by Tove Jansson
‘It’s deep down there,’ thought Moominpappa.
‘It must be very deep indeed. This island of mine is a complete world of its own, it has everything and is just the right size. How happy I feel! I’ve got the world in my paw!’
Moominpappa went back to the lighthouse as fast as he could. He wanted to show them all the black pool before they found it for themselves.
*
‘What a pity it isn’t rainwater,’ said Moominmamma.
‘No, no, it was made by the sea!’ said Moominpappa, gesticulating with his paws. ‘Great storms have flung the sea over the island and rolled stones round and round at the bottom until it has become terribly deep.’
‘Perhaps there are some fish in it,’ Moominmamma suggested.
‘Very possibly,’ said Moominpappa. ‘But if there are any, they must be gigantic. Imagine a giant pike which has been down there for a hundred years, just getting fatter and angrier the whole time!’
‘That really would be something!’ said Little My, impressed. ‘Perhaps I’ll throw in a line and find out.’
‘Angling is not for little girls,’ said Moominpappa firmly. ‘No, the black pool is for fathers. And don’t go too near the edge! You must realize that it’s a very dangerous spot. I shall make very careful investigations, but not just at the moment. There’s the jetty to think about, and then I must make an oven for smoking eel and pike weighing more than fourteen pounds. And I must put out the nets before it starts to rain…’
‘And some sort of guttering for the roof,’ added Moominmamma. ‘In a couple of days we shall have no drinking water left.’
‘Don’t worry, my dear,’ said Moominpappa protectively. ‘You’ll get a gutter all right. Be patient, and I’ll do everything.’
The family went back towards the lighthouse and Moominpappa continued to talk about the gigantic pike. The wind blew gently through the heather and the setting sun drenched the whole island in warm golden light. But behind them the black pool lay sunk in shadow between the rocks.
*
Moominmamma had finished clearing up after Little My and the trap-door was closed. As soon as he came in, Moominpappa noticed the calendar.
‘That’s exactly what I need,’ he said. ‘Where did you find it? If I’m going to keep any sort of order on this island, I must know what day it is. Today’s Tuesday, that I know.’ Moominpappa picked up a pen and drew a large round circle high up in the margin. That was ‘The Arrival’, and then he made two small crosses underneath for Monday and Tuesday.
‘Have you ever seen a sea-horse?’ asked Moomintroll. ‘Are they as beautiful as those in the picture?’
‘Possibly,’ said Moominmamma. ‘I don’t know. They do say that the painters of pictures exaggerate.’
Moomintroll nodded thoughtfully. What a pity it was that you couldn’t tell from the picture whether the little sea-horse had silver shoes or not.
The sunset filled the room with gold, and in a little while it would turn red. Moominpappa stood in the middle of the room thinking. This was the time he ought to go up and light the lamp, but if he climbed the ladder the others would know exactly what he was doing. And when he came down again they would know if he hadn’t been able to make the lamp work. Why couldn’t they keep out of the house until dusk and leave him in peace to try and light it? Sometimes there was something about family life that Moominpappa didn’t like. His family wasn’t sensitive enough at times like these, although they’d lived with him for so long.
Moominpappa did exactly what one always does at uncomfortable moments – he went and stood in the window with his back to the room.
The marker for the nets lay on the window-sill. Of course. He had completely forgotten to put out the nets. That was important, very important. Moominpappa felt a great sense of relief. He turned round and said: ‘We’ll put the nets out tonight. They ought to be in the sea before sunset. Actually, we ought to put them out every night now that we’re living on an island.’
Moomintroll and his father rowed out with the nets.
‘We must put them out in an arc from the east point,’ Moominpappa said. ‘The west point belongs to the fisherman. It wouldn’t be right to start fishing right under his very nose. Now row slowly while I keep an eye on the bottom.’
The water began to get deeper in very gentle, sweeping terraces of sand, descending in the water like a broad ceremonial staircase. Moomintroll rowed towards the point over forests of seaweed that got darker and darker.
‘Stop!’ shouted Moominpappa. ‘Go back a bit. The bottom’s fine just here. We’ll lay it out obliquely towards those rocks. Slowly now!’
He threw in the float with its little white pennant and dipped the net into the sea. It glided out slowly with long even movements, drops of water shining in the mesh. The corks rested on the surface for a moment, and then they saw them sink, like a necklace of beads behind them. It was a very satisfying feeling putting a net out. It was a man’s job, something one did for the whole family.
When all three nets were out, Moominpappa spat three times on the marker and dropped it in. It stuck its tail in the air and disappeared straight down in the water. Moominpappa sat down in the stern of the boat.
It was a peaceful evening. The colours were beginning to grow pale and disappear in the dusk, but right over the thicket the sky was still quite red. They pulled the boat up the beach in silence, and then walked home across the island.
When they had got as far as the poplars, they heard a faint wailing coming over the water. Moomintroll stood still.
‘I heard that noise yesterday, too,’ said Moominpappa. ‘It’s a bird, I expect.’
Moomintroll looked out across the sea.
‘There’s something sitting on that rock,’ he said.
‘That’s a beacon,’ said Moominpappa, and walked on.
‘There was no beacon there yesterday,’ thought Moomintroll. ‘There was nothing there at all.’ He stood stock-still and waited.
It was moving. Very, very slowly it glided over the rock and was gone. It couldn’t be the fisherman. He was short and thin. It was something else.
Moomintroll pulled himself together and continued on his way home. He wouldn’t say anything before he was certain. Anyway Moomintroll hoped that he would never know what it was that sat out there wailing every evening.
*
Moomintroll woke up in the middle of the night. He lay quite still, listening. Someone had called him. But he wasn’t quite sure, perhaps he had only dreamed it. The night was just as calm as the evening had been, full of a blue-white light, and the waxing moon was high over the island.
Moomintroll got out of bed as quietly as he could so as not to wake Moominpappa and Moominmamma, and went up to the window, opened it carefully and looked out. Now he could hear the faint sound of the waves breaking on the beach, and see the dark rocks floating forlornly in the sea. Far away a bird called; the island was completely at rest.
No – something was happening down on the beach. The distant fall of hurrying feet, something splashing in the water – something was happening down there. Moomintroll became intensely excited. He was sure that whatever it was concerned him, only him and none of the others. He must go down there and see for himself. Something told him that it was important, and that he must go out into the night and see what was happening down there on the beach. Somebody was calling him and he mustn’t be afraid.
When he was by the door he remembered the stairs and hesitated. The winding stairs at night were an awful thought – in the day you could run up them, not giving yourself time to think. Moomintroll went back into the room and took the hurricane lamp off the table. He found the matches on the mantelpiece.
The door closed behind him, and the tower opened up below him like a deep, dark well. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. The flame of the hurricane lamp flickered, rose and fell, and then burnt steadily. He put it down and plucked up courage to take a look.
The light h
ad frightened all the shadows, and they fluttered giddily all round him when he lifted the lamp up. So many of them, fantastic shapes flickering up and down the hollow inside of the lighthouse. It was beautiful. The staircase wound downwards, down, down, down, grey and fragile like the skeleton of some prehistoric animal, and was lost in the darkness at the bottom. With every step he took, the shadows danced on the walls all round him. It was much too beautiful to think of being frightened.
So Moomintroll went down the stairs, step by step, holding the lamp tightly, and reached the muddy floor at the bottom of the lighthouse. The door creaked as usual and it felt very heavy. He stood outside on the rock in the cold, unreal moonlight.
‘Isn’t life exciting!’ Moomintroll thought. ‘Everything can change all of a sudden, and for no reason at all! The staircase is suddenly quite beautiful, and the glade something I don’t want to think about any more.’
Breathlessly, he walked over the rock, through the heather, through the little copse of aspens. They were motionless and quiet now, there wasn’t a breath of wind. He walked slowly, listening. The beach was quite quiet.
‘I’ve frightened them,’ Moomintroll thought, and bent down to turn out the lamp. ‘Whatever it is that comes here at night must be very shy. An island by night can be very scared.’
Now the lamp was out, and immediately the island seemed to come much nearer. He could feel it very close to him as it lay there motionless in the moonlight. He wasn’t at all frightened, but just sat there listening. There it was; the sound of prancing steps in the sand somewhere behind the aspens. Backwards and forwards they went, down the beach into the water, splashing about and making the foam fly.
It was them. The sea-horses, his sea-horses. Now he understood everything. The silver shoe he had found in the sand, the calendar with the moon dipping its feet in the mounting wave, the call he had heard while he was asleep. Moomintroll stood in the trees and watched the sea-horses dance.
They leapt up and down the beach with their heads high, their hair flying and their tails floating behind them in long glistening waves. They were indescribably beautiful, and they seemed to be aware of it. They danced coquettishly, freely and openly, for themselves, for each other, for the island, for the sea – it seemed to be all the same to them. Sometimes they turned suddenly in the water so that the spray rose high above them, making rainbows in the moonlight. Then they would leap back through their own rainbows, looking up and bowing their heads to emphasize the curve of the neck and the line of the back down to the tail. It was as if they were dancing in front of a mirror.
Now they were standing still, stroking each other, obviously thinking only of one another. Both were wearing grey velvet which looked very warm and soft and which never got wet. It looked as if it was patterned with flowers.
While Moomintroll was watching them, something curious but quite natural happened. He suddenly thought that he, too, was beautiful. He felt relaxed and playful and light-of-heart. He ran down the beach crying: ‘Look at the moonlight! It’s so warm! I feel I could fly!’
The sea-horses shied, reared and sprang away in the moonlight. They dashed past him with their eyes staring and their hair streaming and their hooves beating the ground in panic, but he knew all the time that they were only pretending. He knew that they weren’t really frightened and he didn’t know whether he ought to clap or try to calm them down. He just felt small, and fat and clumsy again. As they flew past him into the sea he shouted: ‘You’re so beautiful, so beautiful! Don’t leave me!’ A cloud of spray rose in the air, the last rainbow disappeared and the beach was deserted.
Moomintroll sat down in the sand to wait. He felt sure they would come back. They were certain to come back if he was only patient enough.
The night passed and the moon went down.
‘Perhaps they would like to see a light on the beach, a light to tempt them back here to play,’ thought Moomintroll. He lit the hurricane lamp and put it in front of him on the sand, staring intently at the dark water. After a while he got up and began to swing the lamp backwards and forwards. It was a signal. He tried to think of only ordinary soothing things and went on swinging the lamp. He was very, very patient.
It began to get cold on the beach, perhaps because it was getting on for morning. The cold floated in from the sea and Moomintroll’s paws began to freeze. He shivered and looked up; there was the Groke sitting on the water in front of him.
Her eyes were following the movements of the hurricane lamp, but otherwise she didn’t move. But he knew she would come nearer. He didn’t want to have anything to do with her. He wanted to go away from the coldness and motionlessness of her, far away from the terrifying loneliness of her. But he couldn’t move. He just couldn’t.
He stood there swinging the hurricane lamp slower and slower. Neither of them moved and time began to drag. In the end Moomintroll started to walk backwards very slowly. The Groke stayed where she was on her little island of ice. Moomintroll went on walking backwards without taking his eyes off her, up the beach, into the aspens. He turned the lamp out.
It was very dark and the moon had gone down behind the island. Was that a shadow moving across the water? – he couldn’t be sure. Moomintroll went back to the lighthouse, his head full of things to think about.
The sea was quite calm now, but in among the aspens the leaves whispered with fright. He could smell paraffin strongly, coming from the thicket. But it didn’t seem to belong to the island somehow, or to the night.
‘I’ll think about that tomorrow,’ said Moomintroll to himself. ‘I’ve more important things on my mind now.’
The North-Easter
JUST before sunrise, the wind got up. It was a vile, stubborn wind, blowing from the east. The family woke at about eight o’clock, and by then the wind was blowing in showers from the east and gusts of rain were sweeping round the lighthouse.
‘Now we shall get some water,’ said Moominmamma. ‘Thank goodness I found that barrel and cleaned it!’ She put some wood on the fire and lit it.
Moomintroll was still in bed. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. A wet patch had appeared on the ceiling, and a drop of water was getting larger in the middle of it. Then it fell on to the table and another one started to form immediately.
Little My crept in through the door. ‘This is no weather for the lift,’ she said, squeezing the water out of her hair. ‘The wind’s blowing it straight off the lighthouse wall.’
They could hear the wind howling round the tower and the door shut with a bang.
‘Is coffee ready?’ asked Little My. ‘Weather like this makes me feel ravenous. The sea’s swept right into the black pool and the old man’s point has become an island! He’s blown inside out and is lying under his boat counting raindrops.’
‘The nets!’ said Moominpappa, jumping out of bed. ‘We’ve got the nets out.’ He went to the window but couldn’t see a trace of the float. The east wind was blowing in right over the point. It would be a ghastly job pulling them up with the wind blowing from the side. And the rain, too.
‘They can stay where they are,’ decided Moominpappa. ‘There’ll just be more fish in them, that’s all. After I’ve had my breakfast I’ll take a turn up above and see if I can get the hang of this gale. It will have blown itself out by this evening, you’ll see.’
The gale looked just the same from up above. Moominpappa stood looking at the lamp, unscrewed a nut and then screwed it up again, and opened and closed the lamp door. It was useless, he still didn’t know how it worked. How utterly thoughtless not to leave proper instructions in a lighthouse like this! Unforgivable, really.
Moominpappa sat on one of the gas cylinders and leant against the wall. Above him the rain was beating on the window-panes, lashing and whipping them as each gust blew past. The green pane was broken. On the floor beneath it a little lake had formed. Moominpappa looked at it absently, and imagined it was a delta with long, winding rivers, and let his eyes wander across the wall. Someone ha
d written something that looked like poetry with a pencil. Moominpappa leant closer and read it:
Out there on the empty sea,
Where only the moon appears,
No sail has been seen to pass
In four long and dreary years.
‘The lighthouse-keeper must have written that,’ Moominpappa thought. ‘He thought of it one day when he felt miserable. Imagine lighting the lamp for ships that never go past.’ Higher up the wall he had been feeling more cheerful, and had written:
A wind from the east, and old hags’ jeers,
Will both, as a rule, end up in tears.
Moominpappa started to creep round the walls looking for things the lighthouse-keeper had written. There were many notes about the strength of the wind. Apparently the worst storm had been one with a south-westerly wind, force ten. In another place the lighthouse-keeper had written some more verses, but they had been crossed out with heavy black lines. All he could pick out was something about birds.
‘I must find out more about him,’ thought Moominpappa. ‘As soon as it clears up I must go and find the fisherman. They must have known one another. They lived on the same island. Now I’m going to shut this trap-door. I shan’t come up here any more. It’s too depressing.’
He climbed down the ladder, and said: ‘It’s moving a little towards the north-east. Perhaps it will die down. By the way, we ought to ask that fisherman to coffee some day.’
‘I bet he doesn’t drink coffee,’ said Little My. ‘I’m sure he only eats seaweed and raw fish. Perhaps he sucks up plankton through his front teeth.’
