Letters from Tove

by Tove Jansson

  Yes, I thought Ramon would change his mind again, once he’d had a chance to ponder and keep you under observation. And now you have doubts … I very much wonder how you’ve organised things between you. I sense you were a bit dampened by his monologue on the ridiculous inventions of the bourgeoisie. Because in your case it seems to me so totally natural for you two to get married if you like each other. I mean, he’s almost always with you, virtually lives there, and you sew, cook, work and toil for yourself and him. So wouldn’t it be a simple little gesture to give you his name as well?

  Tell you what, Eva, I have two minor suggestions in the major problem of “unmarried wives”. 1. Combine the titles Mrs and Miss into some kind of equivalent of “Mr”. (At any rate it would make those unthinking children who get married to become Mrs calm down a bit). And the scorn directed at a “Miss” who is a mother might lessen. 2. Give children the mother’s name. (At least there’s never any doubt who the mother is!) It would be no more than right, because she has all the actual work of them and has carried them inside her. I wonder whether that anxiety about not having the right to a lover’s surname is an instinctive desire to safeguard any future children. Well, who knows? Let us leave these difficult matters in the hope that the whole thing is a bit better managed in, say, three hundred years’ time.

  What a relief, Eva, that you got away from your bad-tempered uncle. It’s amazing you lasted as long as you did. I suspect he’s going feel quite lonely, but attempting to stay on with people who have such a dreariness about them reduces one’s spirit to tatters. Oh Eva, isn’t loneliness (and bustle?) the greatest curse of our age? That throng around us, people, contacts, relationships – yet deep inside, cruel and silent loneliness. I’ve lost count of the eyes in which I’ve read longing for real closeness, real contact. If I, with so many beloved and loving people around me, can feel it sometimes, how must it be for those without friends or family members!

  I really hope you find a new job, something with beautiful objects around you – which I think you need, to be able to exist. I’m eagerly awaiting your photograph, and Ramon’s (I shall send you mine and Atos’s.) I’ve sent you Garm – and you’ll have the books as soon as they are out.

  But the cutting you talked about wasn’t in the letter. I like hearing you talk about the art exhibitions! I think, like you, that surrealism was a very temporary phenomenon. Perhaps influenced by the sudden rise of new psychology, everything subconscious being dragged into the light. Surrealism is a twisted, suggestive world – seductive but, for me, without potential for development. A gown so sensational one can only wear it for a single season – a single party!

  The impressionists, that’s where you’ll find my masters. Their best works thrill me more than anything else – a Cezanne still life more than some vast, pathos-filled painting or crucifixion scene.

  I’m definitely an art snob, Eva. L’art pour l’art. You write that Dali “only works for himself”. Who else is one to work for? As long as one is working, one has no thought for others! One tries to express oneself, one’s perceptions, create a synthesis, clarify and liberate. Every nature morte, every landscape, every canvas is a self-portrait! Then, when one exhibits – of course it’s nice, sometimes necessary, for the work to be appreciated, to bring someone pleasure. I detest art with a serious message.

  The war has given rise to a lot of that, of course, some of it good despite its tendentious aspects. Here, so far, all I’ve seen is this: Some painters’ work has grown colder, darker. Others defiantly opt for wholly Romantic motifs. A number are coasting on nationalism. We’ll only see the real effect of the war in a few years’ time, maybe. The reaction can’t be the same as after the First World War, at any rate. Then, artists turned from all naturalism and classicism to ruthless violence. We’ve taken that as far as it can go … But anyway, every artist portrays not only themselves but also their time. Do we know the face of ours yet, though?

  My canvases are praised, admittedly, but in a rather cold and respectful tone – while there’s lively criticism of my “restraint and lack of emotion”. They’re not good, but they get better with every exhibition. The rest does not concern me. Maybe I paint too much with my brain (though my heart is in despair over every picture), but most of the spontaneous talents here paint with their stomachs. Oh yes.

  And you asked about various of my friends.

  Boris, above all – I haven’t seen him for an awfully long time – not since last summer (spring?) I don’t think. I do hope he makes it to America! (Oh Eva, if only I could come over there with Atos – and Ham – and live there!) Carin Cleve hardly ever writes. She feels shut in by all her domestic cares and spiritually blunted. Poor little thing. Their finances must be their biggest worry. Her husband also has his first wife and two children to support. In the Renwall saga, I think Essi’s keeping the children. She seems bright and in fine spirits, and Ben’s found a bashful, clingy, pink-and-yellow type who’s the absolute opposite of Essi. Arno’s working in the same way as he was before, and I think he has a teaching post now. He asked after you very keenly and wanted your address. As for Elli Tompuri, I’m only in touch with her through Tapsa, and he’s entirely disappeared from view. Hagar Olsson has published a book about Karelia, tendentious stuff, too literary and laboured for me. But on the whole I admire her as much as I did before. Verho is a painter with an open, placid face, quiet. You once said how much you liked him. A thousand hugs from me to you, Eva!

  Warm greetings from Ham! [Part of the last line is illegible]

  Hagar Olsson has published: TJ is probably referring to the play Rövaren och jungfrun (The Robber and the Maid), which appeared in 1944, though the description is more reminiscent of Träsnidaren och döden (The Woodcarver and Death), 1940.

  Verho: The artist Yrjö Verho.

  14.5.46. [Helsingfors] TO MRS EVA CORDOVA. 46 WEST 17 STR. N.Y. 11

  Dearest Eva!

  Thanks so much for the photos of you and Ramon! (I think I possibly like your everyday pose just as well as your grand-style photo …) I have the feeling I’d like him enormously if we met. He has that warm vitality, that likeable look – those kind eyes! When shall I see you again Konikova, I do wonder. When Atos embarks on his big utopian trip to Asia, and I don’t want to stay at home on my own? Some spring when the boats are tooting their horns too much outside Brunnsparken? I’m not bound by employment or family – no, wait – of course I’m bound by family. I can just see Raffo raising his eyebrows! I went to keep Ham company on her way to work, now I’m sitting in the studio and the sun is creeping from one picture to another. They’ve all been repainted since I got back from Sweden. More self-confident, angrier, more “slovenly”. God, how I loathed them when I saw them again! This profession is sheer agony sometimes. You know, days when you just wander around, nothing gives you the urge to paint it, nothing comes to life, the hours go by, measured by the school clock across the road, every failed blotch of colour makes you feel tired to death – in the small of your back. You hide away under a blanket, doze uneasily for an hour, think you’ll try again, scramble up and stare at your canvas – and then it’s dusk. Sometimes something emerges. And then you’re overtaken by this anxious fervour, you can barely squeeze the paint from the tube, and feel a nervous sort of power … If a picture suddenly gets that “something”, a promise, an intensity – you can stand at the easel furiously redoing canvas after canvas. Then the empty days return, nothing but a waste of paint.

  And people drop in, saying they don’t want to disturb you in your “painterly ecstasy”. Anguished anticipation, more like it. But I do wonder why the painter in literature is always a “cheery chap”, a whistling lily of the field. I mean, I understand that art can never be based on coercion, duty, liability. There may well be despair, but there must also be desire. For me, that desire isn’t there from the word go. It sometimes arrives once I’ve toiled away, tried again and generally run riot, arrives as a huge sense of breathless tension – if that can be call
ed desire. And they call me light, write that my work is frictionless – competent, popular! Well – I don’t seem to be as popular any more, thank God. Exhibitions go abroad and people scheme, making advance lists of those not to be included. I want to say to hell with success and ambition; they are a tie and a hindrance. And yet, I still can’t help that bitter little sense of grievance. But one increasingly learns how utterly unimportant being appreciated is. It’s something one has to learn! To be part of things, visible, making an impression, what does it matter. I’ve got a solo exhibition this autumn, that’s enough. – I have less and less appetite for social life, parties. I’m happy in my beautiful tower and have almost scarily little need of company. It’s a blessing when several days pass without the phone ringing, and no need to go out and buy food. Ham and Atos and occasionally writing to you, that’s sufficient. Plus work and books. I’m illustrating the second Moomin book at the moment, a charming and peaceful job. Atos is in Stockholm again. I’m glad not to be in Sweden! God preserve me from that sort of social merry-go-round, I was never alone, it was rarely quiet, and the vanity of the world in the shops drove me mad. No wonder it was impossible to paint a single thing.

  26th. [ … ] We’re sailing out to Pellinge on Ascension Day, for five days. On the boat Lasse took when he tried to run away to America. Atos can’t come with us, too many meetings as usual. He’s been in Stockholm again and he did actually, as I’d quietly hoped, buy me a piece of jewellery for the first time. Not, alas, the sort of thing I had romantically imagined, a ring for instance, but a little china ox with staring eyes! So like him, the dear donkey!

  28th I’ve looked over my canvases and would be ready to exhibit them any time. At Bäxbacka’s in the autumn. They’re freer, brighter in colour, Koni! I’ll be damned if I’m not a good painter after all. The “illustrative” element they referred to has entirely gone. And the “grey-on-grey” look that came over the pictures during the war has vanished, though I remain very interested in the colour now I’ve discovered it. I know I’ve made progress, let the pests write, scheme and talk as they will. I’ve been expecting this opposition for a long time; I got off to far too good a start for it to last.

  I’m glad to hear that Garm finally reached you. I shall send you more issues, some of the earlier, more political ones if I can. You’re very welcome to publish what pictures you like, wherever you like, it makes me happy and proud. And it would make me happier still if you’d be so extremely kind as to keep the fee for yourself. I don’t expect it will be much – but you and Ramon can always use it go out for a special dinner for us all!

  On that subject, I had a good long laugh about your diplomatic mother’s party for you and Ramon. She truly is splendid! May she now send you several tons of furniture as a token of her goodwill. – I can understand you not wanting to put pressure on Boris on the question of his trip to America. I tried not to, either, though really I felt like shaking that youth and shouting Go, you young idiot! Åbo will suffocate you! Be bold while you have the chance and are still young and unattached! – And you, Eva, are considering a trip to Paris at some future date … Surely that would give me the opportunity to meet you both! My friends there? I’m afraid they’re probably scattered round the world, or dead. Jews, Romanians, Armenians, Hungarians … There’s one Parisian you’d both be very interested to meet, but I only know him vaguely. Monsieur Grosset, photographer, a delightful, cultivated gentleman. A friend of Maja Stenman’s (perhaps more than that), who was here during the war.

  I’ve posted off your books as printed matter, there’ll be more to follow in due course – I’ve a whole suitcase full of them. Ham sends very best wishes. She’s been terribly ill with flu, her temperature up to 40˚. But perhaps above all with overwork, not being fit, her heart. I was dreadfully worried about her for a while. Impi’s still in hospital, it’s been five months now … but she’s nearly well again.

  Do you really reckon, Eva, that Moomintroll could be published in the USA? That would be tremendous. I’ve a troll coming out for Christmas again. What if Lasse could translate them and then someone in America could put some life into the language? Write and tell me what you think.

  And let me know what you think I should do with Raffo’s letters. Send them to you or him, burn them, read or unread? And do you want a catalogue of your books here? There might be some you don’t want, and I can give them to Boris. Warm wishes to Ramon, my dear. A tight hug from me.

  P.S. Your letter to Ulla Bärlund was good. Bye!

  Tove.

  P.S. We’ve really enjoyed your English magazines. Once we’d read them, Ham and I cut pictures out of them for our cuttings albums. They’re a big help in our work!

  since I got back from Sweden: TJ spent virtually the whole spring with relations in Gothenburg and Stockholm.

  the second Moomin book: Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland) was published in the autumn of 1946.

  19 JULY. 46. [Pellinge]

  Dearest Eva!

  So I’m out at Tunnholmen now, the sun is setting, red against a dead calm sea of violet-blue. The writing paper fell in the sea, as you can tell. It’s restful out here. Just the seagulls screeching and the chug-chugs puttering placidly on the horizon. They are funny, those boats. Like the corncrake, you never see them yet they’re there, somewhere out of your field of vision.

  A life belt and a bread basket with a little sculpin in it were lying in my bay. Both bearing the Russian star. This sort of stuff gets washed ashore all the time … I walked round my island, scrunching through seaweed that the evening sun had stained ruby red. Floats, birch bark, dried reeds and sun-bleached driftwood edged the shore like a garland, and everywhere there were bright yellow plumes of loosestrife and blue bugloss. I can ramble around here in nothing but my skin, with my hair all tousled. And I’ve brought no mirror and no way of telling the time.

  The tent is small but very smart, with a base and a mosquito-mesh door. It’s pitched right out on a little promontory, which the elements have worn smooth, and it’s almost the same colour as the rock. Tomorrow I shall start work. If only I had you with me! You’d like living here and cooking up food between the big stones. Together we’d explore the little islands out towards the open sea.

  sculpin: a small spiny fish, also known as the bullhead or sea scorpion.

  THE REST OF THIS LETTER, HALF A PAGE LONG, IS DATED “19 Aug cont.d.” It has therefore been inserted into the letter below, as a continuation of its 19 August section. In it, TJ describes the aftermath of being given notice to quit the studio.

  14 AUG. 46. [Pellinge and Helsingfors]

  My dearest friend!

  I’ve seen Sara now and found out lots of new things about you and Ramon, and I felt quite close to you during our conversation! What a beautiful blouse you sent me! It goes brilliantly with my suntan from Tunnholmen, and I really like the way it’s cut. Thanks, loyal friend, for providing so many golden moments these past few years! I love your coat, and have bought myself a new autumn hat to go with it – proper blue felt. Right now I’m sitting outside the shop waiting for the milk, the sun’s going down, red in a fierce south-westerly gale. Atos has been here for a couple of days, fine weather, perfect sunny days – our summer holiday. After endless postponements for meetings, trips, editorials and lectures I managed to abduct the philosopher, and Peo sailed us out to Pellinge to the accompaniment of singing, almost running aground, and holding forth on everything under the sun.

  I had with me crayfish and birthday rockets, the first fireworks to come in since the war, and in the evening we lit a fire outside before I, in the dignity of my 32 years, strolled off to the tent at Laxvarpet.

  We spent the next two days almost entirely at sea. I don’t think you were ever out at Kummelskär. It’s about twice as far from Pellinge as Tunnholmen – a splendidly wild and rocky island with two navigation markers and two little lighthouses. It was mined and out of bounds for the whole of the war, so I was immensely pleased to see “my island” again,
the one I like best of all.

  Lasse, Atos and I spent the night there, rolled up in the sail in the heather. The island is high but bare, except for a dense thicket in the middle, all tangled together by the gales, and the rocks are clad in some spectacular seashore flora. As I was lying there, looking up into the mass of stars and listening to the gale, I was seized by a powerful urge to actually live on the island – or own it. Laying claim to Äggskär, as Atos and I had dreamt of doing, seems to be absolutely out of the question on account of the anglers, so we’ve had to abandon that idea. But, you see, I must always have something to dream about. Perhaps I could get us Kummelskär, as it’s the island furthest out to sea, unsheltered, with no chance of fresh water, no soil and no forest. One would have to take lots of bottles of Vichy water, and boil seawater, too – I expect in due course we’ll be able to buy tinned goods again, and the boat could be drawn up on rails of some kind, as there’s no harbour. You’d love the sheer drops, ravines and lagoons on the far side, where the swell throws up surf even in calm weather.

  That night we went up onto the tallest cliff and saw the thundering sea, white in the moonlight. It was scarcely real – the island looked like a lunar landscape or a dream. Abbe’s going to pull down his old sauna – I could buy that and reassemble it out here just as it is, with windows facing the sea and blue weatherboarding. If I can get permission to be here. Everyone always has a thousand objections and is so discouraging and mocking, but I’m sure you understand me – you and Ham – and hope I will contrive to get my island!

  Yes, this week I’ve been pretty far removed from my exhibition and my anxieties about it. It’s going to open on 5th or 19th October, may the muse be with me! Last time I was here taking a look at Tunnis I managed to get a few charcoal sketches done. It’ll be the first time I’ve exhibited freehand drawings. As for the canvases, I’m still messing about with the 30 from the early summer, spring and winter. It’s better for me to concentrate on them than to aim for 50 like three years ago.