by Tove Jansson
‘She was a happy lady,’ Sniff nodded. ‘What kinds of things did she have?’
‘Well,’ Snufkin said. ‘She was as happy as she knew how to be. And now don’t interrupt me, please. Then, one night it happened that this aunt of my mother’s went down to her dark scullery to eat a cold cutlet, and she swallowed a large bone. She felt funny for several days afterwards, and when she didn’t get any better she went to her doctor. He tapped her chest and listened to it and X-rayed her and shook her about, and at last he told her
that this cutlet bone had stuck crosswise somewhere inside her. It was impossible to prise it loose. In other words, he feared the worst.’
‘You don’t say,’ Sniff said, showing a little more interest in the story. ‘He thought the lady was going to kick the bucket but he didn’t dare tell her?’
‘That’s about it,’ Snufkin agreed. ‘But this aunt of my mother’s wasn’t easily scared, so she made him tell her how much time she had left, and then she went home to think. A few weeks wasn’t very much.
‘She suddenly remembered that in her youth she had wanted to explore the Amazonas, to learn deep sea diving, to build a large nice house for lonely children, to see a volcano and to arrange a gigantic party for all her friends. But all that was too late now, of course. Friends she had none at all, because she had only collected beautiful things, and that takes time.
‘She grew more and more sad while she wandered around in her rooms. Her wonderful belongings gave her no comfort. On the contrary, they only made her think of the day when she’d go to heaven and leave them all behind her.
‘And the thought of starting a new collection up there didn’t make her at all happy, whatever the reason.’
‘Poor lady!’ Sniff cried. ‘Couldn’t she take the least little thing along with her?’
‘No,’ Snufkin said. ‘It’s not allowed. But now dry up, please, and listen. One night this aunt of my mother’s lay awake looking up at the ceiling and brooding. All around her stood lots of beautiful furniture, and all over it were lots of beautiful knick-knacks. Her things were everywhere, on the floor, on the walls, on the ceiling, in her cabinets, in her drawers – and suddenly she felt about to suffocate among all those belongings that gave her no comfort at all. And now an idea came to her. It was such a funny idea that this aunt of my mother’s began to laugh where she lay. All at once she was feeling fit, and she rose and dressed and started to think.
‘She had hit upon the idea to give away everything she owned. That would give her more breathing space, and it’s something you need if you’ve a large bone stuck in your stomach and want to be able to think of the Amazonas.’
‘How silly,’ Sniff said disappointedly.
‘It wasn’t silly in the least,’ Snufkin objected. ‘She had lots of fun while she sat thinking out what things to give away to whom.
‘She had many relations and knew still more people, you see, that’s quite possible even if you’ve no friends. Well, she thought of everyone, one after the other, and wondered what he or she would like best. It was like a game.
‘And she wasn’t stupid. To me she gave the mouth organ: Perhaps you haven’t known it’s gold and rosewood? Well. She thought it out so wisely that everybody got exactly the thing that suited him and that he had dreamt of.
‘This aunt of my mother’s also had a turn for surprises. She sent all the things in parcels, and the receivers had no idea of who the sender was (they had never been in her home, because she had always been afraid they’d break things).
‘It amused her to imagine their astonishment, their thoughts and guesses, and she was feeling quite superior. A little like those fairies that fulfil wishes in a jiffy as they fly along.’
‘But I didn’t send Cedric in a parcel,’ Sniff cried with bulging eyes. ‘And I’m not going to die either!’
Snufkin sighed. ‘You’re the same as ever,’ he said. ‘But still, try to listen to a good story, can’t you, even if it isn’t about yourself. And think of me a bit, too. I’ve saved this story for you, and sometimes I like telling stories. Well, all right. At the same time something else was happening. This aunt of my mother’s suddenly found that she was able to sleep at nights, and in the daytime she dreamed of the Amazonas and read books on deep sea diving and drew plans for that house for children no one wanted. She had fun, and that made herself nicer than usual and people began to like her company. I must beware, she thought. Before I know a word I’ll have a lot of friends and no time to arrange that enormous party I’ve dreamed about…
‘Her rooms were becoming airier and airier. She sent off one parcel after the other, and the fewer possessions she had left, the lighter she felt. Finally, she was walking about in empty rooms, feeling rather like a balloon, a happy balloon ready to fly away…’
‘To heaven,’ Sniff observed drily. ‘Now, listen…’
‘Don’t interrupt me all the time,’ Snufkin said. ‘I can hear you’re too small for this story. But I’m going to finish it anyway. Good. By and by all her rooms were empty, and this aunt of my mother’s had only her bed left.
‘It was a large canopied bed, and when her new friends came to visit her it could hold them all, and the smallest ones sat up in the canopy. Everybody had a wonderful time, and her only worry was about that great party which she didn’t seem to find the time to have.
‘They used to tell ghost stories and funny stories all the night, and then one evening…’
‘I know, I know,’ Sniff said crossly. ‘You’re exactly like Moomintroll. I know how it turned out. Then one evening she gave away her bed too and then she went off to heaven and was so happy, and the right thing for me to do is to give away not only Cedric but everything I have and then hand in my spade and bucket on top of it all!’
‘You’re an ass,’ Snufkin said. ‘Or, still worse, you’re a spoil-story. What I was about to relate was how this aunt
of my mother’s laughed so terribly at one of the funny stories, that the bone jumped out of her stomach and she became absolutely well!’
‘You don’t say,’ Sniff cried, ‘the poor lady!’
‘How do you mean, the poor lady,’ Snufkin asked.
‘Don’t you see! She had given all her things away, hadn’t she,’ Sniff cried. ‘Quite uselessly! Because she didn’t die after all! Did she take all her things back then?’
Snufkin bit hard at his pipe and raised his eyebrows.
‘You foolish little beast,’ he said. ‘She made the whole thing into a funny story. And then she gave a party. And built the house for lonely children. She was too old for deep sea diving, but she saw the volcano. And then she went off to the Amazonas. That was the last we heard about her.’
‘Such things cost money,’ Sniff said with practical disbelief. ‘She had given everything away, hadn’t she?’
‘Had she? Indeed?’ Snufkin replied. ‘If you’d have
listened as you should you’d remember that she kept the canopied bed, and this bed, my dear Sniff, was made of gold and simply crammed with diamonds and carneoles.’
(As for Cedric, Gaffsie made the topazes into eardrops for her daughter and gave Cedric black button eyes instead. One day Sniff found him lying forgotten in the rain and took him back home. The rain had washed away the moonstone which was never found again. But Sniff went on loving Cedric all the same, even if he now did it only for love’s sake. And this does him some honour, I believe. – AUTHOR’S NOTE)
The Fir Tree
ONE of the hemulens was standing on the roof, scratching at the snow. He had yellow woollen mittens that after a while became wet and disagreeable. He laid them on the chimney top, sighed and scratched away again. At last he found the hatch in the roof.
That’s it, the hemulen said. And down there they’re lying fast asleep. Sleeping and sleeping and sleeping. While other people work themselves silly just because Christmas is coming.
He was standing on the hatch, and as he couldn’t remember whether it opened inwards or outwa
rds he stamped on it, cautiously. It opened inwards at once, and the hemulen went tumbling down among snow and darkness and all the things the Moomin family had stowed away in the attic for later use.
The hemulen was now very annoyed and furthermore not quite sure of where he had left his yellow mittens. They were his favourite pair.
So he stumped down the stairs, threw the door open with a bang and shouted in a cross voice: ‘Christmas’s coming! I’m tired of you and your sleeping, and now Christmas will be here almost any day!’
The Moomin family was hibernating in the drawing-room as they were wont to do. They had been sleeping for a few months already and were going to keep it up until spring. A sweet sleep had rocked them through what felt like a single long summer afternoon. Now all at once a cold draught disturbed Moomintroll’s dreams. And someone was pulling at his quilt and shouting that he was tired and Christmas was coming.
‘Is it spring already?’ Moomintroll mumbled.
‘Spring?’ the hemulen said nervously. ‘I’m talking about Christmas, don’t you know, Christmas. And I’ve made absolutely no arrangements yet myself and here they send me off to dig you out. I believe I’ve lost my mittens. Everybody’s running about like mad and nothing’s ready…’
The hemulen clumped upstairs again and went out through the hatch.
‘Mamma, wake up,’ Moomintroll said anxiously. ‘Something’s on. They call it Christmas.’
‘What d’you mean?’ his mother said and thrust her snout out from under her quilt.
‘I don’t really know,’ her son replied. ‘But nothing seems to be ready, and something’s got lost, and all are running about like mad. Perhaps there’s a flood again.’
He cautiously shook the Snork Maiden by the shoulder and whispered: ‘Don’t be afraid, but something terrible’s happening.’
‘Eh,’ Moominpappa said. ‘Easy now.’
He rose and wound the clock that had stopped somewhere in October.
Then they followed the hemulen’s wet trail upstairs and climbed out on to the roof of the Moominhouse.
The sky was blue as usual, so this time it couldn’t be the volcano. But all the valley was filled with wet cotton, the mountains and the trees and the river and the roof. And the weather was cold, much colder than in April.
‘Is this the egg whites?’ Moominpappa asked won-deringly. He scooped up some of the cotton in his paw and peered at it. ‘I wonder if it’s grown out of the ground,’ he said. ‘Or fallen down from the sky. If it came all at the same time that must have been most unpleasant.’
‘But Pappa, it’s snow,’ Moomintroll said. ‘I know it is, and it doesn’t fall all at the same time.’
‘No?’ Moominpappa said. ‘Unpleasant all the same.’
The hemulen’s aunt passed by the house with a fir tree on her chair-sledge.
‘So you’re awake at last,’ she observed casually. ‘Better get yourself a fir before dark.’
‘But why,’ Moominpappa started to reply.
‘I haven’t time now,’ the hemulen’s aunt called back over her shoulder and quickly disappeared.
‘Before dark, she said,’ the Snork Maiden whispered. ‘The danger comes by dark, then.’
‘And you need a fir tree for protection,’ Moominpappa mused. ‘I don’t understand it.’
‘Nor I,’ Moominmamma said submissively. ‘Put some
woollen socks and scarfs on when you go for the fir. I’ll make a good fire in the stove.’
*
Even if disaster was coming Moominpappa decided not to take one of his own firs, because he was particular about them. Instead he and Moomintroll climbed over Gaffsie’s fence and chose a big fir she couldn’t very well have any use for.
‘Is the idea to hide oneself in it?’ Moomintroll wondered.
‘I don’t know,’ Moominpappa said and swung his axe. ‘I don’t understand a thing.’
They were almost by the river on their way back when Gaffsie came running towards them with a lot of parcels and paper bags in her arms.
She was red in the face and highly excited, so she did not recognize her fir tree, glory be.
‘What a mill, what a fuss it all is!’ Gaffsie cried. ‘Badly brought-up hedgehogs should never be allowed to… And as I’ve told Misabel, it’s a shame…’
‘The fir,’ Moominpappa said, desperately clinging to Gaffsie’s fur collar. ‘What does one do with one’s fir?’
‘Fir,’ Gaffsie repeated confusedly. ‘Fir? Oh, what a bother! Oh, how horrid… I haven’t dressed mine yet… how on earth can I find the time…’
She dropped several parcels in the snow, her cap slipped askew and she was near to tears from pure nervousness.
Moominpappa shook his head and took hold of the fir again.
*
At home Moominmamma had dug out the verandah with a shovel and laid out life-belts, aspirin, Moominpappa’s old gun and some warm compresses. One had to be prepared.
A small woody was sitting on the outermost edge of the sofa, with a cup of tea in its paws. It had been sitting in the snow below the verandah, looking so miserable that Moominmamma had invited it in.
‘Well, here’s the fir,’ Moominpappa said. ‘If we only knew how to use it. Gaffsie said it had to be dressed.’
‘We haven’t anything large enough,’ Moominmamma said worriedly. ‘Whatever did she mean?’
‘What a beautiful fir,’ the small woody cried and swallowed some tea the wrong way from pure shyness, regretting already that it had dared to speak.
‘Do you know how to dress a fir tree?’ the Snork Maiden asked.
The woody reddened violently and whispered: ‘In beautiful things. As beautifully as you can. So I’ve heard.’ Then, overwhelmed by its shyness, it clapped its paws to its face, upset the teacup and disappeared through the verandah door.
‘Now keep quiet a moment, please, and let me think,’ Moominpappa said. ‘If the fir tree is to be dressed as beautifully as possible, then it can’t be for the purpose of hiding in it. The idea must be to placate the danger in some way. I’m beginning to understand.’
They carried the fir out into the garden and planted it firmly in the snow. Then they started to decorate it all over with the most beautiful things they could think up.
They adorned it with the big shells from the summertime flowerbeds, and with the Snork Maiden’s shell necklace. They took the prisms from the drawing-room chandelier and hung them from the branches, and at the very top they pinned a red silk rose that Moominpappa had once upon a time given Moominmamma as a present.
Everybody brought the most beautiful thing he had to placate the incomprehensible powers of winter.
When the fir tree was dressed the hemulen’s aunt
passed by again with her chair-sledge. She was steering the other way now, and her hurry was still greater.
‘Look at our fir tree,’ Moomintroll called to her.
‘Dear me,’ said the hemulen’s aunt. ‘But then you’ve always been a bit unlike other people. Now I must… I haven’t the least bit of food ready for Christmas yet.’
‘Food for Christmas,’ Moomintroll repeated. ‘Does he eat?’
The aunt never listened to him. ‘You don’t get away with less than a dinner at the very least,’ she said nervously and went whizzing down the slope.
Moominmamma worked all afternoon. A little before dark she had the food cooked for Christmas, and served in small bowls around the fir tree. There was juice and yoghurt and blueberry pie and eggnog and other things the Moomin family liked.
‘Do you think Christmas is very hungry?’ Moominmamma wondered, a little anxiously.
‘No worse than I, very likely,’ Moominpappa said longingly. He was sitting in the snow with his quilt around his ears, feeling a cold coming on. But small creatures always have to be very, very polite to the great powers of nature.
Down in the valley all windows were lighting up. Candles were lit under the trees and in every nest among the branches, an
d flickering candle flames went hurrying through the snowdrifts. Moomintroll gave his father a questioning look.
‘Yes,’ Moominpappa said and nodded. ‘Preparing for all eventualities.’ And Moomintroll went into the house and collected all the candles he could find.
He planted them in the snow around the fir tree and cautiously lighted them, one after one, until all were burning in a little circle to placate the darkness and Christmas. After a while everything seemed to quieten down in the valley; probably everyone had gone home to await what was coming. One single lonely shadow was wandering among the trees. It was the hemulen.
‘Hello,’ Moomintroll called softly. ‘Is he coming?’
‘Don’t disturb me,’ the hemulen replied sullenly, looking through a long list in which nearly every line seemed to be crossed out.
He sat down by one of the candles and started to
count on his fingers. ‘Mother, Father, Gaffsie,’ he mumbled. ‘The cousins… the eldest hedgehog… I can leave out the small ones. And Sniff gave me nothing last year. Then Misabel and Whomper, and auntie, of course… This drives me mad.’
‘What is it?’ the Snork Maiden asked anxiously. ‘Has anything happened to them?’
‘Presents,’ the hemulen exclaimed. ‘More and more presents every time Christmas comes around!’
He scribbled a shaky cross on his list and ambled off.
‘Wait!’ Moomintroll shouted. ‘Please explain… And your mittens…’
But the hemulen disappeared in the dark, like all the others that had been in a hurry, and beside themselves over the coming of Christmas.
So the Moomin family quickly went in to look for some presents. Moominpappa chose his best trolling-spoon which had a very beautiful box. He wrote ‘For Christmas’ on the box and laid it out in the snow. The Snork Maiden took off her ankle ring and sighed a little as she rolled it up in silk paper.
