Moominpappa at Sea Read Online Free

became thicker and thicker. She was building an island of ice for herself in order to reach the hurricane lamp. It was out of sight behind the islands now, but she knew it was there somewhere. If it went out before she got to it, it wouldn’t matter. She could wait. They would light another lamp some other evening. They always did sooner or later.
    *
    Moominpappa was steering the boat. He held the rudder tightly in one of his paws, feeling that he and the boat understood each other. He was completely at peace with himself.
    His family looked just as tiny and helpless as they had looked in the crystal ball; he was guiding them safely across the vast ocean through the silent, blue night. The hurricane lamp lit the way, just as if Moominpappa had drawn a firm bright line across the map, saying: ‘from here… to there. That’s where we’re going to live. There my lighthouse will be the centre of the world, it will tower proudly above the dangers of the ocean at its feet.’
    ‘You don’t feel the cold, do you?’ he shouted happily. ‘Have you wrapped the blanket round you?’ he asked Moominmamma. ‘Look, we’ve left the last island
behind us now, and soon it will be the darkest part of the night. Sailing at night is very difficult. You have to be on the look-out all the time.’
    ‘Why of course, dear!’ said Moominmamma, who was lying curled up in the bottom of the boat. ‘This is all a great experience,’ she thought. The blanket had got a little wet and she moved gingerly towards the windward side. But the ribs of the boat got in the way of her ears all the time.
    Little My sat in the bow of the boat, humming monotonously to herself.
    ‘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.’
    Pale autumn stars had come out all over the sky. Moomintroll lay on his back looking at the hurricane lamp, but he was thinking about the Groke. If she was someone you mustn’t talk to or about, then she would gradually vanish and not even dare to believe in her own existence. He wondered whether a mirror might help. With lots and lots of mirrors one could be any number of people, seen from the front and from the back, and perhaps these people might even talk to each other. Perhaps…
    Everything was silent. The rudder creaked softly, and they all slept. Moominpappa was alone with his family. He was wide-awake, more wide-awake than he had ever been before.
    *
    Far away, the Groke decided towards morning that she would set off. The island under her was black and transparent with a sharp bowsprit of ice pointing south.
She gathered up her dark skirts, hanging round her like the leaves of a faded rose. They opened out and rustled, lifting themselves like wings. So the Groke’s slow journey over the sea began.

    She moved her skirts upwards, outwards and downwards, like slow swimming-strokes, in the frozen air. The water drew back in scared, choppy waves, and she floated on into the dawn with a cloud of drifting