snow by tove jansson

When we got to the strange house it began to
snow in quite a different way. A mass of tired old clouds
opened and flung snow at us, all of a sudden and just
anyhow. They weren’t ordinary snowflakes – they fell
straight down in large sticky lumps, they clung to each
other and sank quickly and they weren’t white, but grey.
The whole world was as heavy as lead.
Mummy carried in the suitcases and stamped her feet
on the doormat and talked the whole time because she
thought the whole thing was such fun and that every-
thing was different.

But I said nothing because I didn’t like this strange
house. I stood in the window and watched the snow
falling, and it was all wrong. It wasn’t the same as in
town. There it blows black and white over the roof or
falls gently as if from heaven, and forms beautiful arches
over the sitting-room window. The landscape looked
dangerous too. It was bare and open and swallowed up
the snow, and the trees stood in black rows that ended
in nothing. At the edge of the world there was a narrow
fringe of forest. Everything was wrong. It should be
winter in town and summer in the country. Everything
was topsy-turvy.

The house was big and empty, and there were too
many rooms. Everything was very clean and you could
never hear your own steps as you walked because the
carpets were so big and they were as soft as fur.
If you stood in the furthest room, you could see
through all the other rooms and it made you feel sad; it
was like a train ready to leave with its lights shining over
the platform. The last room was dark like the inside of
a tunnel except for a faint glow in the gold frames and
the mirror which was hung too high on the wall. All the
lamps were soft and misty and made a very tiny circle of
light. And when you ran you made no noise.
It was just the same outside. Soft and vague, and the
snow went on falling and falling.

I asked why we were living in this strange house but
got no proper answer. The person who cooked the food
was hardly ever to be seen and didn’t talk. She padded
in without one noticing her and then out again. The
door swung to without a sound and rocked backwards
and forwards for a long time before it was still. I showed
that I didn’t like this house by keeping quiet. I didn’t
say a word.

In the afternoon the snow was even greyer and fell
in flocks and stuck to the window-panes and then
slid down and new flocks appeared out of the twilight
and replaced them. They were like grey hands with a
hundred fingers. I tried to watch one all the way as it
fell, it spread out and fell, faster and faster. I stared at the
next one and the next one and in the end my eyes began
to hurt and I got scared.
It was hot everywhere and there was enough room
for crowds of people but there were only two of us. 
I said nothing.
Mummy was happy and rushed all over the place
saying: “What peace and quiet! Isn’t it lovely and warm!”
And so she sat down at a big shiny table and began to
draw. She took the lace tablecloth off and spread out all
her illustrations and opened the bottle of Indian ink.
Then I went upstairs. The stairs creaked and groaned
and made lots of noises that stairs make when a family
has gone up and down them for ages. That’s good. Stairs
should do that sort of thing. one knows exactly which
step squeaks and which one doesn’t and where one has
to tread if one doesn’t want to make oneself heard. It
was just that this staircase wasn’t our staircase. Quite
a different family had used it. Therefore I thought this
staircase was creepy.

Upstairs all the soft lamps were on in the same way
and all the rooms were warm and tidy and all the doors
were standing open. Only one door was closed. Inside,
it was cold and dark. It was the box room. The other
family’s belongings were lying there in packing-cases and
trunks and there were mothproof bags hanging in long
rows with a little snow on top of them.
Now I could hear the snow. It was falling all the time,
whispering and rustling to itself and in one corner it had
crept onto the floor.

The other family was everywhere in there, so I shut
the door and went down again and said I wanted to go
to bed. Actually I didn’t want to go to bed at all, but I
thought it would be best. Then I wouldn’t have to say
anything. The bed was as wide and desolate as the land-
scape outside. The eiderdown was like a hand, too. You
sank and sank right to the bottom of the earth under a
big soft hand. Nothing was like it was at home, or like
anywhere else.

In the morning it was still snowing in just the same
way. Mummy had already got started with her work
and was very cheerful. She didn’t have to light fires or
get meals ready and didn’t have to be worried about
anybody. I said nothing.

I went to the furthest room and watched the snow. I
had a great responsibility and had to see what the snow
was doing. It had risen since yesterday. A thousand tons
of wet snow had slithered down the window-panes, and I
had to climb onto a chair to see the long grey landscape.
The snow had risen out there, too. The trees were thin-
ner and more timid and the horizon had moved further
away. I looked at everything until I knew that soon we
would be done for. This snow had decided to go on fall-
ing until everything was a single, vast wet snowdrift, and
nobody would remember what had been underneath it. 

All the trees would sink into the earth and all the
houses. No roads and no tracks – just snow falling and
falling and falling.
I went up to the boxroom and listened to it falling,
I heard how it stuck fast and grew. I couldn’t think of
anything but the snow.
Mummy went on drawing.

I was building with the cushions on the sofa and some-
times I looked at her through a peephole between them.
She felt me looking and asked: “Are you alright?” while
she went on drawing. And I answered: “of course”.
Then I crept on hands and knees into the end room and
climbed onto a chair and saw how the snow was sinking
down over me. Now the whole horizon had crept below
the edge of the world. The fringe of forest couldn’t be
seen any longer; it had slid over. The world had capsized,
it was turning over quietly, a little bit every day.

The very thought of it made me feel giddy. Slowly,
slowly, the world was turning, heavy with snow. The
trees and houses were no longer upright. They were
slanting. Soon it would be difficult to walk straight.
All the people on earth would have to creep. If they
had forgotten to fasten their windows, they would
burst open. The doors would burst open. The water
barrels would fall over and begin to roll over the endless
field and out over the edge of the world. The whole
world was full of things rolling, slithering and falling.
Big things rumbled, you could hear them from far off,
and you had to work out where they would come, and
get away from them. Here they were, rumbling past,
leaping in the snow when the angle was too great, and
finally falling into space. Small houses without cellars
broke loose and whirled away. The snow stopped fall-
ing downwards, it flew horizontally. It fell upwards and
disappeared. Everything that couldn’t hold on tight
rolled out into space, and slowly the sky went dark and
turned black. We crept under the furniture between
the windows, taking care not to tread on the glass. But
from time to time a picture or a lamp bracket fell and
smashed the window-pane. The house groaned and the
plaster came loose. And outside, large heavy objects
rumbled past, rolling right through the whole of Finland
all the way down from the Arctic Circle, and they were
even heavier because they had collected so much snow
as they rolled and sometimes people fell past screaming
all the time.

The snow on the ground began to slither away. It slid
in an enormous avalanche which grew and grew over
the edge of the world … oh no! oh no!
I rolled backwards and forwards on the carpet to make
the horror of it seem greater, and in the end I saw the
wall heave over me and the pictures hung straight out
on their wires.
“What are you doing?” Mummy asked.
Then I lay still and said nothing.
“Shall we have a story?” she asked, and went on 
drawing.
But I didn’t want any other story than this one of my
own. But one doesn’t say that sort of thing. So I said:
“Come up and look at the attic.”

Mummy dried her Indian ink pen and came with me.
We stood in the attic and froze for a while and Mummy
said “It’s lonely here,” so we went back into the warmth
again and she forgot to tell me a story. Then I went 
to bed.

Next morning the daylight was green, underwater
lighting throughout the room. Mummy was asleep. I got
up and opened the door and saw that the lamps were on
in all the rooms although it was morning and the green
light came through the snow which covered the windows
all the way up. Now it had happened. The house was a
single enormous snowdrift, and the surface of the ground
was somewhere high up above the roof. Soon the trees
would creep down into the snow until only their tops
stuck out, and then the tops would disappear too and
everything would level itself off and be flat. I could see
it, I knew. Not even praying would stop it. 
I became very solemn and quite calm and sat down on
the carpet in front of the blazing fire.

Mummy woke up and came in and said, “Look how
funny it is with snow covering the windows,” because
she didn’t understand how serious it all was. When I
told her what had really happened, she became very
thoughtful.
“In fact,” she said after a while, “we have gone into
hibernation. nobody can get in any longer and no one
can get out!”

I looked carefully at her and understood that we were
saved. At last we were absolutely safe and protected.
This menacing snow had hidden us inside in the warmth
for ever and we didn’t have to worry a bit about what
went on there outside. I was filled with enormous relief,
and I shouted, “I love you, I LOVE YOU,” and took all
the cushions and threw them at her and laughed and
shouted and Mummy threw them all back, and in the
end we were lying on the floor just laughing.
Then we began our underground life. We walked
around in our nighties and did nothing. Mummy didn’t
draw. We were bears with pine needles in our stomachs
and anyone who dared come near our winter lair was
torn to pieces. We were lavish with the wood, and threw
log after log onto the fire until it roared.
Sometimes we growled. We let the dangerous world
outside look after itself; it had died, it had fallen out into
space. Only Mummy and I were left.

It began in the room at the end. At first it was the
nasty scraping sound made by shovels. Then the snow
fell down over the windows and grey light came in
everywhere. Somebody tramped past outside and came
to the next window and let in more light. It was awful.
The scraping sound went along the whole row of
windows until the lamps were burning as if at a funeral.
Outside snow was falling. The trees were standing in
rows and were as black as they had been before and they
let the snow fall on them and the fringe of forest on the
horizon was still there.
We went and got dressed. Mummy sat down to draw.
A dark man went on shovelling outside the door and
all of a sudden I started to cry and I screamed: “I’ll bite
him! I’ll go outside and bite him!”

“I shouldn’t do that,” Mummy said. “He wouldn’t
understand.” She screwed the top onto the bottle of
Indian ink and said: “what about going home?”
“Yes,” I said.
So we went home.