Quotable

Spring came closer. During the day, the soil under the trees steamed in the warm sun; the nights were ice cold and deep blue. It was a brilliantly beautiful time. ... One night, the wind began blowing in from the sea. Katri lay listening, remembering the spring nights when she used to go down to the water to wait for the ice to break up. ...

Katri couldn't sleep. At dawn she got up, dressed, and went outdoors. It wasn't cold, and the wind was strong and steady. The sun was ready to come up, and the same gentle, transparent, colourless light lay across the shore and the ice and the sky. Katri stood at the end of the fish pier and watched the dark ice bulge and bend over the swells moving in towards the shore, a long, slow, rising and sinking surge.

It'll break, but not yet. Ice is tough.

from the novel The True Deceiver by Tove Jansson. Makes me look forward to experiencing the ice melt here in Jyvaskyla.

Jansson was a Finnish author who wrote in Swedish (the other official language of Finland, spoken mostly in the western parts of the country). She is best known for her children's books about the Moomin Trolls who live in Moomin Valley. There is even a MoominWorld to visit in western Finland.