Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

  Lasse abruptly abandoned biology and switched to studying philology. Now Ham has written to tell me he’s thrown his studies overboard entirely and is going round as black as night, melancholy. I had a panicky letter from him, asking me for new ideas for short stories, so I’m trying to see what I can find for the boy. Poor thing, he’s so unlike Peo and so like me. Black periods followed by ecstatic ones, and forever falling in love. Peo goes through existence calmly weighing things up and observing them, and very seldom takes a wrong turn. They’re happy, he and Saga – and they thoroughly deserve to be!

  He’s publishing a collection of short stories in time for Christmas, and Lasse an adventure story. Perhaps you’d like them, and the children’s book I’ve got coming out?

  Faffan is definitely the one of us all least changed by the war. Perhaps he’s just sunk a little deeper into his bitter brooding and his feeling that he stands alone against Ham and me. Poor Faffan. And poor Ham! I’ve gradually shifted away from them, but will never be able to live entirely my own life while Ham is still alive. Her need for me is so boundless – and the muse knows she is half my heart as well.

  She’s had a difficult summer with lots of work in the heat, Faffan down with diphtheria, Lasse’s Weltschmerz and a young cousin from Sweden with recurring stomach pains, unaccustomed to the poor food, plus Impi in the kitchen going through every 50-year-old’s bouts of desperation.

  Meanwhile I’ve been here on Åland since 10th July, roaming about in a spell of work and a need for solitude, feeling like a deserter, but I’ve gritted my teeth and decided to stay anyway.

  There’s a great sense of melancholy here as summer comes to an end. Quiet days as I drift around the small fields and pastures down by the sea, paint and never meet a soul. (except an angry bull once, who attacked my canvas while I perched up in a puny little pine tree, quaking.) And I’m thinking about the autumn, exhibitions, friends, family – everything I shall have to immerse myself in again. And about Atos and me. Sometimes I love him so much that it almost hurts. At those times it seems so simple and natural to get married. It wouldn’t really change anything, we’d live separately, as we do now. But whenever he’s off on his trips to the great cities of the world to give philosophical lectures, I could go with him. He’s not bothered about children. He’s something of a genuine one-off, something meteoric and absolute, I don’t understand why he feels no urge to continue himself, only to complete and clarify his intellectual life. He’s the sort of person who makes me understand (which I’ve never done with any of my 100 and one other loves) that it would be very hard to marry anyone else after feeling his joy, his free spirit and intelligence. This scares me, but makes me feel proud and secure. I know he’s scarcely capable of loving in the way we mean when we talk of loving. He cares for me just as he cares for the sun, the soil, laughter, the wind. More intensely, but in the same way.

  Nietzsche is his Great Idol, and that pest of a philosopher has gone and written somewhere that a married philosopher is always ridiculous. Well, there you are! I’m content with things as they are, it’s just the future I’m thinking of. For now, my thoughts are running along completely new tracks, and I sometimes wonder if I shall be able to die without having Atos nearby. And children? This war has taught me one thing, at any rate. Never sons. Never soldiers. Maybe it’s become a bit of a fixed idea – but I’ve seen too much ever to risk it.

  Eva, the idea of coming over to you has taken a firmer shape since your letter. Why not! We were going to go to Mexico together, go south. And just like you, I would dare to go anywhere and do absolutely any sort of work. And we would be happy on our expeditions! This is still all a long way off, I know, but my longing and conviction are strong enough to wait.

  If at some point you were able to send me some paints, as you so kindly offered, these are the ones I use:

  Important Less important

  Kremser white Cadmium red pourpre

  Cadmium yellow Siena burnt

  Cadmium orange Siena natural

  Cadmium red (light and dark) Ivory black

  Ultramarine (dark) Light ochre

  Cobalt (light) Mars violet

  Vert emerande (emerald green) Alizarin madder lacquer (dark and pink)

  But I can manage for now on what I’ve been able to come by. And please, send me the little book of the letters you wrote to me! – How terribly lonely you must have been in that big house in the country. Imagine you putting up with it for six months.

  It was pretty miserable that for the years that were probably our most difficult, we weren’t able to write to each other. But knowing that you were there and thinking of me was often a help. May you have good health Eva, and may you cope with your irascible uncle and find a more interesting job. May you not be disappointed in Ramon, either – may you be happy! Greetings to your two best friends from me.

  Tove.

  when you got the news about your father: David Konikoff died in 1945.

  Ramon: Ramon Cordova, to whom Eva Konikoff was married for a time.

  1 OCT. 45. WRITTEN IN SWEDISH. 2 PAGES. TO MISS EVA KONIKOFF. 46 WEST. 17 STREET 11 N. YORK. FROM TOVE JANSSON. ULRIKABORGG. 1 A. HELSINGFORS. FINLAND.

  Dearest Eva!

  Today I lit the first fire of the year in the studio, because it’s already down to just 8˚ in there. I can hear dripping on the tower roof again and the ships are hooting out there in the dark – spring sounds. But not worrying when it’s winter that lies ahead … It was the disinfector who brought the coal for me. He’d heard that I was cold – so he turned up one morning with two sacks of coal! There are some wonderful people, in spite of everything. And do you know what he did – (I gave him a picture he liked) – sent flowers to thank me! A remarkable gentleman, incidentally. It’s made him something of a philosopher, having to go though people’s flats, offices and lumber rooms so thoroughly – and every disinfection a voyage of discovery for him, as lives are unrolled and stripped pretty much naked. And he’s seen people’s faces, too. He was a telegram messenger for quite a few years. It’s the workers and the aristocracy who bear a blow with the most dignity, he said. We talked to each other for a long time, and he was more interesting than a lot of my friends.

  The Young Artists’ exhibition has formally opened. Just think, Koni, I was hung in the middle gallery for the first time, with the older and more experienced artists. It feels funny to have come to that … I simply hadn’t noticed I wasn’t so young any more, but there it is! (They’re even considering buying one of my still lives for the museum, so then I’d be “immortal” to boot! Cheers!) Fellow artists who reverently step into my cold tower say “One would have to be a young painter to have …” But anyway – life seems to me to grow richer and more intense with every passing year. I not only understand more but feel and see more. Perhaps the very fact that one learns not to try to understand everything. That one’s emotions are not invested in too many people, too many things – and one doesn’t see only what is pleasing to the eye.

  Samuli came rushing up to the studio one morning and sat and talked for several hours in his old, frank way – oh, how long ago that was! It’s a difficult time for him. And even more difficult for Maya, poor little thing. She’s in Stockholm at the moment. He was reproaching himself in all sorts of ways. Talking about how he works, deaf and blind, in a kind of frenzy, for weeks on end. And while that lasts, nothing else exists for him. Not Maya, nor his friends. Perhaps his talent lies precisely in that single-track intensity of his. The heedless fury that’s driven all the geniuses’ wives to despair. I can understand them! (And, may the muse have mercy on me – I understand their husbands, as well.) To scarcely get a word, a friendly sign, a caress – to scarcely dare tell him dinner’s ready. Sitting alone in a silent house, week after week, maybe for months, waiting for her husband to relax, a reaction period in which he notices she exists again! To put up with that, Samuel said, she has to love my work more than herself, more than me. But I’ve seen her eyes go black with h
atred when she looks at my paintings. They’re fond of each other. But how are they to get through this!

  Sam is firmly convinced that in the three years he spent being a “good husband”, he got worse as a painter. (His pictures were worse, a bit, but I thought it was on account of the war – we all found it hard to paint then!)

  Now he has indisputably taken a leap forward. But he felt he’d lost a great deal too. The friends he ignored in his working period aren’t interested now he’s emerged from his studio for one of his intermissions. And Maya, who knew from experience that it would come after the exhibition, went to Stockholm to let him see how alone he was. He was certainly going crazy with loneliness when he came here! And wondering if the pictures were worth what he’d sacrificed for them. And what Maya had had to give! My poor friends. I always thought this was a women’s problem – when she’s in a creative profession. Sometimes the man has to choose too and Eva, it’s a horrible decision!

  Atos was here for dinner today. And it was so strange to hear him use more or less the same expression as Samuel, “The Concept”. The unimportance of any event external to that – Indifference to everyone and everything apart from the life within (Painting) And goodness me, don’t they both let their shirts get filthy when they’re living free range!

  But. There’s a big difference. When Atos tumbles in at some hour of the night, sleepy and with his head full of politics – or abstract ideas – he talks to me. He lets me share it, even if I don’t understand it all. I must admit I’m sometimes not all that interested in what this or that social democrat said – especially right after an embrace – but imagine if Atos said nothing. If he just retired into his own world and left me even more lonely and desolate than one is afterwards, anyway. If that happened, I’d jolly well be off to Stockholm too! (If I could.)

  Can you believe it, I’ve had another proposal. A young painter, Siegfrid, aged 27. A gawkily persistent boy, his pockets perpetually full of poetry, and I’m sure he’ll make a good artist one day. Just like Ricki (the seascape painter), with whom he shares my old studio on Fänrik Ståhlsgatan, he’s a strange mixture of weakness and downright hooliganism. A foundling whose bloody grim childhood was followed by a rag-tag sort of young adulthood at sea – and five years of war. I wonder if there’s any poet who he doesn’t know and whose best work he can’t recite – and his own poems aren’t bad. He’s sold three canvases at the Young Artists’ and can afford to get his trousers and watch out of hock!

  Now Eva, goodnight. It would be lonesome without you to talk to sometimes. I wonder how you are this evening. Whether you were able to forgive Ramon. Not for what he did – but for being that kind of person. I wonder if you’re happy. And I wish it, very much indeed!

  Tove.

  10 Oct.

  A break for a rather action-packed interlude. Lasse, poor little boy, tried to run away to South America with a mate of his – thought they’d sail across. They only got as far as the Gulf of Finland before they were shipwrecked, but they’re safe. I’ll write again later. A kiss! Oh, and I’ve become “immortal”. Cheers, Eva.

  disinfector: a pest-control officer from the local health authority whose job was to disinfect people’s homes.

  26 OCT. 45. WRITTEN IN SWEDISH. TO MISS EVA KONIKOFF. 46 WEST. 17 ST. NEW YORK, U.S.A. FROM TOVE JANSSON ULRIKABORGSG. 1 A. HELSINGFORS. FINLAND. 4 PAGES.

  My best wishes to Ramon!

  Dearest Eva!

  I really miss you this evening. The rain is dancing on the tin roof of my tower and I’ve pulled my electric sun as close as I can. The studio looks huge and gloomy at night and now that it’s full of 4-metre-high lions and tigers and monkeys, glaring from every corner – it’s almost creepy. I’m busy with the decorations for a big artists’ gala taking place on 3rd November, and I’ve now spent nearly a month cursing the responsibility they’ve heaped upon me. It’s going to be Noah’s Ark, Hagelstam’s old idea for a new Noch eine Nacht that never happened. I painted the Ark and Mount Ararat in the scenery workshop at the Swedish Theatre – they’re over 11 m high – and the brontosauruses even taller. May the muse have mercy, I’m starting to see animals going in two by two both day and night. It’s going to be in the courtyard of the Adlon Börs hotel – and in the restaurant we’re having Noah’s vineyard with grapes and leaves by the thousand. This Bacchanalian popular entertainment has been organised by a Swedish art foundation, which has appointed me as animal painter. The waiters will be wearing donkey ears and tails, and I shall delight in yanking the latter with a “Waiter, a beer” – and consider it compensation for my work. Acquiring the materials took ten days – and it’s all got to be painted in watercolours – and easel painters have an incredibly easy time of it – well, never mind. Let’s talk about other things, I’m going mad with this silly menagerie Here is my study from outside, with all the 14 windows alight. And here is the marvel seen in bird perspective.

  Facsimile of the handwritten letter (26 October 1945). It includes a night-time sketch of the outside of Tove’s building and a sketched floor plan of the studio.

  4 Nov.

  Eva, dearest friend – I’ve had two more letters from you – with loads of new things to talk about – and a parcel is on its way to me! And what a wonderful parcel! It’s as if you know exactly what I like best. And I absolutely must protest when you call jam, cigarettes, figs, tea, coffee and cocoa “practical items”! They’re luxuries, Konikova, and will gladden my existence for a long time to come. It’s so nice to think of having some treats to offer Atos when he comes. But you’ve got to go carefully, Eva, and not put yourself to too much expense on my account. I know you’re not particularly rich – especially at the moment, while you’re looking for new work.

  Of course it would be wonderful to have any kind of clothing you don’t wear any more, Eva! Do you remember the brown, buttoned coat I bought off you for 100 (!) marks? I’ve been wearing it ever since and it’s been very useful. Now I’m wondering whether to turn the fabric and combine it with the best bits of my old brown fur to make a winter coat for Ham. Thank goodness I bought a yellow fur, muskrat belly, on the proceeds of my solo exhibition – but there are none left for her now. Since you ask so eagerly, a pair of woollen stockings, or any other kind, would be lovely to have – it doesn’t matter in the slightest if they’ve got the odd hole! (Ham is size 38 (shoes) I’m 37). There have been no stockings here for many years. We manage pretty well, by the way, though we do look a bit shabby! Ham has had an awful lot of book covers this autumn and is quite tired. But in spite of that she came to the Noah’s Ark party, in her sky-blue evening gown. Faffan didn’t join us; he’s become more and more of a recluse – burrowing into his newspapers and not wanting to see a soul. [ … ]

  Eva, I have to tell you: I could have got the Paris Scholarship from the French state. But I didn’t apply. I can’t leave Atos! That’s rather alarming, isn’t it! You ask, Eva – and yes, I would marry him anytime. But still live here in the studio. I don’t think the philosopher fancies embarking on matrimony, though. In your letter you touch on a problem that’s been very topical for both of us recently. No, Konikova, it’s not that we’re starting to get old, afraid of being left on our own, keen to find “security”. Not you and I. Nor do I think it would be so impossible for us to rise above the awkward incidents and inevitable gossip that can’t but follow when one lives openly with a man one loves. And it’s easy to end up as a part-time job even if one has married him, isn’t it? There’s something that lies deeper.

  Up to now I’ve been a single person, who has taken great care over safety margins, and I’ve always kept that kind of private life carefully hidden, keeping it as a rather embarrassing luxury, alongside my work. Now I don’t care about the margins any more. I don’t want, and never will want, to have anyone else but him. Until now, the thought of potential loves to come has always been thinkable. That’s been a bit sad, perhaps, but also comforting. Now my burning wish is never to have another love affair – it seems
inconceivable. And I can’t, and don’t want to, hide away what I’m most proud of, which isn’t just luxury-on-the-side any more, but something natural, essential, a big part of my self and my life. It would be like not daring to show your eyes! And that’s why it suddenly seems so obvious that we should also show outwardly, legitimately: we have chosen each other. Besides which, it’s a token of appreciation of the other person to want to marry him or her. You close off the retreat route, or at least make it more difficult, you admit “I intend this as my definitive choice, and am acknowledging it openly in this way”. I’m very tired of this half-heartedness, my own half-heartedness. But, Eva – one thing. I know I would accept a so-called secret marriage with the same joy; the knowledge that he’s chosen me for his whole life. (naturally apart from anything that could later divide us, split us up.) It’s a matter between Atos and me – the outside world isn’t at all as important. Of course a marriage would be more practical, one wouldn’t have to be on one’s guard, holding one’s breath when there’s a ring at the door in the morning instead of simply opening it and saying: Come back later, my husband’s still asleep. For example. And we could enjoy ourselves at the same parties, go on the same trips without having to beat about the bush at stations and hotels.