Free Fair Play by Tove Jansson Page B

to its essence, conclusively. Listen to me. I take an idea, the tiniest fragment of an idea, and I think. I feel. And I refine!” He leaped up and began striding back and forth across the room with long, almost dancing steps. “No, say nothing. What is it I have found? I have found a glass shard of what I call the Finnish legend, a shard of a clumsy fairy tale, and I have made this glass shard sparkle like a diamond! Is there any more tea?”
    â€œNot at the moment,” Mari replied rather coldly.
    â€œYou should use a samovar.”
    Mari filled the saucepan and turned on the hotplate. “It will take a while,” she said.
    Wladyslaw said, “I don’t like your tone.”
    â€œAccording to the contract,” Mari began, conscientiously, and he interrupted her at once.
    â€œYou amaze me. Do you speak to me of contracts, of repulsive trivia with which an artist need not concern himself?”
    â€œNow listen to me!” she burst out. “I was supposed to have approval! After all, they’re mine, they were mine. And when do I finally get to start making dinner?”
    Wladyslaw continued pacing back and forth. Finally he said, “You know nothing, you are barely seventy, you have learned nothing. I’m ninety-two, does that not tell you something?”
    â€œIt tells me that you’re pretty proud of being ninety-two! And you haven’t learned to respect work that isn’t your own!”
    â€œExcellent!” cried Wladyslaw. “You can be angry! Good, very good. But you haven’t put any anger into your figures, and nothing else either. I’m telling you, they’re mute! Welldrawn fairy-tale figures, fairy-tale idiots; look at their eyes, look at their hands, pathetic paws! Wait. I’ll show you.” He ran for his valise.
    Among the socks, underwear, photographs, diverse belongings of all sorts, there were innumerable small packages, each wrapped in cotton wool held together with rubber bands.
    â€œLook,” he said. “My hands. You must learn while there is still time. Handling my faces could have taught you much, but these too can help you see that the simple line is utterly ignorant of the sculptural. Take away the cups, take everything off the table, clean it off. Your tea is far too weak.”
    Hand after hand was unpacked and laid before her, and she studied them in silence.
    They were unbelievably beautiful. Shy hands, greedy hands, reluctant, pleading, forgiving, wrathful, tender hands. She lifted them, one after another.
    It was already rather late at night. At last Mari said, “Yes, I understand.” She paused briefly and went on. “Everything is here. Including pity. Wladyslaw, may I ask you a question? There on the train, on your long trip, didn’t you feel at all sorry for all those hands and faces that you call raw material?”
    â€œNo,” Wladyslaw said. “I no longer have time. I have already told you. I know them. I have forgotten my own face. I have already used it.”
    Mari went and turned off the tea water. “And?” she said.
    â€œI must continue, filled only with my knowledge, my insight. But I have not yet been able to use the face of death, not well enough. He is too palpable. Or is it a she? In any case, a challenge that fascinates me. And what do you know of death? What do you think about it? Have you ever even experienced a great loss?”
    â€œWladyslaw,” Mari said, “do you realize that it’s three o’clock in the morning?”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter. One must use the nights. My friend, I sense that you have not thought much about the face of death. And do you know why? Because you do not live with all your strength, all the time, in your own triumph dashing ahead of time, anticipating it and disdaining it. I am awake, always. Even in my brief dreams I continue to work, constantly. Nothing must be lost.”
    â€œYes, Wladyslaw, yes,”