Tove Jansson

Everything was new once again.

But then spring came…

Life is short, the world is enormous.

‘I suppose not,’ said Moomintroll and stifled a yawn.

“The worm probably knows that if it comes apart, both halves will start growing separately. Space. But we don’t know how much it hurts. And we don’t know, either, if the worm is afraid it’s going to hurt. But anyway, it does have a feeling that something sharp is getting closer and closer all the time. This is instinct. And I can tell you this much, it’s not fair to say it’s too little, or it only has a digestive canal, and so that’s why it doesn’t hurt. I am sure it does hurt, but maybe only for a second.”

“But it’s spring!” Sophia said. “They don’t die now; they’re brand new and just married—that’s what you said!”
“Well,” Grandmother said, “it did die now, all the same.”
“How did it die?” Sophia yelled. She was very angry.
“Of unrequited love,” her grandmother explained. “He sang and scolded all night for his scolder hen and then along came another and stole her away, so he put his head under the water and floated away.”
“That’s not true,” Sophia screamed. She started to cry. “Long-tails can’t drown. Tell it right!”
So Grandmother told her he had simply hit his head on a rock. He was singing and scolding so hard that he didn’t look where he was going, and so it just happened, right when he was happier than he’d ever been before.
“That’s better,” Sophia said. “Shall we bury him?”
“It’s not necessary,” Grandmother said. “The tide will come in and he’ll bury himself. Seabirds are supposed to be buried at sea, like sailors.”

n Letters from Tove we have gathered the letters to those to whom she felt closest, those who were her companions in life, work and love

his meant that from 1954, when she achieved her major international breakthrough with the Moomin cartoon strip, to the years preceding her death in 2001, she had 92,000 letters to answe

Writing letters to her closest contacts was a long-felt need for her, but her growing fame drastically altered the conditions of her correspondence.