by Tove Jansson
The evening before I left, Atos suddenly turned up – to “bring me home”. I was pleased he’d come. A long, expensive, awkward trip for a few hours on Pellinge, even though I was about to come home. We walked round the beaches in the gale and took a smoke sauna.
It’s strange to be here again. I’m still in the transition phase and the studio feels a bit alien to me. But it’s not unfriendly, not hostile like last time I was here. Perhaps I can start painting again.
I’m busy with the Moomin series for Atos’s paper.
I shall be criticised for moving to the left. (Which they’ll all believe I am, of course.) But it doesn’t mattter. Atos is so happy and enthusiastic about the idea that I can’t say no.
Lasse’s got a job on the radio: he’s translating 10-minute short stories and doing interviews. Working 9–4. It’s given him a boost to get a permanent job. In the evenings he works frantically – until late into the night – on a historical novel he’s entering for a literary competition. He’s started writing poetry, in English. I’d like to send them to you. They seem good to me. – Ham’s stomach is better. It was terribly nice to see her again. Lots of work, as usual. – Once I’m back in the swing of life in town, I’ll write again. Lots of x x x x to you and Ramon and a big hug
from your happy friend Tove.
the Moomin series for Atos’s paper: See Letters to Atos Wirtanen.
16.12.47 [Helsingfors]
11 photographs in the envelope.
Dearest Eva!
My friend, I was terribly pleased with the slippers. Quite apart from the fact that the old ones were worn out and cold, and these so pretty and as warm as birds’ nests – I was so glad that you’d thought of them and sent them – in the midst of all your work. The parcel notification card was waiting in the studio, where I haven’t been for a week; you’ll appreciate its walls felt chilled and dusty and dead. And then you were here to receive me with a pair of slippers! You’re right, I am your best friend – and I always will be. I know I haven’t written since the early autumn, yet I still feel you are the only one I have the urge to write to, and never ever with a sense of obligation. Tens of letters have been sent off, and lots of parcels to sort-of-friends, and all of them with roughly the same contents and the same words. My relationship with you, on the other hand, is so different from all the rest that I wait to talk to you until it’s a pleasure, something I wouldn’t want to miss. So you’ll get this letter long after Christmas.
Your mother will be writing to you to say I’ve got a licence to send you the big portrait in the blue skirt, the one you sat for at Fänrik Stålsgatan. When we realised she was thinking of sending you your portrait of Samuli too, though, we decided to let you choose which you wanted. They’re both pretty large for a small flat – but maybe you’d like both? The licence can be used for any canvas you like. Possibly you’d like Samu’s now – its colours are better – and mine later, and it could also be that the customs duty you’d have to pay would be too high.
Your mother brought a photograph of you, and we realised your face is growing more attractive, the older you get. And she gave me something to look forward to: the possibility that you and Ramon are coming over to Finland if you can afford it.
You can imagine how happy that made me! Just to think of being able to show you the studio – and Bredskär! Of talking to you again, seeing you, walking around with you and just being. I’m sending a bunch of photographs of my immediate surroundings, I’ll send some more of the island later.
I’m wondering whether to go out there early, in the spring, to finish off the verandah, inner roof and weatherboarding. And then stay there for as much of the summer as I can. Lots of people have talked about coming out to visit, but you know how few of them actually will in the end. Atos, too. He wrote to me from Poland, a lovely little letter that made me happy. Short and cheerful and as honest as he is himself. Said he could have written in Stockholm, but longed to make a serious job of it, once he was by himself. He’d like to come out to the island for a while, just with me. He said his spring would involve intense political campaigning, he was going to start another newspaper, in Finnish, but it would be one final campaign. Said I was with him on his journey and that I was a part of him. Not that usual talking-to-a-little-child tone he so often used to adopt. Just before he left on the trip I broke down and said we should split up because after all the only thing keeping us together was force of habit and feeling tolerably comfortable together. He didn’t want to, had nothing in particular to say.
Apart from the past week, which I devoted to family parcels, cleaning and Christmas presents at Lallukka, I’ve been trying to get a few paintings into shape in the studio. The first part of the autumn was just hopeless; I did things that were far below the standard of my canvases a year ago, wasn’t in the mood and couldn’t concentrate. At the end of November I finally started to get somewhere. Patches here and there that actually looked like painting. There are a couple that could turn out to be all right, but I somehow feel incapable of judging their quality, as if my entire will has slipped out of my control. At times I think they are worse than ever, at others that I’m working in an entirely new way and didn’t notice myself crossing the old boundary and moving on. The worst thing has been this complete lack of relish for anything I do. I assume it’s the result of playing someone other than myself all through the spring in my attempt to win another human being. Swallowing and lying and feigning all that unruffled banter. Then putting on a cheerful face for the family’s sake and for our Swedish guest, and systematically trying to kill off my feelings for the very person I was fighting for. It’s hard to be kept dangling in mid-air between woman and man, and when you finally realise you’ve got to be honest, and nothing but honest – then you’re left not knowing what is real.
It’s all turned into something that has little to do with “happiness” or “love” – oh, all those words – only work and peace of mind. When Vivica got back from France and called me, I was ecstatic.
We haven’t seen each other much since then, and it’s a long time since she came. Nothing’s happened, nothing’s been decided. Sometimes it’s small talk, or a flare-up of the same bitter old misunderstandings, the beginning of a conversation, an attempt at warmth. I was prepared for absolutely anything, for going on, for making do with friendship, for meeting only now and then to talk and laugh. But I’ve got to have someone to help me shape all this into something other than frayed torment and uncertainty.
She said, I don’t know. I haven’t the energy. I’ve no appetite for anything. So I realised that there isn’t, nor ever will be, such a person to help me. And however much I would like to help her with her coolness, her vulnerability and distrust, her lack of productivity, I just can’t, any more than she can me. We’ve turned into two people in some kind of relationship, who can’t quite be bothered with making an impression on – or caring for – each other. It all feels so lifeless, though violent reactions can erupt at any time. For example, I mentioned that I’m doing a Moomin comic strip for the children’s corner in Atos’s magazine. She was beside herself at such betrayal and made violent accusations. I ought not to have defended myself, but I did – and the result was a huge argument out of all proportion, ending in tears on both sides. There, you see, that’s what is untenable and unnatural about a lesbian relationship. Not the morality, not the anatomical aspect, not the social issue. But the fact that a difference of opinion, a confidence, a joint venture, in fact anything the two of you try to forge can never maintain its equilibrium. In a dispute between a [the following line is illegible] her softness, perhaps thanks to his composure. Between two women, those complementary aspects are lacking, they both tend to overreact. I assume the same happens with two men. An infernal sense of melancholy and powerlessness afterwards. It’s like building a house of cards, when it collapses for the nineteenth time you feel like hurling the whole pack out of the window.
Now I’ve done something and (as with eve
rything else) I don’t know if it’s brave or just the opposite, exceptionally cowardly. I wrote to Atos and asked if he thought it would be a good idea for us to marry each other. If he didn’t fancy it, we could simply talk about other things when he came home. He’ll get the letter in Stockholm on his way back.
When I sent it off, something really nice happened. The dialogue with Vivica that’s been going on in my head ever since the early spring stopped. That terrible rumination on everything we’d said, could have said, should have said, haven’t said. Bottled up and chewed over, day and night. I hoped I’d get the chance to tell her everything that had been weighing me down when she came this time, and thus be free of it. But she didn’t let me say a thing. It served me right for being so self-absorbed, but I thought it was the only thing that would help me through. It would help me understand something important, and after that we’d become friends, real friends.
I think I’m hoping Atos will feel like marrying me. We could have separate homes the way we do now, and not change how we live at all. Probably he wouldn’t even alter his attitude to me – though perhaps he might lose his vague sense of guilt
[following line missing from copy]
But I imagine that as a “symbol” it would mean a lot to me. Why – I don’t know. I know less and less, in fact. But perhaps I’d feel calmer and more able to work. And not keep yearning to be over on “la rive gauche”.
So that’s that. I could write about the monkey and various odds and ends happening at Lalukka – no. That’s what I’ve been doing in a whole batch of “Happy Christmas letters”. But when I write Happy New Year! to you, I mean it with all my heart and wish it most sincerely. Regards to Ramon!
Tove.
I wrote to Atos: See Letters to Atos Wirtanen, Undated, 1947.
4.1.1948 [Helsingfors]
Dearest Eva!
I’m lying in my studio at the moment, proudly surrounded by sixty newly prepared canvases and getting through a bad cold. Impatient to be up again, because my urge to paint has come back. Admittedly the new things I’ve done are less exhibition-worthy than my earlier stuff, but with more potential for development. Broader, simpler, more painterly. I think. In fact, it doesn’t matter. The return of my urge to paint is the only really important thing.
I’m pleased to be able to tell you that Atos and I will be getting married sometime this spring. He answered my proposal letter the way only he could. “Tove, is it true we aren’t married yet? I thought we were, we must have neglected to do it somehow. It’s just a formality, of course. We really must get round to it before too long. People will start suspecting we don’t get on with each other.” I chuckled over that letter for quite a while and felt absurdly light and glad. Everything was suddenly so simple, there was no need to brood any more.
I was wondering earlier whether I’d been particularly brave or particularly cowardly. I’m pretty sure it was the latter. If I’d been fully conscious as I proposed that he was the one I loved, then that would have been very brave. But I didn’t know, merely wanted to save myself. In some way. But that doesn’t matter either. It happened to be right. It must be right, because it made me so happy and I still am. I shan’t tell anybody about it until we’re actually married, if then.
It is, as he says, just a formality, but for me it has symbolic significance and is a bigger thing than he imagines. Anyway, I wanted to write and tell you, the one who has accompanied me along these tangled paths this past year. Of course I’m under no illusion that it will be a smooth ride along the high road from now on – even if I genuinely believe I shall never feel the inclination to be anything but faithful. I’ve found too much inside me that’s strange, and there could very well be more. My hatred of her hasn’t been tamed, and I must turn it into honest kindness. It’s dangerous to be afraid! And I suddenly feel a little bitter to think it was all so unnecessary and nothing but destructive, tearing things down. I must try to find the good aspects that were there before. Oh there’s so much to sort out … But it doesn’t matter that much, as long as one finally has a sense of calm. Eva, just imagine – if I could make my paintings look the way I see them before I start work – I think I’m falling asleep. A hug! And all the best.
Don’t you think I shall be an odd sort of politician’s wife?
Tove.
IN 1948 TOVE JANSSON WENT TO ITALY AND FRANCE WITH Sam and Maya Vanni. See Letters to Atos Wirtanen and the introduction to Letters to Maya Vanni.
2 APRIL 48 [Helsingfors]
Eva, dearest
your letter got here just before I’m due to leave – in four days’ time. I seem likely to spend those days doing battle with a tiresome attack of angina that swooped down on me last night. I can only whisper and feel tired out. Sofen got home in the middle of the night. Oh no, Eva, I wasn’t feeling hurt by him any longer – only for a couple of days. And I had no regrets, either. Sometimes I forget that normal standards can’t be applied to him – but I’m learning more and more. These years – is it 5 now? 6? – have been entirely necessary for me to discover him – and myself. Now I feel we can gradually think of getting married without suffering any major reaction or disappointment later on. He mentioned it himself en passant. Said I wasn’t to come home too late, because once we’d entered a state of matrimony he wanted to go out to Bredskär and write. You’re right that anything one does honestly can rarely be ridiculous or cause harm. And that one should avoid getting one’s confounded vanity involved. I always get ticked off if I do, and told to turn it down a bit if I give way to pathos or get all dramatic and officious. Everything’s going to be fine, you’ll see.
Atos was pleased. He’d had a letter from Tomas Mann, to whom he’d sent his Nietzsche book. Tomas Mann was quite enthusiastic and wanted to get it published in Germany.
Sofen’s been perpetually on his travels for some time now, with quick stops here sometimes for a couple of days. Since I last wrote to you I’ve spent virtually all my time dashing round making preparations for my trip. Transit visas for 6 countries and applications for currency plus permission to buy the ticket – outward and return – in Finnish money. The latter was granted after a good deal of argument as an exceptional favour, but I drew a blank on the currency. So the dashing about this past week has been all about subsistence down there. If nothing else works, I shall try to take on drawing jobs for some comic magazine. Sam managed to lay his hands on a bit of currency, but Maya couldn’t even get travel money. We’re going, all the same. In spite of angina and the bank.
I’ve got a really sore throat. (Wash your hands when you’ve read this letter!) I simply must talk to you before I go, though it’s hard to collect my thoughts and my writing looks like spiders’ legs.
Today the first spring rain has arrived.
You must sometimes miss the slowness of our spring. It’s the loveliest thing we have here … It’s a pity when it turns hot all of a sudden. It’s so nice to go about in a sense of expectation, to watch things as they change and sense everything as it awakens in the air. I can’t tell you how happy I am that you haven’t given up the idea of coming over here, after all. I know we’d enjoy being together on the island. I know you and Sofen would like each other and not be disappointed in each other. I shall joyfully wait and wait for the day you come – and if you can’t get the money together, I’ll come to you. Because I’m starting to think it’s been quite long enough since you vanished. I’ve never really got used to not being able to ring you any time of the day or night, or dash straight round to see you if anything happened … Luckily we’ve had the letters, but it still isn’t really enough. My friendship with Eva Wichmann, the author I think I told you about, has grown stronger. I’m glad about that and grateful for it – and surprised; we only found each other after I’d given up my long-standing hope that things would get a little warmer between us than just intellectual teatime chat. But whoever comes and goes around me, I miss you in exactly the same way as I did the day after you left.
I
was terribly pleased you liked the picture. Imagine my happening to send something that cheered you up when you were feeling lonely! I was afraid the picture would just seem big and oppressive in a little apartment.
You must have had a very hard time after the divorce and his stupid selfishness. I agree with you – if these are the things that are meant to enrich our lives, they can keep them. Isn’t it strange that right after such periods of disillusionment and dirt-grubbing, one’s life-affirming flame can burn twice as brightly. It’s only natural for you to give your lonely body what it demands. It’s so awful when it becomes your enemy.
Evening. Stuffing myself with sulphur, every cigarette tastes like filtered aspirin. (quote from Torsten)
So you’ve been building a house too! Well done them, for putting together their new Photo League themselves. You’ll have lots to tell me when we meet (just not about Berenice Abbott). I haven’t received the photos you referred to and am wondering whether you’ve sent them off or not. Will recent events have a very detrimental effect on your photographic work? Have you got the equipment you need, or did Ramon take it all with him? You bet I understand how anxious the inactivity makes you feel, with nothing getting done and nothing going well! And the agony of never being able to summon up enough concentration.
