by Tove Jansson
The hattifatteners gave him a long moon-yellow look and remained silent.
‘I said did you find anything,’ Moominpappa repeated, a little red in the snout. ‘If it’s a secret of course you can keep it to yourselves. But at least tell me there was something.’
The hattifatteners were quite still and silent, only looking at him. At this Moominpappa felt his head grow hot and cried:
‘Do you like spiders? Do you like them or not? I want to know at once!’
In the long ensuing silence one of the hattifatteners took a step forward and spread its paws. Perhaps it had replied something – or else it was just a whisper from the wind.
‘I’m sorry,’ Moominpappa said uncertainly, ‘I see.’ He felt that the hattifattener had explained to him that they had no special attitude to spiders. Or else it had deplored something that could not be helped. Perhaps the sad fact that a hattifattener and a Moominpappa will never be able to tell each other anything. Perhaps it was disappointed in Moominpappa and thought him rather childish. He sighed and gave them a downcast look. Now
he could see what they had found. It was a small scroll of birch-bark, of the sort the sea likes to curl up and throw ashore. Nothing else. You can unroll them like documents: inside they’re white and silk-smooth, and as soon as they’re released they curl shut again. Exactly like a small fist clasped about a secret. Moominmamma used to keep one around the handle of her tea-kettle.
Probably this scroll contained some important message or other. But Moominpappa wasn’t really curious any longer. He was a little cold, and curled up on the floor of the boat for a nap. The hattifatteners never felt any cold, only electricity.
And they never slept.
Moominpappa awoke by dawn. He felt stiff in the back and still rather cold. From under his hatbrim he could see part of the gunwale and a grey triangle of sea falling and rising and falling again. He was feeling a little sick, and not at all like an adventurous Moomin.
One of the hattifatteners was sitting on the nearest thwart, and he observed it surreptitiously. Now its eyes were grey. The paws were very finely cut. They were flexing slowly, like the wings of a sitting moth. Perhaps the hattifattener was talking to its fellows, or just thinking. Its head was round and quite neckless. Most of all he resembles a long white sock, Moominpappa thought. A little frayed at the lower, open end, and as if made of white foam rubber.
Now he was feeling a little sicker still. He remembered his behaviour of last night. And those spiders. It was the first time he had seen a spider frightened.
‘Dear, dear,’ Moominpappa mumbled. He was about to sit up, but then he caught sight of the birch-bark scroll and stiffened. He pricked his ears under the hat. The scroll lay in the bailer on the floor, slowly rolling with the movement of the boat.
Moominpapppa forgot all about seasickness. His paw cautiously crept out. He gave the hattifatteners a quick look and saw that their eyes as usual were fixed on the horizon. Now he had the scroll, he closed his paw around it, he pulled it towards him. At that moment he felt a slight electric shock, no stronger than from a flashlight battery when you feel it with your tongue. But he hadn’t been prepared for it.
He lay still for a long time, calming himself. Then started slowly to unroll the secret document. It turned out to be ordinary white birch-bark. No treasure map. No code letter. Nothing.
Perhaps it was just a kind of visiting card, politely left on every lone island by every hattifattener, to be found by other hattifatteners? Perhaps that little electric shock gave them the same friendly and sociable feeling one gets from a nice letter? Or perhaps they had an invisible writing unknown to ordinary trolls? Moominpappa disappointedly let the birch-bark curl itself back into a scroll again, and looked up.
The hattifatteners were regarding him calmly. Moominpappa reddened.
‘We’re all in the same boat, anyway,’ he said. And without expecting any reply he spread his paws like he had seen the hattifatteners do, in a helpless and regretful gesture, and sighed.
To this the wind replied with a faint howl in the tight
stays. The sea was rolling grey waves all the way to the world’s end, and Moominpappa thought with some sadness: If this is a wicked life I’d rather eat my hat.
*
There are many kinds of island, but all those that are small enough and far enough are without exception rather sad and lonesome. The winds chase all around them, the yellow moon increases and wanes again, the sea becomes coal-black every night, but the islands are always unchanged and only hattifatteners visit them now and then. They are not even real islands. They are skerries, rocks, reefs, forgotten streaks of land that perhaps even sink under water before daybreak and rise over the surface again during the night to take a look around. One can’t know.
The hattifatteners visited them all. Sometimes a birch-bark scroll was there waiting for them. Sometimes there was nothing; the islet was just a smooth seal’s back surrounded by breakers, or a ragged rock with high banks of red sea-weed. But on the summit of every island the hattifatteners left behind them a small white scroll.
They have an idea, Moominpappa thought. Something that’s more important to them than all other matters. And I’m going to follow them about until I know what it is.
They met no more red spiders, but Moominpappa remained aboard every time they landed. Because those islands made him think of other islands far behind him, the picnic islands, the green and leafy bathing inlets, the tent, and the butter container cooling in the shadow by the boat, the juice glasses in the sand, and the bathing-trunks adry on a sun-hot boulder… Not that he missed that kind of secure verandah life for a minute. Those were just thoughts that came flapping past and made him a bit sad. Thoughts about small and insignificant things.
As a matter of fact Moominpappa had started to think in a wholly new manner. Less and less often he mused about things he had encountered in his kindly and chequered life, and quite as seldom did he dream about what his future would bring him.
His thoughts glided along like the boat, without memories or dreams, they were like grey wandering waves that didn’t even want to reach the horizon.
Moominpappa stopped trying to talk to the hattifatteners. He sat staring seawards, just as they did, his eyes had turned pale like theirs, taking the colour of the sky. And when new islands swam into view he didn’t even move, only tapped his tail once or twice against the floor.
Once, as they glided along on the back of a slow, tired swell, Moominpappa fleetingly thought: I wonder if I’m beginning to resemble a hattif attener.
*
It had been a very hot day, and towards evening a mist rolled in from the sea. It was a heavy, curiously reddish mist. Moominpappa thought it looked menacing and a little alive.
The sea-serpents were snorting and wallowing far out, he could catch a glimpse of them at times. A round, dark head, startled eyes staring at the hattifatteners, then a splash from a tail fin and a quick flight back into the mist.
They’re afraid like the spiders were, Moominpappa thought. Everyone’s afraid of hattifatteners…
A far-away thunderclap went rolling through the silence, and everything was quiet and immobile once more.
Moominpappa always had thought thunderstorms very exciting. Now he didn’t have any opinion about them. He was quite free, but he just didn’t seem to have any likings any more.
At that moment a strange boat steered out of the mist with a large company aboard. Moominpappa jumped to his feet. In a moment he had become the old Moominpappa again, waving his hat about and shouting. The strange boat was coming straight towards them. It was white, the sail was white. And the people aboard it were white…
‘Oh, I see,’ Moominpappa said. He sat down again. The two boats continued their courses without exchanging any greeting.
And then one boat after the other glided out of the dark mist, all going the same way and all manned by hattifatteners. Sometimes by seven, sometimes by five, or eleven, at times
even by one solitary hattifattener, but always by an odd number.
The mist cleared away and rolled into the slightly reddish evening dusk. The sea seemed to be packed with boats. All were on their way towards a new island, a low skerry with no trees and no high cliffs.
The thunder went rolling over again. It was hiding somewhere in the enormous black cloud that was now climbing higher and higher over the horizon.
One boat after the other put in and lowered sail. The lonely beach was already thronged by hattifatteners that had arrived earlier and were standing bowing to each other.
As far as one could see, white solemn beings were walking about and exchanging bows to right and left. They emitted a faint rustling sound and were constantly waving their paws. The beach grass whispered around them.
Moominpappa was standing aside by himself. He tried desperately to find his own hattifatteners among the crowd. He felt it to be important. They were the only ones he knew… slightly. Very slightly. But still.
They had disappeared in the throng, he could see no differences in the many hundreds of hattifatteners, and all at once Moominpappa was caught by the same terror as on the spider island. He pulled his hat down to his eyebrows and tried to look tough and at ease at the same time.
His hat was the only fixed and absolute thing on this strange island where all was white and whispering and vague.
Moominpappa didn’t quite trust himself any longer, but he believed in his hat; it was black and resolute, and inside it Moominmamma had painted the words ‘M.P. from your M.M.’ to distinguish it from all other high hats in the world.
Now the last boat had landed and been pulled ashore, and the hattifatteners stopped rustling. They turned their reddish eyes towards Moominpappa, all together, and the next instant they began to move in his direction.
They want to fight, Moominpappa thought, and was suddenly wide awake and rather elated. In that moment he felt like fighting anyone just to fight and shout and feel sure that everyone else was wrong and deserving a good hiding.
Only hattifatteners never fight, nor do they object to anything or dislike anyone or hold any opinion at all.
They came to exchange bows with Moominpappa, all the hundreds of them, and Moominpappa tipped his hat and bowed in reply until he felt a headache coming on. Hundreds of paws waved at him until he also began waving his from sheer exhaustion.
When the last hattifattener had passed him Moominpappa
had forgotten all about wanting a fight. His mind was polite and smooth, and he followed the others, hat in hand, through the whispering grass.
The thunderstorm had climbed high in the meantime and was hovering in the sky like a wall about to fall down. High up a wind was blowing, driving small rugged tufts of cloud before it in scared flight.
Close to the sea sudden and fitful lightning was flashing, switching off and flaring up again.
The hattifatteners had assembled in the centre of the island. They had turned southwards, where the thunderstorm waited, exactly like seabirds before a gale. One after the other they began to light up like little lamp bulbs, flaring in time with the lightning. The grass around them was crackling with electricity.
Moominpappa had laid himself on his back and was staring up at the pale green leaves around him. Light, delicate leaves against a dark sky. In his easy-chair at home he had a cushion embroidered with fern leaves by Moominmamma. Pale green leaves against black felt. It was very beautiful.
The thunderstorm was nearing rapidly. Moominpappa felt faint shocks in his paws and sat up. There was rain in the air.
All of a sudden the hattifatteners began fluttering their paws like moth wings. They were all swaying, bowing and dancing, and a thin, gnat-like song arose from the lonely island. It was the howl of the hattifatteners, a lonely and yearning sound like wind in a bottleneck. Moominpappa felt an irresistible desire to do as the hattifatteners did. To sway back and forth, to sway and howl and rustle.
He felt a prickle in his ears, and his paws began to wave. He rose to his feet and started to walk towards the hattifatteners. Their secret’s got to do with thunderstorms, he thought. It’s thunderstorms they are always looking for and longing for…
Darkness fell over the island, and the lightning flashes were running straight down from the sky, like streams of dangerously white and hissing liquid. Far out the wind started to roar, and then the thunder broke loose, the fiercest thunder Moominpappa had ever experienced.
Heavy wagons of stone were rolling and rumbling back and forth, to and fro, and the wind caught hold of Moominpappa and threw him back in the grass.
He sat holding his hat and feeling the wind blow through him, and all of a sudden he thought: No. What’s come over me? I’m no hattifattener, I’m Moominpappa… What am I doing here?
He looked at the hattifatteners, and with electric simplicity he understood it all. He grasped that only a great thunderstorm could put some life in hattifatteners. They were heavily charged but hopelessly locked up. They
didn’t feel, they didn’t think – they could only seek. Only in the presence of electricity they were able to live at last, strongly and with great and intense feelings.
That was what they longed for. Perhaps they were even able to attract a thunderstorm when they assembled in large crowds…
Yes, that must be the solution, Moominpappa thought. Poor hattifatteners. And I was sitting on my verandah believing they were so remarkable and free, just because they never spoke a word and were always on the move. They hadn’t a single word to say and nowhere to go…
The skies opened and the rain crashed down, gleaming white in the flashes of lightning.
Moominpappa jumped to his feet. His eyes were as blue as ever, and he shouted:
‘I’m going home! I’m leaving at once!’
He stuck his snout in the air and pulled his hat securely over his ears. Then he ran down to the beach,
jumped aboard one of the white boats, hoisted sail and put straight out to the stormy sea.
He was himself once again, he had his own thoughts about things, and he longed to be home.
Just think, never to be glad nor disappointed, Moominpappa mused while the boat was carried along in the gale. Never to like anyone and get cross at him and forgive him. Never to sleep or feel cold, never to make a mistake and have a belly-ache and be cured from it, never to have a birthday party, drink beer and have a bad conscience…
How terrible.
He felt happy and drenched and not in the least afraid of the thunderstorm. At home they would never have electric light, he decided, they’d keep the old kerosene lamps.
Moominpappa longed for his family and his verandah. All of a sudden he thought that at home he could be just as free and adventurous as a real pappa should be.
Cedric
Now, afterwards, it is hard to understand how that small beast, Sniff, could ever have been persuaded to give Cedric away.
Never before had Sniff done such a thing, rather the reverse. And furthermore Cedric really was quite wonderful.
Cedric wasn’t alive, he was a thing – but what a thing! At first sight he was just a small plush dog, rather bald and love-worn, but a closer look showed that his eyes were nearly topazes and that he had a small genuine moonstone on his collar just beside the clasp.
And furthermore he carried an inimitable expression on his face, an expression that no other dog could ever have. Possibly the jewels were more important to Sniff than the expression, but in any case he loved Cedric.
And as soon as he had given Cedric away he regretted it to desperation. He neither ate nor slept nor talked. He only regretted.
‘But dearest Sniffy,’ Moominmamma said worriedly, ‘if you really did love Cedric so much, then why didn’t you at least give him to someone you like and not to Gaffsie’s daughter?’
‘Pooh,’ Sniff mumbled, staring at the floor with his poor reddened eyes, ‘it was Moomintroll’s fault. He told me that if one gives something away that one re
ally likes, then one will get it back ten times over and feel wonderful afterwards. He tricked me to it.’
‘Oh,’ Moominmamma said. ‘Well, well.’ She didn’t find anything better to say. She felt she had to sleep on the matter.
Evening fell, and Moominmamma went to bed. Everybody said good night, and the lights were put out, one after the other. Only Sniff lay awake, staring up at the ceiling, where the shadow of a large branch was moving up and down in the moonlight. Through the open window he could hear Snufkin’s mouth organ playing in the warm night down by the river.
When Sniff’s thoughts became too black he jumped out of bed and padded to the window. He climbed down the rope ladder and ran through the garden where the peonies gleamed white and all the shadows were coal-black. The moon was high, far away and impersonal.
Snufkin was sitting outside his tent.
He didn’t play any complete tunes tonight, only small shreds of music that resembled questions or those small concurring sounds one makes when one doesn’t know what to say.
Sniff sat down beside him and looked disconsolately into the river.
‘Hullo,’ Snufkin said. ‘Good thing you came. I’ve been sitting here thinking about a story that might interest you.’
‘I’m not interested in fairy tales tonight,’ Sniff mumbled, wrinkling himself up.
‘It’s no fairy tale,’ Snufkin said. ‘It’s happened. It happened to an aunt of my mother’s.’
And Snufkin started his story, sucking at his pipe and now and then splashing with his toes in the dark river water.
*
‘Once upon a time there was a lady who loved all her belongings. She had no children to amuse or annoy her, she didn’t need to work or cook, she didn’t mind what people said about her and she wasn’t the scared sort. Also she had lost her taste for play. In other words, she found life a bit boring.
‘But she loved her beautiful things and she had collected them all her life, sorted them and polished them and made them more and more beautiful to look at. One really didn’t believe one’s eyes when one entered her house.’
