#sharing some moomin excerpts to you all that make me stare at the wall a bit

[vimbry]

‘(...) I’ve met this lady, and she was horrid. Not the angry sort, you know, which would have been understandable. No, she was the icily ironical kind.’

‘What’s ironical,’ Moomintroll asked.

‘Well, imagine that you slip on a rotten mushroom and sit down on the basket of newly picked ones,’ Too-ticky said. ‘The natural thing for your mother would be to be angry. But no, she isn’t. Instead she says, very coldly: “I understand that’s your idea of a graceful dance, but I’d thank you not to do it in people’s food.” Something like that.’

‘How unpleasant,’ Moomintroll said.

‘Yes, isn’t it,’ replied Too-ticky. ‘This was the way this lady used to talk. She was ironic all day long every day, and finally the kid started to turn pale and fade around the edges, and less and less was seen of her. Last Friday one couldn’t catch sight of her at all. The lady gave her away to me and said she really couldn’t take care of relatives she couldn’t even see.’

‘And what did you do to the lady?’ My asked with bulging eyes. ‘Did you bash her head?’

‘That’s of no use with the ironic sort,’ Too-ticky said. ‘I took Ninny home with me, of course. And now I’ve brought her here for you to make her visible again.

The Invisible Child (1962)

‘Mamma,’ whispered Moomintroll. ‘What happened to her to make her like that?’

‘Who?’

‘The Groke. Did somebody do something to her to make her so awful?’

‘No one knows,’ said Moominmamma, drawing her tail out of the water. ‘It was probably because nobody did anything at all. Nobody bothered about her, I mean. I don’t suppose she remembers anyway, and I don’t suppose she goes around thinking about it either. She’s like the rain or the darkness, or a stone you have to walk round if you want to get past. Do you want some coffee? There’s some in the thermos in the white basket.’ ‘Not just now,’ said Moomintroll. ‘She’s got glassy eyes just like a fish. Can she talk?’ Moominmamma sighed and said: ‘No one talks to her, or about her either, otherwise she gets bigger and starts to chase one. And you mustn’t feel sorry for her. You seem to imagine that she longs for everything that’s alight, but all she really wants to do is to sit on it so that it’ll go out and never burn again. And now I think I might go to sleep for a while.’

Moominpappa At Sea (1965)

She felt safer inside the tent, sank down on the sleeping-bag and put her arms round her knees. She said: ‘They’ve got out. Someone let them out of the clothes-cupboard and they may be anywhere… millions of horrid insects sitting and waiting…’

‘Has anybody else seen them?’ Snufkin asked cautiously.

‘Of course not,’ Fillyjonk replied impatiently. ‘It’s me they’re waiting for!’

Snufkin knocked out his pipe and tried to think of something to say. There was more thunder.

‘Now don’t start saying there’s going to be a thunderstorm,’ said Fillyjonk threateningly. ‘And don’t say that my insects have gone away or that they don’t exist or that they’re too small or too kind, for it won’t help me one bit.’

Snufkin looked straight at her and said: ‘There’s one place where they’ll never come. The kitchen. They never come into the kitchen.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ asked Fillyjonk sternly.

 ‘I’m convinced of it,’ answered Snufkin.

Moominvalley in November (1970)