by Tove Jansson
I wonder what would happen if I was allowed to ask people to dance? Would I opt for the most beautiful and brazen or for those who never get to dance and who yearn the most? I wonder.
Later: She’s a saloon stewardness but this trip and all the trimmings were a present, you see, and the café is full of men not inviting her to dance! So I bought her a cognac instead and after she got a bit tipsy we decided that in Heaven we would dance from morning to night!
When I get to Stockholm, Bitti will meet me off the boat on her way to work and bring the manuscript of The Sculptor’s Daughter with her. I shall take it to Oslo and give it to Uca. Over the winter it emerged that she was very well aware of having hung onto Pappan och havet (Moominpappa at Sea) for six months without reading it, and was clearly even more upset about it than me. So I thought this would be OK. What sensitive prima donnas authors are! Suddenly her verdict isn’t important to me any more – isn’t that awful. Ça passe, J’espere. But this Oslo trip is important, at any rate; I’m anxious about our friendship. The bridge has had to bear too much weight, I need to shore it up.
I shall also meet up with Gunnel – I told Uca and she looked as if she’d bitten into something sour. But it can’t be helped, I want to see Gunnel as well and shall make sure it’s a pleasant and natural encounter.
Tomorrow I’m spending half a day with Ulla and as you can imagine I haven’t the faintest idea how that will go. I’ll take it as it comes, if she wants to keep conventionally silent and talk about horses, that’s fine – if she wants to explode then tant mieux. The funeral is on 28th Feb. at 5 o’clock. So I can be there, I’ll be staying at Bitti’s. Ham was so glad I’d be able to represent us. So was I. Well not exactly glad. I’d been planning to go and see him but I arrived a week too late. You’re right – he was important to me. One of the most important people in my life.
If you knew how it torments me now that I wrote to all those others, the ones who demanded and nagged – whether they were family, friends or fans, all the people pushing for letters, and not to him. Well, one can only bite that bullet and accept it for what it is, clear it aside. But I wanted to say it, once, and to a shoe for example.
(What–a–relief, someone asked her to dance. I shall have another cognac.)
Dialectically enough, I’ve also been invited to a hippie party in Oslo. On se deguise (is that right?). With the Wild West very much to the fore in my mind (they still have their bar, can’t bear to part with it) and an unshakeable determination to have a good time in spite of Everything, I went to Tempo and bought lots of plastic daisies and made a wreath for my hair, a big wild one with flowers sticking out in all directions, and fixed two of the daisies on my shoes. And I put in a dance record when I was packing, feeling rather sheepish. You know! I’m sure they’re no more straight-laced in Oslo than here. And my urge to dance will persist until my dying day. I often do it on my own in the studio, with or without Pipsu. And have such fun. But my exhibitionist streak shouldn’t be denied or scorned, should it? As you can hear – my trip and the motivation for it are as varied as everything else, simply everything.
And you must write and tell me, where is your notebook with the list of ghost places in Paris?!?! I want to dance with you!
Yesterday Lasse came by and said the Evening News doesn’t want his Moomin comic strip any more. Its distribution is now to be worldwide and the fee considerably lower. What a terrible shame. The same job – and payment per panel. Naturally we responded by making light of it in our typically Janssonian way (do I?!? Still? I hope not) and Lasse wrote to reassure Fleet Street, which was feeling bad about breaking the bad news. You may recall that Lasse was planning a trip to London to ask for a higher fee?
The elementary-school teachers’ magazine Julstjärna had approached him to ask for a Christmas short story (50 marks!) with illustrations (25 marks!) which made him groan but I could tell he was very interested. Today he showed me the results – a Moomin story! I was taken aback, laughed – accepted it, the tale was good. What confidence! He was awfully embarrassed when he realised his Moomin short story came as something of a surprise to me! [ … ]
– I shall now retire to my luxury cabin and wish you a – good night’s sleep!
Tove.
Les abimes abominables: Terrible gaps.
“le voyage f´minine” tout seule: TJ’s visit to Bitti Fock and Vivica Bandler, which she describes in more detail in the letters.
Gunnel: Gunnel Malmström, TJ’s Norwegian translator.
Ulla: TJ’s cousin Ulla Hammarsten, Einar’s daughter.
5.9.68 [Klovharun]
Darling Tooti,
All is well on Harun, neither thunderstorm nor stomach cramps nor anti-Semites. Strangely empty. I’m pottering and thinking. I tried writing for a while but it wasn’t any good, went in the wrong direction. Have to wait until I find an obvious opening gambit and get some pictures done instead.
It’s been very windy since you left and the weather was foul for a while, I got busy in the cellar where the bastions are growing. I used beach sand, it was excellent, the concreting went like a dream. Now the cement is practically all gone, which I’m glad of, it would be all too easy to go a bit mad like at Odden otherwise. Joining on the vertical sections will have to wait for next year but all the top surfaces are done. And I’ve sawed the barrel in two and put it on the verandah. I saved the best bits from the middle, maybe they can be used to mend the rotten parts.
I weeded all the grass from Lasse’s patch and evacuated all the plants to a rock hollow, and am shoving things into the cellar for the winter, uhh, what a lot of stuff we have. The Honda’s been behaving like an angel and has lapped up all the canisters of petrol, but yesterday it suddenly wouldn’t go. I got it started again and it went for a while, then stopped. I can manage these final hours with candles, though. The gas ran out but I connected the new tube with a single twist, she said very proudly. You are a good – and oh so patient – teacher! [ … ]
Tove Jansson in the cabin on Klovharun, 1960s.
I found the cooking oil in the chest under the water buckets. The first days I lived on sandwishes with tea and coffee, then fried tomatoes and onions. Now I’m cautiously embarking on tins, the small, easygoing ones. I haven’t washed any dishes at all. My stomach is finally back to normal and I feel as strong as anything.
Saturday. Thanks for the nice letter and bottles from you and Lis! Warm wishes to her.
How horribly dusty and hectic it must have been for you in town, my poor darling. But it was unavoidable really, not least for the sake of the passe-partouts. And even if you’d stayed, you would only have gone about here feeling anxious about meetings to come, the town had already wrapped its tentacles around you.
You know, right at the start it’s impossible to work, I mean “properly”. One gets things organised, and is all set. That leeway is always crucial, and you’ve got a head start by going back so early. So you mustn’t worry about the fact that you went. Now you’ve got a free run at your studio, your place of work, and all the social side out of the way, you know what I mean. One week end here wouldn’t disturb the even ripple of those circles – and what fun that would be.
Tooti and Tove in Italy.
Guess who’s sitting there eating my last nuts in front of the verandah – a squirrel! It appeared on the island this morning. When Lasse came with Kiki and the kids it had just discovered all the bread for the birds – and fled in panic. Now it’s back again.
They only stayed a few minutes because they were off to pick mushrooms and cowberries. Between us we unloaded lots of peat that I’m going to put in front of the house for next year’s Show Garden. I think it could be magnificent! There was only nice post, some good reviews, the new paperbacks are out, a draft contract from WYSOY for “Daughter”, an enthusiastic letter from Elin Svedlin who likes the book, letters and apples from Ham.
She’s anxious about that unlucky splinter I got, woe is me – Abbes will fill you in on the details.
Some of it came out with a pin, to many an ouch and yelp, while the rest, along with all the ointment and sulphur powder, has closed up and is slowly growing out. It doesn’t hurt at all any more. Do let her know, if you feel like ringing. My letter to her has already gone off with Lasse (and, at last, the difficult letters – to Nita and Tia) but he’s popping back to the island after the mushroom hunt to pick up this letter to you.
And anyway, he wants to offload some more peat he’d been storing over at Viken. Lasse’s taking this Garden very seriously, decent of him, isn’t it.
Yesterday I wandered round in the nude all day and took a dip in the inlet now and then – ugh, how hot it must have been for you all in town. I sank some stones and household rubbish and rowed to Hästhällarna while I was at it for the last of the shelf stones for the cellar (which is finished now). I found another barrel while I was there, and a Mysterious Chair.
Apart from my perpetual and natural worries about how hard it is to make art and above all how hard it is to get started, I’m feeling shamelessly and undeservedly good. As I have been for several superb months in a row. You wrote that I need this peace after a tough summer – and I was surprised and started to think. It wasn’t tough, was it? The film week was terrible – but after all it was only a week and the wretched thing should probably be a source of pride, rather than anything? And anyway, I’ve put it out of my mind. All the rest has been smooth, first-rate, a rest cure – I was horror-struck by sudden invasions I suppose, but there weren’t many of them and afterwards one just feels grateful the thing was pleasant and went well. I have a general sense of it being a very fine summer, warm in terms of both weather and company – and I’m very grateful for that feeling. Thank you Tooticki!
If only I could convert it into pictures or words it could turn into something very good. Perhaps it will, one has to be patient.
My regards to all Pietiläs and other friends. A big
from Tove.
anti-Semites: Refers to some kind of insect life, possibly ants.
Lis: Lis Hooge-Hansen, Danish sculptor and engraver.
the film week: Margareta Strömstedt was filming “Moomin and the Sea”, which was shown on Swedish Television at Christmas 1968.
Elin Svedlin: Widow of Thure Svedlin, who was head of the publishing house Holger Schildts Förlags.
“Dearest Ham”
LETTERS TO SIGNE HAMMARSTEN JANSSON 1959–1967
Signe Hammarsten Jansson.
FOLLOWING VIKTOR JANSSON’S DEATH IN 1958, SIGNE HAMMARSTEN Jansson had to leave the Lallukka artists’ home. She moved in with Lars Jansson and spent the summers with Tove and/or Lars on Bredskär. From 1964 onwards, she took it in turns between Lars Jansson and family on Bredskär, and Klovharun, where Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä lived.
The visit to Greece in the autumn of 1959 was the first trip Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä made together. It began and ended in Athens, and in between they led an island-hopping life, including some time spent on Mykonos, and a stay in the Peloponnese. After that, a month in Paris lay ahead. Tove Jansson’s decision to leave her mother behind was not an easy one – previously they had travelled together – and a drama of jealousy, distress, guilt and depression ensued. But Tove Jansson did not forgo the trip. In her many letters the closeness between mother and daughter is a recurring subject, interwoven with descriptions of places and experiences.
In her short story “Den Stora resan” (“The Great Journey”) Tove Jansson presents a similar situation. Two women plan a trip, and one of them is anxious about leaving her mother. But in the story, the woman travels with her mother rather than her loved one.
* * *
4.11.59. ATHENS.
Dearest Ham,
Thank you for your first letter, which was here to meet me in Athens! At first they told me there was nothing for me, and I was scared stiff. But by the time we got up to our room (which is relatively small but as tall as my studio, with enormous beds), they came scampering in with the letter.
I knew you’d find the first night miserable, darling. Even as a young, healthy individual, I felt rotten for the entire first part of the trip – and I know it’s because I was going so far away from you. We’re so close to one another that we can’t really cope with being separated for any stretch of time. But think how wonderful it will be when we meet again, and how soothing to know that we’ve no particular farewells ahead of us.
I know you’re glad I got away on a real trip after all the wretched cartoon strip business, so I can bury it properly and start afresh. And I sense that this very different world around me is going to smooth out the old and build something new.
I threw away the Artists’ Guild Yearbook card. But the other news was good, about Lasse’s synopsis, Aschehoug and Sutton. I suppose he’ll just have to keep the drawings, then – the main thing is that we know where they are. But he is a bit silly – and presumably doesn’t know much about publishing.
Couldn’t care less about Carroll – it was just an experiment. (5th. The letters from England came today.)
I think your stamps are lovely, now I’ve seen the finished articles on a letter. What do you think of the Greek stamp? The postcards here are quite grand – but I still prefer writing you letters as usual. You’re the only one I feel the need to tell all about this trip. Little cards will do for the others. Well – the letters are partly for Lasse too – it’s true.
Today we went up to the Acropolis and it was so striking and beautiful that one felt a great air of solemnity. Even in me, a rudimentary sense of the historical connections is starting to stir, and I’m eagerly reading up on Athens. All we’ve done so far, by the way, is wander round. Regard things in wonder – we’ll only take in the museums once we’ve got some kind of overall impression of the city, the ruins, people’s mentality. The street where we’re staying is wide and bustling, and just opposite they’re building a house with much crashing and shouting, every single vehicle makes as much of a racket as it can and the street vendors supply the rest. The houses are mainly white with bold splashes of colour – the people we’ve had contact with are friendly and, with a few shameless exceptions, mostly minded to guide and help us.
I had fried octopus (again) with white Greek schnapps (one glass!) and olives sprinkled with salt, which made me retch half the night and today I went over to candied pears and fermented raw cabbage. Perhaps that will be better!
It’s a relief to find that Tooti seems as tired as I am by all this walking around. She’s not at all as over-energetic as I thought. In Switzerland, for instance, she guiltily avoided the museums, saying she wanted to “look” instead. There, incidentally, I bought a pair of high-heeled plastic rain shoes, cheap ones – they look as if they’re made of white glass. Our basic see-through rain macs, you know the ones, cause a great stir here, people come up to us to touch and feel them.
Clothes are terribly dear, but the wonderful hand-woven skirts and shawls they make on the islands are ludicrously cheap. We’ve been past that sort of shop several times, and next time I’m afraid we shall go in!
The pastries are like the Turkish ones, sweet and sticky, the pitch-black coffee thick and explosive in tiny cups. Cats everywhere, of every colour.
From time to time a raging wind blows, then there’s a rain shower – and the next moment it’s as hot as summer. Between ½ past 1 and ½ past 5 the whole town sleeps, (literally) the shops and restaurants are closed. Then everything opens again and continues long into the night. Tooti quickly adopts these habits – she can sleep just like that – but I find them a bit harder to adjust to.
On the whole this country has exceeded my expectations – and I’m very pleased we were able to make the trip. Though I notice I haven’t quite as much energy as before and have completely given up the night walks, for example.
That flight you wrote about sounded horrible. Now we’ve decided not to fly to Crete but to catch a boat to Santorini on a calm day – we won’t be taking a single flig
ht for the whole trip. I’ve bought a boat ticket to come back via Åbo because Tooti wants to see her parents. And incidentally, I might possibly come home a bit earlier than her, if she decides to extend her trip with a week or two in Paris.
I chose those hairnets for you, and then Lisbeth insisted I let her give them to you. I couldn’t refuse without making a scene – she wanted to you to have a present from her at last. I’ve been wondering about one of those pretty shawls, by the way – but I’m not sure if you like that kind of thing. I shall wait and see, maybe I’ll come across something better.
I’m always sending you my love in your direction and profoundly hoping you won’t be melancholy. Write to me sometimes, so I know how you are – while we’re in Santorini, the hotel here will take in our post. (We’ll probably go there in about 10 days’ time and then come back to the Apollo.) Warm wishes to Lasse and give him a hug. And a huge embrace from your own
