Moominland Midwinter

by Tove Jansson

  ‘Sitting here, are you, little doggie?’ said the Hemulen. ‘Have you waited long for me?’

  ‘No,’ said Sorry-oo truthfully.

  ‘There’ll be a fine crust on the snow tonight,’ said the Hemulen happily. ‘And when we’re up on the Lonely Mountains we’ll share the nice warm milk I have in my thermos.’

  The Hemulen shuffled on, without looking over his shoulder.

  Sorry-oo padded after him. It seemed much the best thing he could do.

  CHAPTER 6

  The first of spring

  THE first spring blizzard had brought change and unrest to the valley. The guests became more homesick than ever. One after the other they started back, usually in the night when the snow-crust made walking easy. A few of them had made themselves a pair of skis, and everyone carried at least one little jam-jar with him. The last ones to go shared the cranberry-jar.

  As the last of the guests walked off over the bridge, the jam-cellar was completely empty.

  ‘Now it’s only we again,’ said Too-ticky. ‘You and me and Little My. All the mysterious ones have hidden away until next winter.’

  ‘I never saw him with the silver horns a second time,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Nor those spindle-shanked little ones that came skidding over the ice. Nor the black one who flew over the bonfire and had such large eyes.’

  ‘They were all winter people,’ said Too-ticky. ‘Can’t you feel that spring’s coming?’

  Moomintroll shook his head. ‘It’s too early still. I don’t recognize it,’ he said.

  But Too-ticky turned her red cap inside out, and the inside turned out to be a pale blue. ‘I always do this when I feel spring in my nose,’ she said. Then she seated herself on the lid of the well and sang:

  I am Too-ticky

  And my cap’s turned inside out!

  I am Too-ticky

  Catching warm winds in my nose!

  Great blizzards are drawing near!

  Great avalanches roar!

  The great earth revolves

  And everything is changed these days

  Including people’s winter woollens.

  One evening when Moomintroll was on his way home from the bathing-house he stopped on the path and pricked his ears.

  It was a cloudy, warm night, full of movement. The trees had long since shaken off their snow, and he could hear them tossing their branches in the dark.

  Far away from the south came a strong gust of wind. He could hear it soughing along through the wood and passing him on its way across the valley.

  A little shower of water drops fell from the trees into the darkening snow, and Moomintroll lifted his snout to sniff.

  That could have been a faint whiff of bare earth, indeed. He continued on his way and knew that Too-ticky had been right. Spring was really on its way.

  For the first time in many weeks Moomintroll went and looked carefully at his sleeping Pappa and Mamma. He also held the lamp over the Snork Maiden and regarded her musingly. Her fringe fluff had a nice gleam in the lamplight. She was very sweet. As soon as she awoke she would rush to the cupboard and look for her green spring hat.

  Moomintroll set the lamp on the mantelpiece and looked around him at the drawing-room. It was a horrid sight indeed. Most of the things had been given away, borrowed or simply taken by some thoughtless guest.

  The remaining things were in an indescribable jumble. Unwashed dishes were piled high on the kitchen sink. The central-heating fire in the cellar would soon go out, as there was no more peat. The jam-cellar was empty. And a window-pane was broken.

  Moomintroll pondered. He could hear the wet snow starting to slide down along the roof above him. It landed with a big thump, and suddenly he could see a piece of the clouded night sky through the upper part of the south window.

  Moomintroll went to the main door and felt it. Didn’t it give, ever so little? He dug his hind paws in the carpet and applied all his muscle.

  Slowly, very slowly the door opened, pushing a large mass of snow outwards before it.

  Moomintroll didn’t give up until the door stood wide open against the night.

  Now the strong wind blew straight into the drawing-room. It shook the dust off the gauze around the chandelier, and it fanned the ashes in the porcelain stove. It flapped the transfers that were pasted on the walls. One of them came off and was carried away.

  The room was filled with a smell of night and firs, and Moomintroll thought: ‘Good. A family has to be ventilated at times.’ He went out on the steps and stared out into the damp darkness.

  ‘Now I’ve got everything,’ Moomintroll said to himself. ‘I’ve got the whole year. Winter too. I’m the first Moomin to have lived through an entire year.’

  *

  Really, this winter’s tale ought to stop exactly at this point. All this about the first spring night, and the wind rushing about in the drawing-room makes a magnificent ending. And then everybody could think what they pleased about what happened afterwards. But that wouldn’t be right.

  Because one still couldn’t be absolutely sure of what Moominmamma had to say when she awoke. Nor would one know whether the ancestor was allowed to settle down for good in the porcelain stove. Nor whether Snuf-kin was back again before the story ended. Nor how the Mymble had managed without her cardboard box. Nor where Too-ticky would move when the bathing-house became a bathing-house again. Nor a lot of other things.

  I suppose it’s better to go on.

  Especially as the break-up of the ice is an important event and much too dramatic to be left out.

  *

  Now followed the mysterious month of bright sunny days, of melting icicles, and winds, and rushing skies – and of sharply freezing nights with a snow-crust and a dazzling moon. Moomintroll explored every nook of his valley, dizzy from expectation and pride.

  Now came spring, but not at all as he had imagined its coming. He had thought that it would deliver him from a strange and hostile world, but now it was simply a continuation of his new experiences, of something he had already conquered and made his own.

  He hoped for a long spring, so that he could have his happy, expectant feeling as long as possible. Every morning he almost dreaded for the second-best that could happen: that someone of the family would awaken. He moved cautiously and tried not to bump into things in the drawing-room. And early in the morning he went scuttling out in the valley, to sniff the new smells and to look at the changes since the day before.

  By the south wall of the woodshed an ever-widening spot of earth was becoming bare. The birches were showing a faint shade of red, but it could be seen only at a distance. The sun had burned right through the snowdrifts, and made them honeycombed and brittle. And the ice was darkening, as if the sea was beginning to show through.

  Little My still went skating about far out. She had changed her tin lids for kitchen knives and managed to fasten them edgewise under her boots.

  Now and then Moomintroll came across a figure eight she had made in the ice, but very seldom did he see her. She had always had the gift of having fun on her own, and whatever she might have been thinking about spring she felt no need to talk about it.

  Too-ticky was having a spring cleaning in the bathing-house.

  She rubbed all the green and red panes bright for the first summer fly, she hung out the bath-gowns in the sun and tried to repair the rubber Hemulen.

  ‘Now the bathing-house’ll be a bathing-house again,’ she said. ‘When the summer’s hot and green, and you lie on your tummy on the warm boards of the landing-stage and listen to the waves chuckling and clucking…’

  ‘Why didn’t you talk like that in winter,’ said Moomintroll. ‘It’d have been such a comfort. Remember, I said once: “There were a lot of apples here.” And you just replied: “But now here’s a lot of snow.” Didn’t you understand that I was melancholy?’

  Too-ticky shrugged her shoulders. ‘One has to discover

  everything for oneself,’ she replied. ‘And get over
it all alone.’

  The sun was more and more burning every day.

  It bored the ice full of small holes and channels, and one could see that the sea was becoming restless below.

  Beyond the horizon great gales were wandering to and fro.

  Moomintroll lay awake late at nights, listening to the creakings and crackings in the walls of the sleeping house.

  The ancestor was very quiet. He had closed the shutters behind him and perhaps retired again a thousand years back. The damper cord had disappeared into the cranny between the stove and the wall, tassels, embroidery and all.

  ‘He liked it,’ Moomintroll thought. He had moved from the basket of wool and was sleeping in his own bed

  again. In the mornings the sun shone farther and farther into the drawing-room, looking embarrassedly at cobwebs and dust pellets. The bigger dust wads, those that had grown round and full of personality, Moomintroll used to carry out on the veranda, but the small ones he allowed to roll about as they liked.

  The earth under the south window was becoming quite warm in the afternoon. It looked slightly bulging

  from brown, bursting bulbs and from the many small root threads that were eagerly sucking at the melting snow.

  And then one windy day, a little before dusk, a strong and majestic report was heard far out to sea.

  ‘Well,’ said Too-ticky and put her teacup down. ‘The spring cannonade’s starting.’

  The ice heaved, and more reports thundered.

  Moomintroll ran out from the bathing-house to listen in the warm wind.

  ‘Look, the sea’s coming in,’ said Too-ticky behind him.

  Far out a white border of waves was hissing, angry and hungry waves biting off piece after piece of the winter ice.

  A black crack came shooting in along the ice, it wove to and fro, and then it tired and disappeared. The sea heaved again and new cracks formed. They broadened.

  ‘I know someone who’d better hurry up and come home,’ said Too-ticky.

  Little My of course had noticed that something was about to happen. But she simply couldn’t leave off. She had to take a look, out where the sea had broken free. So

  she had skated up to the outermost edge and cut a proud figure of eight in the face of the sea.

  Then she turned about and went back at top speed over the cracking ice. At first the cracks were quite thine ‘Danger’, they were writing all over the ice, as far as she could see.

  The ice sagged, heaved and sank again, and every now and then thundered the cannon salute of festivity and destruction that sent delightful cold thrills up her back.

  ‘I hope the silly asses won’t be hopping out here to save me,’ she thought. ‘That’d spoil everything.’ She went full speed ahead, nearly doubled up on her kitchen knives. The shore didn’t seem to come any nearer.

  Now some of the cracks were widening and becoming streams. An angry little wave lashed out.

  And then suddenly the sea was filled with rocking ice islands that knocked against each other in confusion. On one of them stood Little My, looking at the stretches of water all around her, and she thought without any special alarm: ‘Well, this is a pretty go.’

  Moomintroll was already on his way out to her rescue. Too-ticky stood looking on for a while, and then she went, inside the bathing-house and put a kettle of water on the stove. ‘Quite, quite,’ she thought with a little sigh. ‘It’s always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes afterwards.’

  As Moomintroll ran he watched a small crack running alongside him. It was keeping abreast of him.

  The ice heaved in the swell, and suddenly it broke in pieces and started rocking violently under his feet.

  Little My was standing quite still on her ice-floe, watching the jumping Moomintroll. He looked exactly like a bouncing rubber ball, and his eyes were round from excitement and strain. When he landed at her side Little My held up her arms and said: ‘Put me on your head, will you, so I can get off if I must?’

  Then she grabbed a sure hold of his ears and cried: ‘“A” company, towards the shore, turn!’

  Moomintroll threw a quick glance at the bathing-house. The chimney was smoking, but not a soul was to be seen on the landing-stage, wringing its hands from worry. He hesitated, and his legs suddenly felt heavy from disappointment.

  Off we go!’ shouted Little My.

  And Moomintroll set out. He jumped and he jumped, with set teeth and on shaky legs. Every time he landed on a new floe a cold shower washed his tummy.

  The whole stretch of ice was broken now, and the waves were waltzing all the way to the shore.

  ‘Keep in step!’ shouted Litde My. ‘Here’s one again… you’ll feel it under you… jump!’

  And Moomintroll jumped, at the exact moment when the wave gently pushed an ice-floe under his paws. ‘One, two, three; one, two three,’ Little My was counting in waltz time. ‘One, two, three, wait – one, two, three – jump!’

  Moomintroll’s legs were shaky and his stomach cold as ice. A red sunset was breaking through the cloudy sky, and the gleam of the waves hurt his eyes. He felt hot all down his back, but his stomach was cold and the whole cruel world was swirling dizzily before his eyes.

  Too-ticky had kept an earnest look-out in the window of the bathing-house, and she saw now that things were going badly.

  ‘Stupid of me,’ she thought. ‘Of course he can’t know that I’ve been looking on all the time…’

  She rushed out on the landing-stage and cried: ‘Oh, well done sir!’

  But it was already too late.

  The last, lonely jump had been too much for Moomintroll,

  and he suddenly found himself floating in the sea with water up to his ears, while a spirited little ice-floe kept knocking him in the back of his neck.

  Little My had let go of his ears and taken a last long jump ashore. It is strange how deftly people like the Mys get on in life.

  ‘Catch hold,’ said Too-ticky, reaching out a steady paw. She lay on her stomach on Moominmamma’s wash-board and looked straight in Moomintroll’s troubled eyes.

  ‘There, there,’ she said. Slowly Moomintroll was dragged up over the ice-edge, and slowly he crawled inwards over the boulders by the water. He said: ‘You didn’t even care to look on.’

  ‘I watched you through the window all the time,’ Too-ticky replied worriedly. ‘Now you’d better come inside and warm yourself.’

  ‘No, I’m going home,’ said Moomintroll. He rose to his feet and staggered off.

  ‘Warm syrup!’ Too-ticky shouted after him. ‘Don’t forget to drink something warm!’

  The path was wet from melting snow, and Moomintroll could feel roots and pine needles under his paws. But he was shaking from cold, and his legs felt slithery, like rubber.

  He hardly turned his head as a small squirrel jumped across his path.

  ‘Happy spring,’ said the squirrel, absentmindedly.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ replied Moomintroll and continued on his way. But all at once he stopped short and stared at the squirrel. It had a big and bushy tail that shone red in the sunset.

  ‘Do people call you the squirrel with the marvellous tail?’ Moomintroll asked slowly. ‘Of course,’ said the squirrel.

  ‘Is it you?’ cried Moomintroll. ‘Is it really you? Who met the Lady of the Cold?’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said the squirrel. ‘You know, I’m not very bright at remembering things.’

  ‘But try to,’ begged Moomintroll. ‘Don’t you even remember the nice mattress that was stuffed with wool?’

  The squirrel scratched his left ear. ‘I remember a lot of mattresses,’ he replied. ‘With wool, and other stuffings. Wool ones are nicest.’

  And the squirrel skipped off between the trees.

  ‘I’ll have to look into this later,’ thought Moomintroll. ‘For the moment I’m too cold. I have to go home…’

  And he sn
eezed, because he had got a bad cold for the first time in his life.

  The central-heating fire had gone out, and the drawing-room was very chilly.

  With shaking paws Moomintroll heaped several carpets over his stomach, but they didn’t make him feel any warmer. He had a pain in his legs and felt a pricking in his throat. All of a sudden life was sad, and his snout felt strange and enormous. He tried to curl his ice-cold tail, and he sneezed again.

  At this his Mamma awoke.

  She hadn’t heard the thunder of the breaking ice and never once the howls of the blizzards. Her house had been filled with restless guests, but neither they nor the alarm clock had been able to wake her.

  Now she opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling, wide awake.

  Then she sat up in bed and said: ‘You’ve caught a cold, Moomintroll.’

  ‘Mamma,’ Moomintroll said between chattering teeth, ‘if I were only sure it was the same squirrel and not another one.’

  Moominmamma hurried out to the kitchen to warm some syrup.

  ‘Nobody’s washed the dishes,’ Moomintroll cried wretchedly.

  ‘Oh, of course not,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Everything’s going to be all right.’

  She found a few sticks of wood behind the slop-pail. She took a bottle of currant syrup from her secret cupboard, as well as a powder and a flannel scarf.

  When the water boiled she mixed a strong influenza medicine of sugar and ginger, and an old lemon that used to lie behind the tea-cosy on the topmost shelf but one.

  There was no tea-cosy, nor any teapot. But Moomin-mamma never noticed that. For safety’s sake she mumbled a short charm over the influenza medicine. That was something her grandmother had taught her. Then she went back to the drawing-room and said: ‘Please drink it as hot as you can.’

  Moomintroll drank and felt a mild warmth flowing through his tummy. ‘Mamma,’ he said, ‘there’s such a lot to explain to you…’