‘Aren’t you happy to go to the theatre?’ asked the smallest woody and rubbed his snout against Snufkin’s trouser leg.
‘Terribly happy, silk muzzle,’ replied Snufkin. ‘And now we’ll try to clean you up. A little at least. Have you any handkerchiefs? Because this is a tragedy.’
They hadn’t any.
‘Well,’ said Snufkin. ‘You’ll have to blow your noses in your petticoats. Or whatever you’ve got.’
*
The sun was nearly at the horizon when Snufkin had done with all the trousers and dresses. Of course there was a certain amount of tar left, but at least it was evident that he had done his utmost.
Very excited and solemn they started for Spruce Creek.
Snufkin led the way, carrying the keg of beans, and at his heels followed all the woodies by pairs, everyone with his or her hair neatly parted in the middle from the eyebrows all the way down to the tail.
Little My sat on Snufkin’s hat, singing loudly. She had swathed herself in a kettle-holder, because there was likely to be a chill in the air later in the night.
Down at the shore the general excitement over the first night was already quite noticeable. The inlet was swarming with boats on their way out to the theatre. On a raft beneath the splendidly radiant footlights the Hemulic Voluntary Brass Band was playing and in full swing. Otherwise it was a calm and pleasant evening.
Snufkin hired a boat for two pawfuls of beans and set his course towards the floating theatre.
‘Nufkin!’ said the biggest of the woodies when they were half-way.
‘Yes,’ said Snufkin.
‘We’ve got a present for you,’ said the woody, blushing terribly.
Snufkin rested his oars and took the pipe from his mouth.
The woody extracted a crumpled thing of an indefinite colour from behind his back. ‘It’s a tobacco pouch,’ he said indistinctly. ‘We’ve all of us taken turns to embroider it and didn’t tell you a word!’
Snufkin received his present and peered into it (it was one of the Fillyjonk’s old caps). He sniffed at it.
‘It’s raspberry leaves to smoke on Sundays!’ the smallest woody shouted proudly.
‘This is a splendid tobacco pouch,’ said Snufkin approvingly. ‘And the tobacco will be excellent for Sunday smoking.’
He shook paws with all the woodies and thanked them.
‘I haven’t embroidered on it,’ Little My said from his hatbrim. ‘But the idea was mine!’
The rowing-boat was nearing the footlights, and Little My wrinkled her nose in some astonishment. ‘Are all theatres alike?’ she asked.
‘I think so,’ said Snufkin. ‘Now when the fun starts they’ll pull away those curtains, and then you must remember to be quite silent. Don’t fall in the water if something awful happens. And after it’s finished you clap your paws to show that you’ve liked it.’
The woodies sat quite still and stared at everything.
Snufkin looked around him carefully, but nobody was laughing at them. Everybody looked at the lighted curtain. Only an elderly Hemulen came rowing up and said: ‘Admittance, please.’
Snufkin raised his keg of beans.
‘Do you pay for them all?’ asked the Hemulen and began to count the children.
‘Isn’t it enough?’ asked Snufkin, uneasily.
‘Oh, yes, there’s always a reduction in these cases,’ said the Hemulen and filled his bailer with beans from the keg.
Now the band stopped, and everybody clapped. Then silence.
Three strong thumps sounded behind the curtain.
‘I’m afraid,’ the smallest woody whispered. He was pulling at Snufkin’s sleeve.
‘Hold on and you’ll be all right,’ said Snufkin. ‘Look, there goes the curtain.’
The rocky landscape lay before the breathless spectators.
On the right the Mymble’s daughter was sitting, dressed in tulle and paper flowers.
Little My leaned down over the hatbrim and exclaimed: ‘Boil me if it isn’t my old sister.’
‘Is the Mymble’s daughter your sister?’ asked Snufkin, surprised.
‘I’ve been talking and talking about my sister, haven’t I?’ said Little My in a bored voice. ‘Haven’t you listened at all?’
Snufkin stared at the stage. His pipe went out, but he forgot to light it. He saw Moominpappa enter from the left and declaim something peculiar about a lot of his relatives and a lion.
Suddenly Little My jumped down in his lap and said agitatedly: ‘Why is he angry at my sister? He has no right to scold my sister!’
‘Sh! dear, it’s only a play,’ replied Snufkin absentmindedly.
He now saw a small fat lady in red velvet enter to tell the audience that she was extremely happy. At the same time she seemed to have an ache somewhere.
Somebody else whom he didn’t know kept shouting ‘O Night of fate’behind the scenes.
Wondering more and more Snufkin saw Moominmamma appear on the stage. ‘What’s up with the whole family?’ he thought. ‘I know they’ve always had ideas, but this! I suppose Moomintroll is the next to jump in and begin reciting.’
But Moomintroll didn’t come. Instead a lion entered and roared.
The woodies began to cry and nearly turned the boat over.
‘This is silly,’ remarked a Hemulen in a policeman’s cap who was sitting in the next boat. ‘It’s not a bit like that wonderful play I saw when I was young. About a princess who slept in a rosebush. I can’t understand a word of what they mean.’
‘Theretherethere,’ said Snufkin to his panic-stricken woodies. ‘That lion’s made out of an old counterpane.’
But they didn’t believe him. They saw quite clearly that the lion was chasing the Mymble’s daughter all over the stage. Little My was shrilling like a whistle. ‘Save my sister!’ she shouted. ‘Brain that lion!’
And suddenly she took a desperate leap upon the stage, rushed at the lion and sank her small sharp teeth in its right hind leg.
The lion uttered an exclamation and broke in the middle.
The spectators now saw the Mymble’s daughter lifting Little My in her arms and getting kissed on the nose, and they noticed that nobody spoke in blank verse any longer, but quite naturally. This met with general approval, because now it was finally possible to understand what the play was about.
It was about someone who had floated away from home, and had awful experiences, and now found her way home again. And everybody was marvellously happy and going to have a cup of tea.
‘They’re playing a lot better now, I think,’ said the Hemulen.
Snufkin began to hoist all his woodies up on to the stage. ‘Hello, Moominmamma!’ he cried happily. ‘Can you take care of these for me?’
The play became funnier and funnier. By and by, the whole of the audience came climbing up on the stage and took part in the plot by beginning to eat the entrance fees that were laid out on the drawing-room table. Moominmamma freed herself from the troublesome skirts and rushed to and fro serving out teacups.
The band started on the Hemulic Triumphal March.
Moominpappa was radiant with the great success, and Misabel was every bit as happy as at the dress rehearsal.
Suddenly Moominmamma stopped in the middle of the stage and dropped a teacup to the floor.
‘Here he comes,’ she whispered, and everybody became silent.
Out in the dark a faint sound of oars came nearer. A clear little bell was tinkling.
‘Mother!’ somebody was shouting. ‘Father! I’m coming home!’
‘Indeed,’ said the Hemulen. ‘My own prisoners! Catch them at once before they burn the theatre down!’
Moominmamma rushed up to the footlights. She saw Moomintroll lose hold of one of his oars when he was about to lay to. Confusedly he tried to pull with the remaining one, but his boat only spun round on the spot. In the stern sat a thin little Hemulen with a kind sort of face and shouting something nobody took any notice of.
‘Flee
!’ cried Moominmamma. ‘The police are here!’
She didn’t know what her Moomintroll had done, but she was convinced that she approved of it.
‘Catch the convicts!’ now cried the big Hemulen. ‘They’ve burned down all the notices in the Park and made the Park Keeper luminous!’
The audience had been slightly bewildered for a while, but now they understood that the play was going on. They put away their cups and sat down by the footlights to watch it.
‘Catch them!’ shouted the fuming Hemulen. The audience clapped.
‘Wait a bit,’ said Snufkin calmly. ‘Seems to be a mistake somewhere. Because it was I who tore down those notices. Is the Keeper really luminous still?’
The Hemulen turned and riveted his eyes on him.
‘Just fancy what a gain for this Park Keeper,’ Snufkin continued unconcernedly while he sidled closer and closer to the footlights. ‘No electricity bills! Perhaps he’ll be able to light his pipe on himself and boil eggs on his head.’
The Hemulen didn’t answer a word. He was coming slowly nearer and opening his huge paws to grasp Snufkin by the collar. Nearer and nearer he came, now he crouched to leap, and the next second…
The revolving stage set off at full speed. They could hear Emma laugh, not scornfully this time, but triumphantly.
All at once everything was happening so quickly that the spectators became slightly confused. That was mainly because they all were swept off their feet, pell-mell on the revolving floor. Only the twenty-four little woodies threw themselves at the Hemulen and clung tight to his tunic.
Snufkin took a flying leap over the footlights and landed in one of the empty boats. Moomintroll’s boat tipped over from the surge, and the Snork Maiden, the Fillyjonk, and the little Hemulen started to swim towards the theatre.
‘Bravo! Well done! Da capo!* shouted the audience.
As soon as Moomintroll got his snout over the surface again he silently turned and swam towards Snufkin’s boat. ‘Hello!’ he said and took hold of the gunwale. ‘I’m awfully glad to see you.’
‘Hello, hello!’ replied Snufkin. ‘Jump aboard now, and I’ll show you how to make a getaway.’
Moomintroll clambered aboard, and Snufkin began pulling seawards with a cascade of foam around the stem.
‘Good-bye, all my little children, and thanks for your help!’ he cried. ‘And remember to keep clean and tidy, and don’t climb any roofs until the tar is dry!’
The Hemulen in the meantime finally managed to extricate himself from the revolving stage, the woodies and the cheering spectators who were throwing flowers at him. Violently scolding he clambered down in a boat and dashed off in pursuit of Snufkin.
But he was too late; Snufkin had disappeared into the darkness.
Everything became suddenly silent aboard the theatre.
‘So you’re here now,’ remarked Emma quietly, fixing her gaze on the drenched Fillyjonk. ‘But don’t imagine that the stage’s always a bed of roses.’
CHAPTER 13
About punishment and reward
SNUFKIN continued to scull in silence for a long time. Moomintroll sat looking at the well-known and comforting outline of his old hat against the night sky and the puffs of pipe-smoke rising in the quiet air. ‘Everything’ll be all right now,’ he thought.
The shouting and clapping behind them faded slowly away, and after a while the strokes of the oars and the dripping of water were the only sounds to be heard.
The dark streaks of the shores disappeared from sight.
Neither one of the two friends felt any great need of talking. As yet. They had time; summer lay before them, long and full of promises. At this moment their dramatic encounter, the night and the excitement of the flight were quite enough, something not to be disturbed.
The boat curved back to the near shore again.
Moomintroll realized that Snufkin was leading the pursuers astray. Far away in the darkness shrilled the Hemulen’s police whistle, answered by others.
When the boat glided in among the reeds beneath shadowing trees the full moon was rising from the sea.
‘Now listen carefully,’ said Snufkin.
‘Yes,’ said Moomintroll, and the spirit of adventure speeded through his soul on mighty wings.
‘You’ll have to return to the others at once,’ said Snufkin. ‘Then come back to this place with all who want to go back again to the Moomin Valley. They must leave the furniture at the theatre. And you’ll have to hurry away from there before the Hemulens begin keeping guard. I know them. Don’t stop on the way, and don’t be afraid. The June nights aren’t dangerous.’
‘Yes,’ said Moomintroll obediently.
He waited a little, but as Snufkin didn’t tell him anything more, he climbed ashore and started back along the creek.
Snufkin seated himself in the stern and carefully knocked the ashes from his pipe-bowl. Then he peered out between the reeds. The Hemulen was sculling steadily seawards. He was clearly visible in the moon-path.
Snufkin laughed quietly and began to fill his pipe.
*
The water was going out again at last. Newly washed shores and valleys were slowly creeping up in the sunshine again. The trees were the first to rise over the water. They waved their dazed tops in the air and stretched their branches carefully to feel if they were safe and sound after the disaster. Those that had broken off hurriedly put out new sprouts. The birds found their old sleeping-places
again, and higher up on the slopes, where the water had already disappeared, people began spreading out sheets and clothes to dry on the ground.
As soon as the water began falling everybody started for home. People rowed or sailed, night and day, and when the water disappeared they continued afoot to the places where they had lived before.
Possibly some of them had found new and much nicer places during the time the valley was turned into a lake, but still they liked the old places better.
*
As Moominmamma sat beside her son in the stern of Snufkin’s boat with her handbag in her lap, she didn’t give a thought to the drawing-room suite she had been compelled to leave behind her. She thought about her garden, and wondered if the sea had raked the gravel paths as neatly as she used to do herself.
Now Moominmamma began to recognize her surroundings. They were rowing through the pass to the Lonely Mountains, and she knew that behind the next turn she would catch sight of the big rock at the entrance to the Moomin Valley.
‘We’re coming home, home, home!’ Little My was singing in her sister’s lap.
The Snork Maiden in the prow was looking down at the underwater-scape. At present there was a meadow beneath the boat, and some of the tallest flowers brushed lightly against the keel. Yellow, red and blue, they looked up through the clear water and craned their necks towards the sun.
Moominpappa was sculling with long, even strokes.
‘Do you think the verandah will be above water?’ he asked.
‘Time to look when we’re there,’ said Snufkin, looking back over his shoulder.
‘Dear me,’ said Moominpappa. ‘We’ve left the Hem-ulens far behind us.’
‘Don’t be too sure,’ replied Snufkin.
In the middle of the boat there was a bathing-gown covering a strange little hump. The hump moved. Moomintroll poked lightly at it.
‘Won’t you come out in the sun for a moment?’ he asked.
‘No, thanks, I’m really quite all right,’ a mild voice replied beneath the bathing-gown.
‘She gets no air at all, poor little creature,’ Moominmamma said worriedly. ‘She’s been sitting like that for three whole days.’
‘Small Hemulens always are shy,’ Moomintroll explained in a whisper. ‘I believe she’s crocheting. It makes her feel safer.’
But the little Hemulen was not crocheting. She was laboriously writing in an exercise book in black waxcloth covers. ‘Strictly forbidden,’ she wrote. ‘Strictly forbidden, strictly forbidden, strictly f
orbidden.’ Five thousand times. It made her comforted and content to fill one page after another.
‘How nice it feels to be good,’ she thought quietly.
Moominmamma squeezed Moomintroll’s paw. ‘What are you thinking about?’ she asked.
‘I’m thinking of Snufkin’s children,’ replied Moomintroll. ‘Are they really going to be actors, all of them?’
‘Some of them,’ said his mother. ‘The Fillyjonk will adopt the untalented ones. She can’t manage without relatives.’
‘They’ll miss Snufkin,’ said Moomintroll sadly.
‘Perhaps at first,’ said Moominmamma. ‘But he intends calling on them every year and he’ll write them birthday letters. With pictures.’
Moomintroll nodded. ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘And Whomper and Misabel…. Did you notice how happy Misabel looked when she first realized that she could stay on at the theatre!’
Moominmamma laughed. ‘Yes, Misabel was happy. She’ll act in tragedies all her life and have a new face each time. And Whomper’s the new stage manager and every bit as happy. Isn’t it fun when one’s friends get exactly what suits them?’
‘Yes,’ said Moomintroll. ‘Great fun.’
At that moment the boat ran aground and stopped.
‘We’re stuck in the grass,’ said Moominpappa, peering over the gunwhale. ‘We’ll have to wade.’
Everybody climbed out from the boat.
The little Hemulen was hiding something obviously very precious under her dress, but nobody asked what it was.
The water still reached up to their waists, and it wasn’t easy to make headway, even if the bottom was nice, soft grass and no stones. Here and there it sloped, lifting flowering tussocks like paradise islands over the surface.
Snufkin walked last. He was still more taciturn than usual. He kept looking over his shoulder and listening.