by Tove Jansson
And I’ve been illustrating “The Hunting of the Snark” for Bonniers. Lewis Carroll’s – and as far as I know, never illustrated before. I normally make damn sure not to venture into the classics. It was tricky, but interesting – very much like a modern nonsense poem. [ … ]
Illustration for the Swedish edition of Lewis Carroll’s Snarkjakten (The Hunting of the Snark), translated by Lars Forssell (1959).
In fact I’m in a sort of vacuum at the moment. The only thing I care about is having peace and quiet around me, nothing happening, just a long succession of placid working days in which the only excitement is the variation in the weather. It’s mainly varied between rain and gales lately. The hot clifftops you’re dreaming of are some way west of here, I reckon.
I feel sorry for people who’ve only had a week or two’s holiday, but it doesn’t matter much as far as I’m concerned.
Tooti and Ham are coming back into town on 1st September – I don’t know yet if I shall steal a week on my own or come with them. There’s going to be lots to do. We have to find a new home for Ham somewhere and Faffan’s sculptures will need to be placed or housed. Furniture and other possessions will have to be sold or given away. There’ll be masses to throw out. Impi’s getting a new flat. She was out here for a week and wonderfully enough was quite amenable to our suggestion that we go our separate ways. If Ham will be living in a small flat, the idea of Impi’s tyranny and depression is just impossible. Impi doesn’t want to take on a position with another family, she can’t face it, poor old thing – but she still wants to carry on doing her job. So we’ll arrange for her to come in and clean for Ham and me by turns – and that will also be a natural way of maintaining contact.
Out here, Impi either couldn’t stop talking, or sat there with a mournful stare, assuring us so often she didn’t want to be in the way that she actually was. Her humility was so all-consuming that we found it very painful and pretentious, and she said she planned to put her future in God’s hands.
We shall just have to get started and see what provision we can make. I, stupid ass, have gone and tied up nearly all my money in index funds, but I’m sure they’ll give me a loan. That’ll certainly keep us fully occupied this autumn.
We’re busy catching small perch from the sea and setting out a roach net for Faffan’s gull. We’ve relaid the roof with slates of a cool green so it looks almost like a company director’s house. And we’ve repainted the inside in a lighter shade of blue.
This has been a blessed interlude of calm and I’m anticipating the autumn without any worries or cares.
It will be so nice to see you again!
Until then a big hug – and lots of good wishes from Ham and Tooti!
Tove.
P.S. I’ve decided to come back into town on 1st Sept for the estate inventory etc.
Mary: Mary Mandelin-Dixon, journalist and author.
Mine has now been rewritten: Refers to TJ’s play Troll i kulisserna (Moomintroll in the Wings).
IN THE SUMMER OF 1959, TOVE JANSSON DRAWS HER LAST Moomin cartoon strip and is freed from her seven-year contract as a cartoonist. Her brother Lars Jansson takes over the role. In the course of the summer she starts work on the picture book Vem ska trösta knyttet? (Who Will Comfort Toffle?).
11.7.59 [Bredskär]
Dearest Maya,
Thank you for your nice letter! I’ve thought about you a lot, wondered how things have been for you, working through all the heat, and whether you can cope with an unbroken city summer before you can finally get away to “your own town”. [ … ]
I’m living island life with such relish, especially since I finished with the cartoon strips, once and for all, a few days ago – and I’ve suddenly started taking an interest in planting and fishing and hammering in nails and other natural activities I only tackled out of duty or guilt all these years.
Suddenly I even enjoy letter writing. It’s as if a great weight has rolled off me, and I can see everything differently. Everybody’s going round worrying about my “problem filling all that free time”, fearing that I’m going to be unbearable.
Perhaps I shall be a bit less unbearable now, but what do I know.
The main thing is that it’s over and I can now calmly devote myself to just being – until something, some urge to be active, starts to flow again – not as a duty but as a need.
And I won’t get frantic if it doesn’t happen …
Ham (furtively) brought 2 Dopff with her in anticipation of the big day, and I couldn’t work out why they all kept asking me how many of the last batch of drawings I had left to do. What a stroke of luck that I finished on the very evening they all dressed in their best and produced the surprise from the cellar.
Now Uca and Lisbeth are here for a week, along with Lasse, who in great spurts of Indian ink is drawing comic strips for all he’s worth, poor brother. Ham and Tooti have been here the whole time (apart from one week when Ham was in town, arranging for the removal of the tiled stove from Jungfrustigen.)
You know what, the record player and the icebox sound tremendous! To think that he found such splendid presents for you, and that you accepted them so gracefully.
You’re right, of course, he really did need to make some sort of gesture like that. He probably feels more at ease with his conscience now and will find it easier to have a gentler and more natural relationship with you. How nice that he got the prize. And oh what fun it will be to be able to play records at your place!
Out here we’re getting on fine. Tooti’s been working a lot, with good results, and has also been knottywooding quite intensely. This year it’s chests and boxes, pigeonholes and storage jars in such numbers that I’m sure the therapist in my last synopsis (Dr Hatter) would have had his suspicions.
She’s cheerful and blessedly even-tempered, easy to live with. Sometimes she and Ham squabble in a disrespectfully-gruff-but-friendly sort of way. Tooti and I have been staying in the guest room, Ham and Lasse (who’s been here more than he was in the years we were building the place) in the main house. Now that we’ve got the ghosts in the guest room, we’re in a tent on the little sandy beach, which is lumpy and romantic. (Nocturnal sounds and the lap of waves)
Ham’s been working on her maps for Hornborg’s big historical work. She’s bright and contented enough, but sometimes loses momentum – and instantly feels a lot worse. The angina makes her dizzy and gives her leg cramps at night or pains in the heart. It was worst at midsummer – she was intensively reliving everything that happened a year ago.
We had a little midsummer bonfire and some fireworks and schnapps – and I sang to the base accordion to lighten the mood, but oh dear me how melancholy it was. Then she was really ill for several days.
Now things are all right again. I think it livens her up to take such an angry interest in the ghost invasion. And in the midst of it all, Nita turned up unexpectedly for a weekend.
She was bubbly and on top form, with vodka and a radio, trim and self-assured. Uca was delighted and dismayed, and ran anxiously to and fro across the island, dividing her charms between her ladies, because Lisbeth refused to sunbathe in the same cleft as Nita. The sleeping problem was discussed for hours behind the rocks before they decided all three of them would sleep inside with Ham so nobody would feel left out. It was an exciting twenty-four hours, but everything resolved itself very elegantly. After Nita left there were fallings-out and tears and earnest explanations at different ends of the island, and I had to race like a sheepdog among the womenfolk. Ye gods, what havoc.
Tooti was grim and disapproving and Ham went about snorting at things in general. Then it all calmed down again.
We had a journalist here, turning up so inopportunely that he had to stay over, and now I’m sleeping on his sheets.
Börje and co. were here for five days with Lasse, and Ham went over to Viken for the duration while Tooti and I took the tent to Kummelskär. We had one gloriously sunny day of knottywooding together – since then it’s
just been rain and gales. I sat in the tent drawing comic strips in big dark glasses (magnifying, admittedly) because I’d gone and left my proper ones on the island. I drew like mad so as to be free as soon as possible: 2 months’ worth completed since I came to Bredskär.
We’ve put in gutters and new window frames, and a bookshelf running along under the rafters, the full length of the house.
Lasse’s planted digitalis in various spots and Ham’s carved some peculiar creatures out of roots and given them owls’ eyes from Schröders. And the swallows are back.
Abbe’s lot came out to visit us a couple of times – he’s got a very grand boatbuilding commission from Sweden, for a 10-m yacht with a WC, fresh-water tank and all sorts of extra features. The Peos have gone to Åland for a little holiday. Leaving Misan with some woman while they’re away. Saga isn’t feeling particularly well and is quite down, so she’s got to go into hospital for observation when they get back. I fervently hope there’s nothing seriously wrong with her.
It’s been a great year for wood, with lots washed up along the beaches, so I’ve been able to let off steam at the woodblock.
What a shame Bredskär is so far away from you that you can’t pop over for a weekend. Everyone sends their warmest wishes, the whole heap of them. Do write to me again sometime. And take care of yourself.
A thousand greetings from your friend Tove.
Dopff: An Alsace wine.
How nice that he got the prize: Sam Vanni won first prize in a mural-painting competition at the Helsinki Finnish Workers’ Institute.
29 AUG. 59 [Bredskär]
Dearest Maya,
Thanks for your letter and birthday wishes! I often thought of you and wondered how on earth you were coping with the heat. It must have been unbelievable in town. Even here we would stagger down into the sea after five minutes at the stove and find the hot weather altogether too much of a good thing. [ … ]
Are you still holding together after your draining summer of work? Won’t you be utterly exhausted by the time you can finally get away? And when are you going? Tooti and I won’t be leaving until 1st November.
She’s in the middle of packing her stuff to go into town on Tuesday, the 1st. She’ll be in Åbo for a week, spend the following week “organising”, and then term starts at the Ateneum.
Ham and I are planning to stay on here for the time being, we’re not suffering any violent craving for the town and we both have work to do, the historic maps in Ham’s case and a coloured picture book in mine.
It’s to be in the same format as “Hur gick det sen?” [The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My] but without any holes or other original touches and will be called something like The Romantic Story of the Lonely Toffle. No Moomintrolls. A verse epic. I’ve finished the words (14 verses with 12 lines in each) and now I’m doing the pictures, some of which will be in Indian ink, the others double-page spreads in colour. I shall enjoy showing them to you and hearing your verdict when we meet. When will that be? October? I hope you’ll still be around to get my letter, which Tooti will post in town, but otherwise I assume they will forward your post?
As for the cartoon strips, I never spare them a thought now it’s over. I’ve completely drawn a line under all that. Just as you wouldn’t want to think back on a time you had toothache.
Lasse left a week ago and went first to Saaris to see Erica who is over here on a visit – then to London to arrange his contract. He’s probably somewhere in the North Sea at the moment, experiencing the storm at sea that he’s always dreamt of. (I think a bit less than gale force nine would have done fine, but I’ve decided not to worry)
Lasse has now decided he’s going to use a pseudonym, it’s finally sunk in that if he has thoughts of becoming a sculptor and having artist friends in the Guild, he can’t put his name on a cartoon series. I know. And I’m not exaggerating.
Other than that he’s happy about the job – so far. I advised him against long contracts – and know that once he’s accumulated enough money to be able to work freelance, he’ll give it up. It’s been so nice having him here all summer. He’s been hard at work on the cartoon strips nearly all the time and I’ve offered constructive criticism and taught him a few “tricks of the trade”. Hah. I managed it without any sense of discomfort, as if the whole thing is a joke that has nothing to do with me.
And oh my lord, what a gaggle of folk we’ve had here. Ragni Cawén with Matti and wife, Gebhard and family, Peo Barck and The Earth-Brown One, Kurt and Salme for a weekend, Uca and Nita for a week, also Uncle Harald and Rut with daughter and boat, and then Börje & co. again and Kiki’s sister with her French husband, and then we went to Ragni’s and met the so-called “merry Troil girls” and then we had the consecration of Pellinge church and assorted birthday bashes – those are the things I can remember, anyway …
But now they’ve all blown away in the big storm. It was the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen. The whole house shook and it took two of us to open the door. The pilots say a tornado (column of water) 10-m high passed close by the island. What a shame we didn’t see it. The boat, which was pulled up on the shore, was carried quite some distance across the sand by the wind and a bracing atmosphere of imminent disaster hung over the whole island. It was cold, we suddenly had to keep the fires going day and night (the sudden transition from the heat happened overnight) and hang blankets over the doors and windows.
Now there’s a solid bank of seaweed round the beaches and everything’s been sluiced and cleansed after the long dry spell.
Ham and Tooti send warm wishes. It’s a shame we won’t see each other before you go. Perhaps you’ll drop me a line from Paris. If you feel like it. A big hug and all good wishes!
Tove.
TOVE JANSSON AND TUULIKKI PIETILÄ RETURNED FROM THEIR trip to Greece in November 1959 via Paris, where they stayed for a month, from early December until early January 1960.
PARIS 10.12.59
Dearest Maya,
Love from both of us! Now it’s Tooti’s turn for a sore throat, so today we’re looking out over our grey roofs and eating out of little bags and drinking wine, and Tooti is applying some bright blue French medical product to her throat and reading books about the secret signs of the Sibyl that she found on the bookstalls along the Seine.
This is still such an enjoyable trip – I’d never thought, you know, that we could be so serene and happy, such friends, day after day, week after week. Ham told me in one of her letters that you two had met up, how nice. And that Ham “read out some parts” of my letters. So you’ve heard a bit about teeming Greece and the trips we went on down there. When we see each other I’ll give you a more detailed picture of the whole thing, some evening when we’re all in the right mood and have the time, wine and inclination.
Everything’s stayed with me, intensely, all those vivid impressions; the unfamiliarity, colour, vitality and unsettling aspects of Greece – both the people and the landscapes. Yet at the same time, Paris infused everything with its own very personal atmosphere within a couple of hours. You know.
One was, quite simply and as if it were the most natural thing in the world, in Paris again, slipping into it all with no great surprise.
But there’s something entirely different about being here with Tooti, who seems to have settled in here even better than at home, if that’s possible. She’s always happy and even-tempered, never irritable, regardless of any mishaps that befall us on our travels. A couple of times she completely lost her temper for two minutes, but not at me – and how she laughs afterwards at her own infuriation.
We always want to do the same things, we both get tired at the same time, and we’re never bored – not even in those slacker moments of anticlimax that always find their way into a continuous chain of intense experiences and ever-changing scenes.
It seems a bit childish, in fact, to try to describe what we “saw and did” in Paris. To you, I mean! But a few words – to remind you of your own eyes and all th
e details you’ve ever absorbed in the same way …
Mostly we’ve just walked and walked. Shown each other “the old places”, which the other one obligingly tries to appreciate – and then, with cheerful impatience, found new places, together. To remember. Flea markets with savage winter winds, and moules. Tooti ferrets about in boxes while I admire fluffy animals on the same quai.
We wonder whether to go to the Musée du Louvre or the Magasin du Louvre, cast enquiring glances at each other and head without comment for the Magasin.
Zigzag walks through the arty streets down towards the Seine, the first time I’ve ever been drowned by a squat toilet not in working order. The sheepish lighting of a candle in some church, an act that one doesn’t care to investigate further.
We go through our addresses and decide not to look up so-and-so yet. We eat a bird’s nest each and then want ordinary food for a while – and go to a Greek restaurant just so we can say Kalimera sass and parakalo – and the waiter stares at us because he’s French!
And then one goes to Jacqueline (where Everyone remembers you) to get one’s hair cut and comes out with one’s whole face repainted and some vastly overpriced beauty products under one’s arm, not knowing quite how it happened.
And after “Les enfants du paradis”, which goes on for four hours and leaves one utterly bowled over, we emerge into the rain – and the strange thing is that people are still talking French all around us, and we’re not at Skillnaden after seeing a first-rate French film!
Then Rue de la Gaitée with its cheap snail eateries that were different last time, and Rotonde has completely disappeared, and the Madame who used to dote on me has forgotten what I look like.
And Monocle, which isn’t at all as exciting as I remembered – but one can dance there and put on a Vivica-style show, and the flower girl unhesitatingly sold her rose to Tooti, not me. Anyway, the whole nightclub was full of men fooling about drunkenly and disrupting the show, and they were the ones dancing. Perhaps through Moune we can find some quiet ghost venue that hasn’t turned into an ordinary nightclub. Gaby was there, and she recognised Tooti (the first one to do so at any of Tooti’s “places”) and was enchanted and drank a fair bit of champagne with us.
