Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

  It’s only now that I start to appreciate your distaste for turning thirty that time you and Sam were in my studio on your birthday. I thought then that you were afraid of losing your youth; your young face. But there’s more to it. These years are marked with a deeper sense of alarm. This is the period when we are supposed to take up a stance in life, adopt the right position – while we are still pliable. These are the last years in which a basic outlook, a job, an opinion can be exchanged with the careless confidence of youth for the boundless riches of possibility and time, But time isn’t infinite – only now do we notice that the possibilities have to be sifted and sorted – we can’t embrace them all, we have to choose. For we no longer have the stamina to do it all and we demand more than skimming over the surface.

  Studio evening. It’s confusing that as a background to this newborn expectation of greater depth and stability, and a definitive position on life, the whole world is in chaos. A world where all that we thought best, found just and sound, is no longer venerated and so much that we repudiated has been raised to become the rule of law.

  Of course we try to cling on to what we believe in. But we can feel very lonely. Perhaps we always were – but only notice it at moments like these. But what’s hard is to go on trying to be positive, calm, trusting, to quell every tendency to bitterness, which it would sometimes almost be a cowardly relief to burrow down into. – I probably wouldn’t write about all this if I weren’t seriously attempting, and even believed I would be able to make it through all this.

  I have made attempts, some of them childish, to be a bit more austere in, to bring a bit more spiritual economy to, my existence. So as not to squander my energy for painting I’ve turned down a couple of drawing commissions – for the first time. I must start studying anatomy. And be even stricter about saying no to people I allow to take up my time out of sympathy or habit. And never to worry whether I’m popular or not, whether they think me intelligent or not. What does that matter, if I’m not living a life I myself consider dignified?

  My honesty and lack of restraint in letters to Tapsa, without a safety margin for the first time, was also an attempt at stability. I’m sick and tired of changing who I like the same way I might unpick a sock. I wanted to burn my bridges, trust entirely to feeling for once and not leave any doors ajar.

  It went badly. I forgot that he too might have doors. But I intend to carry on with what I think is right. The gloss has worn off it – but perhaps I shall give us something else instead.

  The days are short and grey. Everyone goes round in their own little space, waiting for peace and delivering monologues on the war.

  Prolle writes often. The most important place in the house is the hall mat where the letters arrive with their soft thud. I love that boy so indescribably. But the tremendous anxiety of the summer has turned into burdensome waiting, quite calm. I haven’t the stamina to keep screaming inside for so long, I push it away, carry on working but shrink from the things that bring the outside world up close: newspapers, the radio, the phone, the newsreels. They churn up everything that’s smouldering away deep inside. But my head isn’t in the sand, I’m intensely aware, at every moment, in every part of myself. [ … ]

  It’s been a long time since I slept in the studio. I shall enjoy it. Wolle left a little while ago. He talks about Carin differently now. There’s uncertainty, resignation – he assumes he’s going to lose her and is trying to get used to the idea ready for whenever she’s brave enough to tell him the truth. I feel so sorry for everyone who loses the gloss, the sense of trust! But I suppose that’s the basis on which we all gradually have to put together something resembling a real person. I understand Samu now, when he suddenly took the radiance and charm out of his pictures and started the heavy work of rebuilding everything from the bottom up. “I’ll put the gloss back afterwards, sometime …”

  You’re in New York now, so I hear from your papa via Abrascha. And coping with the language and with a job in prospect. Good for you, Evotschka!

  A big hug

  Tove.

  19/12 –41 H:FORS. THE STUDIO TO MISS EVE KONIKOFF C/O H. HANSEN 258 RIVERSIDE DRIVE. NEW-YORK. U.S.A. FROM TOVE JANSSON. APOLLOG. 13. HELSINGFORS, FINLAND. WRITTEN IN SWEDISH. 3 SHEETS.

  Dearest Eva!

  Today I put Mary and baby Jesus up in my studio. She’s sitting on a white island made of the stones and shells you collected in Pellinge. (Which Rosa and I then laid at your feet on Sanskär!)

  A big clean-up, white paper collars round all the candles I can muster, some ginger snaps in the shape of Christmas goats, made with syrup we got from Sweden – here they send it all to the fronts.

  It’s snowing outside – non-stop for several days now. The storm’s blown the drifts into razor-sharp ridges – like up in the mountains.

  Tomorrow I shall make my Christmas visit to the Samus. They’ve lost half their name now, poor things, and are just called Vanni. Maybe it’s practical. I went into Hemflit and passed on your best wishes. Before I left I was seduced into buying a blouse, shocking pink, and a wide blue skirt with tiny mauve polka dots. A summer skirt. Just because I didn’t need it! Your purple check blouse was there and Ham and I both said at the same time “Koni!” – Incidentally it’s no fun going to Hemflit any more, now you’re not there with your big, welcoming smile.

  20/12.

  Wolle just rang, black as night, and bitter; Carin’s visa has been turned down, not only in Sweden but also here. If he knew how much greater cause he has to be gloomy! Caja’s letter to me sets out the whole Weiner problem, with wailing and gnashing of teeth. His epistles, in a perpetual state of emotion and made of wishful thinking, bring her close to tears and make her fear breaking it off even more. She didn’t want to do it by letter; that seemed cowardly to her, too casual – but in words. She applied for her visa from a sense of duty, but dreaded the thought of living with him again out at the café, and knew it would be too cruel to say anything in those few days, with him likely to be called up to serve in Petsamo very soon after. She dared not say anything to her mother about the visa, for fear of hysterical scenes and a relapse.

  So, as you can imagine, she was glad the visa wasn’t granted! And there was Wolle getting me to run around and look for other possibilities. So I did. It’s damn tricky trying to steer a path between those two, be in the confidence of both, listen to both and talk without betraying their opposite number. At the moment I’m happy for Carin’s sake and sad for his, and pretty fed up with the whole thing! It’s a bloody liability, getting actively involved in other people’s business. You have to walk a tightrope and stay neutral as best you can. –

  Lasse’s got hold of a chap at the Zoological Museum who’s promised to write a foreword to his butterfly book and talked the whole thing over with him for several hours. They tested it out today at the Z. Museum by getting 4 classmates, all complete novices at butterflies, where each was given a critter to examine, using the Jansson method. The result was 87% definite identification. The girls managed 100%! Lasse’s up in the clouds with excitement, living among his tomes. Ham’s addresses to Ryti and Mannerheim are finished now, and stupendously lovely. The best things she’s ever done in that line. She, Faffan and I all have our work on show in Lallukka’s assembly room; it’s the inmates’ first exhibition. (And they are the main visitors to it, as well!) Tandefeltskan dismissed us with “The Jansson family is exhibiting – of course”. How offhand! I think she’s starting to get a bit doddery. Art and genealogy haven’t much to do with each other!

  Though actually – damn it. In my canvas (116 x 189) “The Family”. I can’t tell you how I’ve battled with it, every hour of daylight. If I can knock it into shape, I’ll make a copy for you. I hope there won’t be many drawing jobs this spring, so I can finally get time to paint!!!

  I had two “patrons of the arts” here today. The first, small, timid, shabby and insignificant, found what she wanted at once and almost threw her arms around my neck with joy at “owning
such beautiful, beautiful paintings”. (!) The other, elegant, talkative, affected and brazen, she picked and chose, haggled and nitpicked for 2½ hours, before making off with one of my best still lives for 1,300, – 3,000 was the asking price. Even on her way out she was still fretting that I’d “swindled” her. I let her have it for the shy little one’s sake. How funny people are!

  21/12.

  It seems rather too much like a diary, writing you a bit now and then, all in the same letter – but I so much like leaving my work for a little while, as if for a chat with you. – You know Eva – although it’s true that we have our own will and ought to be able to steer ourselves wherever we want, there are times when what happens to us (I mean within us) is like a powerful, inexorable ebb and flow that we can do nothing about. It’s so awful to wake up and realise the ebb is on its way. All this autumn (may Allah shroud it in oblivion) has been one big undulation, up and down, I’ve been constantly working my way up out of depression and I’m tired. You know how it is when you finally think you’ve found a balance between extremes, tense and anxious the whole time in case anyone or anything dislodges you from your hard-won composure.

  My paintings turn out so strangely. When I do self-portraits I invariably, however hard I try, end up with such a rigid and sardonically superior-looking face, and when I tried to make myself look alive and happy in “The Family”, it suddenly turned into you. It’s odd, that picture, I wonder if I can ever show it – it’s too obvious. My intention was for Ham, turning round in her seat, to pass on the rhythm of the painting to me, and my outstretched arm (putting on a glove) would transmit it to Faffan – who by his entry into the room would direct interest back to the centre where the boys are playing chess as a calm foreground. Instead Ham looks as if she’s been startled by something, or is trying to keep me there in some way, I seem squashed in by the cupboard and nobody can really believe I can get past Faffan who’s blocking the door and also incidentally looks as if he’s discovered someone in flagranti and has a kind of helplessly imperious expression (if you can imagine that combination) as he clutches his newspaper. Everything’s cramped and unharmonious except for Lasse, who looks like himself, gentle and natural. Prolle ends up as a sort of unreal dream figure with no expression in his face, however I try. Good grief, imagine what a meal Raffo would make of that picture. But I’m going to get rid of the distorted atmosphere by use of colour. Yes, damn it, I will!

  Prolle’s friend Stige has got tuberculosis – they’d sent him back to the lines after only a few days in hospital to get over pneumonia. Maybe a sick boy is better than none at all.

  Tapsa’s been awarded another medal, just escaping with his life after a series of violent battles. Currently another long break in his letters. But I simply can’t go on worrying in the same way. It’s a case of blunted feelings and listless waiting now. Prolle writes to me often. Sometimes I think he’s more than a brother, he personifies everything I admire and believe in among our youth of today – Prolle is almost a concept. One might say an ideal that I don’t want destroyed. May he come home again – unaltered!

  It was splendid at Samu’s yesterday. Red wine, schnapps and cognac, cakes, coffee, cheese, chocolates. That side of things is always very lavish now, you see. It gets a bit trying, never being able to see them without a posh party. The Renvalls were there too; Ben’s just been allowed home. All very pleasant and friendly. And yet it makes me melancholy. Must pull myself together. I’m the one being silly. – Sam asked me twice if I’d seen the announcement of his name change in the paper, but I just said “Yes”. Essi was rather snide: So couldn’t you change it to Lehtonen now? Why would I? “Well, then you can tell them your name used to be Vanni, if they ask!” – Boris has written me a terribly sweet letter. He’s going to be an interpreter now, thank God. He sent his best wishes and said you’re never out of their thoughts. And I had a Christmas card from your papa, too. Just imagine Boris sending him pancake!

  26/12. Quiet evening in the studio. I’ve arranged my new Christmas books, a lovely blue cushion from Lasse is on the bed – proof all around me of people’s thoughtfulness and generosity. I sometimes think we should have ten Christmases a year so we remember what it means to be enfolded in warmth – how much we depend on one another, remember how the joy of giving can help us, too. Christmas was much happier and brighter than I’d dared hope. It was actually Stige who brought the real spirit of Christmas in with him – he suddenly turned up at my studio – on sick leave. I was so glad that I took the boy in my arms. Then we had a cup of tea and listened to Beethoven, which he’d been yearning to do. He had tears in his eyes. – The tubercles aren’t definitely confirmed yet, he’s got to have a more thorough examination. But I do hope he won’t have to go back – I don’t think he could cope with it. I happened to have a runty little tree with a star in the studio, which he took home with him; his family, who weren’t expecting him home, hadn’t bothered with Christmas at all.

  Cover design for Garm, Christmas 1941.

  Our tree had snow crystals in it this year, white covered with shiny cellophane. They looked lovely, slowly turning and glittering in the light. Ham read the gospel from the Doré bible she had as a present from Lasse. The old language was so beautiful. I’m going to sleep now Eva, I’m so tired after being out skiing with Lasse all day.

  With all my heart I wish you a Happy New Year.

  your friend Tove.

  Tandefeltskan: Art critic Signe Tandefelt.

  Raffo, sometimes Raff or Raffu: Rafael Gordin (b. 1904), family doctor and friend of the Jansson family. In 1935, Gordin became a specialist in nervous disorders and mental health, and the following year he set up a private practice in Helsinki. Eva Konikoff was part of his circle of acquaintances, and clearly asked after him in her letters.

  Renvalls: Ben Renvall and Essi Renvall, both sculptors.

  His name change: Until 1941, Sam Vanni was called Samuel Besprosvanni.

  THE WAR YEARS ARE A TIME OF PERPETUAL CONFRONTATION with Viktor Jansson. He is pro-German, anti-Communist and makes no secret of his aversion to Jews, infuriating Tove Jansson. Their opinions are entirely at odds and the ensuing scenes and political arguments are often referred to as “clashes” or “crashes”. By 1942 she is renting a room on Fänrik Stålsgatan and working there. In September of that year she leaves Lallukka and moves in there.

  27/1 –42 [Postcard] SENDER: TOVE JANSSON. FÄNRIK STÅLSG. 3 A 20 HELSINGFORS. FINLAND.

  Today several of the letters I’d sent to you were returned – it made me really sad. It’s been such a big help to talk to you – to know you could follow everything that happened to us here at home. I’ll try a card this time – maybe that will get through. Would you like the letters anyway, once the post is working again, or shall I burn them? – Yesterday I submitted your portrait, with repainted background, to the Young Artists, a landscape, a big, pungent canvas – “Nachspiel” (have to see if I get in trouble for it) and 7 graphic prints. I’ve got a job from Hemflit, designing two fabrics, and lots of other commissions, too.

  Letters from Prolle and Tapsa recently. Boris is an interpreter now. I felt ill this morning, could hardly speak and planned for a week in bed. But when I tried getting up – it all blew over, just like that. I suspect myself of deliberate suggestion so I can “hide” under the covers. Koni, I’m so tired. Sometimes I feel a jolt of pure rage that really scares me, so I run to the studio and do some scrubbing or write verses (!) and then try to be as pleasant as I can in the evening. We’re all rather on edge, in our own way. Did you get the letter where I told you that Gordin’s in town these days?

  31.1.42

  We’ve had the big clash that I’ve feared and expected for several years. This time it’s final. Faffan and I said outright that we hate each other. I feel very sorry for Ham. But I don’t feel any guilt, or sorrow, or anything. I feel like a stone. It would be nice not to have to go on living but we carry on, of course. I wonder how I shall organise things now. It’d b
e sheer hell to go on living at home, but I suppose I shall have to come round for my dinners, for Ham’s sake. Damn the war.

  Tove.

  [Postcard] SENDER: TOVE JANSSON. FÄNRIK STÅLSG. 3 A HELSINGFORS FINLAND

  9/2 –42.

  Can’t help writing to you though I scarcely believe even these airmail cards will reach you. Since the family crash, things have been awful, in multiple ways. Now things are rolling along without too much friction again. Got to compromise for Ham’s sake. – have my dinners at home and try to talk about uncontroversial topics (there aren’t many!) and be agreeable in the evenings. I so much wanted to write to you, miss you such a lot! I felt completely lacking in initiative for a week, mostly didn’t even bother getting up. Then various things happened to show me I had to take responsibility again, work, put on a cheerful face. To force myself not to be antisocial, I took a supply job at Central School as a drawing teacher. 30 unknown Finnish pupils, all adults. I took valerian, brushed up my Finnish and was scared stiff. Arno’s come home and taken over now, thank goodness. Then I went to the party at the Guild, also in the spirit of educating myself. A very odd party. Oh Eva, fancy not being able to send you more than a postcard!

  Your picture at the exhibition was well received – I put a high price on it because I want to keep it for myself – something of you. I’ve sold a number of pictures. Financially speaking I’m in rude health. Ulla Sukkari sends best wishes – she’s called Mrs Hjelt now. I shall go and visit your mama soon. Abrascha and wife are coming here to the studio in a few weeks’ time. Your brother Ruben is getting married before long. Good news from Boris so far. Prolles’s been moved a bit back from the front and is hoping for leave in a couple of weeks. Tapsa’s in Petroskoi – for now. Wolle wasn’t permitted to travel to Stockholm with the exhibition as we’d planned. He was terribly disappointed. He comes round pretty often, gets me cigarettes, theatre tickets and is terribly kind. Lasse, who’s been made editor of the school newspaper, has done a really great job. Ham’s been awfully down since the crash, but I’ve managed to get her calm and cheerful again. The atmosphere at home is gentle and cautious. Everything’s been said – I’m not in fear of another altercation. But it feels empty. An endless compromise, an endless balancing act, when one wants an “either – or”! I put my arms around you and miss you so much. My very warmest best wishes.