The True Deceiver (New York Review Books (Paperback))

by Tove Jansson

THE CONTINUOUS SNOWFALL carried with it an imprecise darkness that was neither dusk nor dawn, and it depressed people. Things that might have been done with pleasure became merely things that needed doing.

Anna ran amok through her parents’ house, revealing everything and thus, for the first time, calling its worth and charm into question.

The snow had a crust hard enough to walk on. Spring was coming, a spring that belonged to Katri Kling, Katri Kling who in open and honourable play had finally won a round, who had everything she wanted to achieve within reach.

What I’m trying to say is that there are few people who take the time to understand and listen, to enter into another person’s way of living. The other day it occurred to me how remarkable it is that you, Miss Kling, can write my name as if I’d written it myself.

Finally, Anna crept in under the coverlet and hid from her irrevocable decision – to be alone no more.

Now, again, something being dragged and dropped, everything up there changing places; all the past, which had rested above Anna Aemelin’s bedroom as distant and undisturbed as the innocent dome of heaven, was in a state of violent transformation.

It was during this period that Anna began to be aware, in a new and disquieting way, of what she did with her time and what she didn’t do.

It was only to Sylvia that Anna had talked about her work – without reservation, boasts and cruel disappointments all jumbled together, everything. And now all of it was there with Sylvia, unloaded on her over the years in a dense clot of rash confidences. I shouldn’t have called, Anna thought. But she’s the only one who knows me.

Yes, they always came at night. I’d stand and freeze and listen, and I was completely alone with the landscape and the night, and even then I had the patience I have now. And my thoughts were as grand back then as they are now – plans and conquests out in the wide world – but they were thoughts without a foothold or a clear goal. They were just powerful. Now I know what I want.

Why was Mats so angry with me? Doesn’t he understand? He must understand how hard I try, all the time, to put everything I do to a strict test – every act, every word I choose instead of a different word.

Behind her, Katri said, “Anna? Wait a moment – don’t go yet. Couldn’t you please tell me what it is that’s happened to you?” When Anna didn’t answer, Katri went on. “Don’t you know what I’m talking about?” “Oh yes, I know,” Anna replied, and her voice was altered; it was a voice of compassion. “I know what you’re talking about. What’s happened to me is that I can no longer see the ground.”

How many different truths are there, and what justifies them? What a person believes? What a person accomplishes? Self-deception? Is it only the result that counts? I no longer know.