that genuine wolves never wag their tails.

  But that was no matter. They came running, they knew him from before… They had already decided to take him along with them…

  Now Sorry-oo was quite overwhelmed with his vivid daydream. He turned his muzzle to the stars and gave a howl.

  And the wolves answered him.

  They were so near that Sorry-oo felt frightened. He tried clumsily to burrow down in the snow. Eyes were lighting up all around him.

  The wolves were silent again. They had formed a ring around him, and it was slowly closing in.

  Sorry-oo wagged his tail and whined, but nobody answered him. He took off his woollen cap and threw it in the air to show that he would like to play. That he was quite harmless.

  But the wolves didn’t even look at the cap. And suddenly Sorry-oo knew that he had made a mistake. They weren’t his brethren at all, and one couldn’t have any fun with them.

  One could only be eaten up, and possibly have the time to regret that one had behaved like an ass. He stopped his tail that was still wagging from pure habit, and thought: What a pity. I could have slept all these nights instead of sitting here and longing myself silly…’

  The wolves were coming nearer.

  At that very moment a clear bugle call resounded through the wood. It was a blaring brass blast that shook lots of snow from the trees and made the yellow eyes blink. Within a second the danger was past and Sorry-oo was alone again beside his woollen cap. On his large snow-shoes the Hemulen came shuffling up the hill.