by Tove Jansson
I’ve been wearing your earrings and necklace, which when it isn’t on me adorns the vase where I keep my brushes. When I’m feeling poetic or bold I go around in your American hostess dress. But I don’t have that many guests, only sometimes the handful of friends who’re the absolute … you know.
The family picture has changed in that Lasse and Nita have got divorced. Lasse’s gone down to Ibiza where they lived for five years to sell the plot of land they bought to build a house on – and the car and the TV, and in a week’s time he’s coming back to Finland with Sophia. They’re going to live in Lasse’s old room at Ham’s and next year Sophia starts school, she’s going to the Zilliacuska. Nita’s staying on in Torremolinos for the time being.
The galactic picture was the cover of the first edition of Trollkarlens hatt (published in English as Finn Family Moomintroll) in 1948.
I’ve finally got started on a new book after a break of quite a few years – four, five? But Moomintroll seems to have come to an end after “Pappan och havet” [Moominpappa at Sea], so now I’m no longer writing for children but about a child – for grown-ups. It’s hard and exciting to be without the prop of Moomin Valley. And a great joy to have got underway and to be working for pleasure.
Ham is a bit worse and terribly tired. But we had a lovely summer, warm – with some big, beautiful storms – and she was better than for several years. Now Lasse’s coming back home she need never be alone at nights again.
I was at Lehtovaara yesterday with some visiting children’s author, and happened to sit at our table. I could think of nothing but you – you were so much more vivid. How are you?
Were you happy with your trip to Finland? Are we further away now at last – or closer?
All’s well!
Tove.
I’ve finally got started on a new book: Bildhuggarens dotter (The Sculptor’s Daughter) came out in 1968.
“I can see the ideas growing like trees straight through you”
LETTERS TO ATOS WIRTANEN 1943–1971
Atos Wirtanen.
ATOS IS “INCREDIBLY PRODUCTIVE AND THE ENFANT TERRIBLE of Parliament”. Thus runs Tove Jansson’s characterisation of Atos Wirtanen, author, politician, journalist and newspaper editor, in the autumn of 1944.
At this point Tove and Atos have been a couple for over a year. Atos Wirtanen is a philosopher with a great zest for life, as fond of parties as she is herself, and with a wide, generous smile. He is “brimming with life, thoughts and utopias”. It is easy to be cheerful in his company, she writes earlier the same year. With Atos Wirtanen she feels free to work and to love, an ideal combination where Tove Jansson is concerned. Their paths first cross at an event early in 1943 and Tove Jansson soon becomes part of the circle that is in the habit of gathering at Wirtanen’s house at Grankulla, just outside Helsinki. The group includes such literary figures as Gunnar Björling, Elmer Diktonius, Eva Wichman, Olof Enckell, Ralf Parland and Tito Colliander. When Tove Jansson is acting as bartender at a wild party there in February 1943, the two have not yet found one another, but a few months later, on 17 June 1943, she writes her new man on her calendar as “Atos”. Over the summer, Tove Jansson is called up for three months’ agricultural labour (a law passed in 1939 meant that all Finnish citizens aged 18–64 and liable for service could be put to work for the defence forces or the country’s economic interests), and that is when she writes her first letter to Atos Wirtanen. She describes her daily toil in the fields and includes a drawing of the dream project they concocted the previous winter of the war: a comfortable and practical colony where artists and writers could work, somewhere in the south. One suitable location for it would be the villa in northern Morocco, near Tangier, owned by philosopher and socialist Edvard Westermarck. She does a sketch to put some flesh on the bare bones of their dream, placing Atos the author in a tower, and providing him with a hanging garden so he can write outdoors. She herself presides over a large studio, without vegetation except for what might be bunches of grapes round the windows. They put money aside for the colony over a number of years, but one day the box in Tove Jansson’s studio is empty. The contents have been donated to a strike fund in the north of Finland.
Tove Jansson is not politically active like Atos Wirtanen, but they are both on the same side. He is oppositional, part of the radical left, and forced to go underground on several occasions. There is no mention of this in the letters, but a few notes in Tove Jansson’s dairies allude to his political activities in the war years. At one point she writes of the need to find him a place to hide if there is a “coup from the right”, and on another occasion she reports acting as go-between. With conspicuous pride she writes of having delivered “a secret document” for Atos, but does not reveal the recipient or the contents. Wirtanen later refers to Tove Jansson’s involvement – her then studio at Fänrik Ståhlsgatan was on his list of potential hiding places – but in his account they are not yet well acquainted (Politiska minnen [Political Reminiscences], 1973.
Atos Wirtanen (1906) was born in the Åland Islands. He was a journalist (initially a typographer), author, philosopher and politician. He was named Atos after the Dumas novel The Three Musketeers, which had captured his mother’s imagination. His brothers were given more ordinary names. Atos Wirtanen started his journalist’s career at Arbetarbladet in Helsinki, where he had two spells as editor-in-chief in the 1940s. Later, he was editor-in-chief of the popular democratic movement’s newspaper Ny Tid from 1947 to 1953. He was a Member of Parliament 1936–54, first for the social democrats, and subsequently for the popular democrats. He also presided over the Social Unity Party (which he founded) between 1948 and 1955.
At the time Tove Jansson and Atos Wirtanen first meet, he has published a volume of poetry (Amor fati) and some aphorisms, and he goes on to publish works on many subjects. Their relationship has an impact on Tove Jansson’s writing in several respects. They do not seem to have discussed painting very much, but in her letters Tove Jansson offers some insights into her work as a painter. She writes about a coming exhibition, the sale of some paintings and a commission in a public building. She asks Atos Wirtanen to buy tubes of paint for her when he is away travelling. But their intellectual meeting place is the written word. In the letters they discuss Swedish writer Eyvind Johnson’s Krilon trilogy (1941–43), as well as Wirtanen’s work on his study of his favourite philosopher, Nietzsche – published in 1945 under the title Nietzsche den otidsenlige (The Unfashionable Nietzsche) – and Tove Jansson’s work on the Moomin books. It is a proud “Moomin squigglemaker” who informs Atos that she has delivered the manuscript of her new book (Trollkarlens hatt) to Schildts in 1947. That autumn sees the start of the very first series of Moomin strip cartoons, in Wirtanen’s newspaper Ny Tid, under the title “Moomintroll and the Destruction of the World”. It is published in 26 episodes, from 3 October 1947 to 2 April 1948. Tove Jansson refers briefly to the plot of the cartoon strip in one of her letters (4.1.1948). She explains the background to the cartoon strip in the essay “Atos, my friend” (Astra Nova, nr. 2, 1996). Atos Wirtanen has plans for launching Moomin in the USA, but they come to nothing. He takes a close interest in her writing, even though his advice is perhaps not always the best. Tove Jansson’s notes reveal that it is his suggestion to normalise the name Moomintroll into “little troll” in the book title Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen (which in English reverted to The Moomins and the Great Flood). There is no mention of this in the letters, however.
In the late summer of 1945, they plan a trip to the islands where Atos was born and grew up. They are to meet his relations, but Atos is in no hurry and Tove Jansson ends up researching family and places for herself. She is intensely engaged with work on her second Moomin book Kometjakten (Comet in Moominland). This book introduces the character of the philosophical Muskrat, a character who has often been linked with Atos Wirtanen. But the mournful muskrat, who likes nothing better than to spend his days in a hammock (in the company of Oswald Spengler), ha
s nothing much beyond his interest in philosophy in common with Wirtanen. In one of her letters, Tove Jansson asks about their “muskrat”, who lives in a patch of marshland near Grankulla, and this is evidently a reference to Nietzsche. “Atos went to the marsh and cogitated on Nietzsche”, she writes in her notes in the spring of 1946. In her Moomin books, the Muskrat embodies the philosopher as concept.
The relationship between Tove Jansson and Atos Wirtanen continues until the early 1950s, at varying levels of intensity. There are breaks, and other lovers of both sexes (principally Vivica Bandler). Atos Wirtanen, too, has other partners during his time with Tove Jansson. Marriage is discussed at various points and proposals are made, but they never exchange rings. Atos Wirtanen eventually marries Irja Hagfors, a dancer, in 1954. By then Tove Jansson has been in a relationship with Britt-Sofie Fock, a goldsmith, for a number of years.
Tove Jansson and Atos Wirtanen remain friends, but they become less close over time, once they are no longer moving in the same circles. The few letters they exchange later on still, however, convey how significant their love for each other has been. Tove Jansson feels it is important to inform him when Ham dies, and later to tell him about her round-the-world trip with Tuulikki Pietilä. Atos Wirtanen refers briefly to Tove Jansson in Politiska minnen (Political Reminiscences) as a colleague at Ny Tid who contributes a picture story (the Moomin series) that is “among her most entrancing artwork”.
But in the lovely letter Atos writes a few years earlier, when she sends him Bildhuggarens dotter (The Sculptor’s Daughter), he pays her the greatest tribute one can give to a human being and artist:
I hope you will continue this story of your life. You write for all ages. I am now getting on for 100 yet felt about 10 when I was reading you. You yourself are all ages, from youngest to eldest, and perpetually at the start of your life, which you have already lived many times over. There is a short and precise word for that: genius.
* * *
20.8.43 [Måsabacka]
Dear Atos!
Thanks for your letter, which eventually straggled its way out to Måsabacka. Glad your trip was positive. Yes, oaks. They’re fine trees. Do you remember Krilon’s reflections on oaks? I found it, the book you and Sam were talking about, and like it a lot.
The agricultural labour continues. My current watchword – the opposite of yours – is “back to civilisation!” Of course it would be nice, Atos, to see “crocodiles roaming free on a modern-day beach”, but nicer still would be seeing the stooks of rye carried into the barn on an escalator and being free to get back to the traffic jams, electric sockets and a proper easel on castors.
I’ve started dreaming about painting at nights; the canvases are black and white except for the picture’s darkest and lightest spots, which are in colour; the dark ones blazing hot and heavy, the light ones acrid and cold. But if I try afterwards to capture something of the picture’s fickle yet absolute composition, simultaneously unreal and obvious, it just turns out as one of my usual + – o canvases.
I wonder if you sometimes get that sudden, intense feeling that you are on the verge of discovering something very important, and that all it would take is a bit more effort on your part to understand something fundamental that transforms, simplifies and explains everything. It could be a really fine picture if only one made that little effort – or is the phenomenon just a result of the brain being tired and getting jammed for a while?
As well as threshing, at the moment I’m learning the art of staying silent while being doused in a huge accumulation of opinions of every imaginable shade diametrically opposed to my own. She looks like this and has a peerless knack of making one feel like some kind of asocial luxury item. (which is also, by the way, starting to show its age.) – This evening the thunder is crashing over the fields and giving the monotony a good shake. I hope it will carry on tomorrow and give me a day in town. One grows so impatient – and so dulled.
What do you think about Guipuzcoa in the Basque Country? Sounds very nice. But Moroccan society interests me even more – so here’s a project for you. The tower is reserved for you – hanging garden at the top so you can write outdoors. No plants. Except perhaps for some grapes around the window.
All the best to you, Atos.
P.S. Vert emerande is the most important. I’d rather you skip the others. If it comes to it.
Krilon’s reflections on oaks: A reference to Swedish author Eyvind Johnson’s Krilon trilogy, 1941–43.
28.5.45. [Helsingfors]
Dearest!
Today I brought flowery skirts and straw hats down from the attic, that’s going to be my look on Åland!
Every morning I start looking forward to our trip all over again. In ten days’ time I shall know whether they will give me a passport or not – if those snooty types make a fuss, I shall have to act as an assistant representative of the people, to punish them!
We’ve had some glorious days and I imagined you dashing around Stockholm (without a glance at the shop windows) and perhaps, I hope, finding time to get out to those oaks you longed to see but couldn’t fit in last time.
Yesterday there was an awful lot of celebration – what did I expect? Eleven solemn gentlemen from the Society of Illustrators invited me to dinner with speeches and flowers for the lady; I dubbed them all knights and came home singing.
The Swedes arrived today: Olle, Kalle and Pelle, Hedberg, Åberg and Nordberg. Ham and Faffan took charge of Nordberg, and we are in the middle of a festive send-off for them at Ragni Cawén’s.
Sitting in a corner with a puppy on my knee and a cup of Real Coffee beside me.
Not much of note has happened here otherwise. Except that I find you in anything I see that is full of colour, joy and vitality. Don’t forget to make sure Maja gets you a new green hat!
All the best!
Tove.
PS I’ve been saving this special writing paper for a year, to use exclusively for love letters. Now I realise I ought to have written a poem on it instead. Perhaps that wouldn’t have been a success, either!
But I am full of words and poetry and other kinds of garlands for the adornment of you and me. All of me is a dance tune about you, and I give it to you as a gift to be sung in the sunshine, with constant new words and melodies!
Bye-bye!
representative of the people: Refers to Atos Wirtanen’s position as a Member of Parliament.
Olle, Kalle and Pelle: The artists Olle Nordberg Kalle (Karl) Hedberg and Pelle Åberg from Sweden.
Maja: Maja Stenman.
8.2.46 GÖTEBORG
Dearest solofif,
You ought to be here!
I’m lying on my stomach on a polar bear skin rug, listening to the ninth symphony (we must get hold of it!), out there a new city to explore and conquer tomorrow.
My youngest skiing and sailing uncle is out to dinner with his wife. The dog is dozing in a corner, on the walls there are ships sailing in all directions and tiny human ants climbing wild peaks.
The ninth is thundering over me and all is blessedly calm.
Did you get there safely with what little you were able to take with you? Are you up to your ears in politics again, do you ever have time to go down and look at our muskrat?
I miss you a lot, but in a cheerful, relaxed way. I know you will still be there when I come in the spring and that you sometimes long for me.
A plague on you, Atos! You didn’t want my illustrations! I couldn’t give them enough golden curls. Now I’m pinning my hopes on Fock and Pelle Åberg. How old do you think I shall be before my “craving for things” abates? I shall probably still be sewing sequins on my slippers when I’m a wrinkled ninety-year old. (Maybe on yours too!!)
Atos (in the hat), Tove and her father, Faffan, enjoying a storm.
One evening I was at the Swedish women artists’ monthly party, a peculiar event, extremely animated. And strange to separate the sexes within a single profession. It makes the atmosphere too homogenous.
In that grey and untidy space, I believe I shall be able to work. No relatives or shop windows. Luxuriousness is all well and good, but having dived into it one does need to come up for air.
You must go to the studio sometime when it is warmer to inaugurate the four-poster bed. When you’ve been partying or want to be left in peace.
We must have a party when I get home to my tower. Give my regards to Sylvina Sylvarum and whoever else you can think of in our old crowd. And give Ham a ring sometime. As well as her two gentlemen she’s now acquired a crazy Alsatian puppy to worry about.
All the best, Atos. HUGS.
Tove.
solofif: A play on the Swedish word “filosof” (philosopher), one of TJ’s pet names for Atos Wirtanen.
My youngest skiing and sailing uncle: Harald Hammarsten.
TOVE JANSSON’S PROPOSAL TO ATOS WIRTANEN AND HIS ANSWER are described in her letters to Eva Konikoff of 16.12.1947 and 4.1.1948. A more discreet proposal is hard to imagine; it passes almost unnoticed.
UNDATED [1947, most likely December. Helsingfors]
Dearest,
Thank you for your letter. It made me feel so happy and light. As if you had taken me in your arms. Today you are in Warschaw, crossing one border after another. You must be bursting with strong new impressions, I can see the idea growing like trees straight through you, and you coming back home to do battle and turn the right on its heads. Before leaving them to their fate and taking new roads that are your very own.