Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 18, 1881

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MARX TO ENGELS

AT BRIDLINGTON QUAY

[London], 18 August 1881

DEAR FRED,

No doubt you will by now have had the brief note I wrote you day before yesterday from Argenteuil and have gathered from it that I am here without my wife (not with her as you necessarily supposed in your letter).

On hearing the news of Tussy's condition I resolved to leave that very same day if possible; my wife, on the other hand, was to set off to-day with Helen and travel FIRST CLASS, first to Amiens and spend the night there; then, the next day, to Boulogne and rest there for at least a day, but 2 or 3 days if she wished; thence to Folkestone and, depending on circumstances, from there straight on to London or else (and this seemed to me best), by a later train of her own choosing. It was, of course, distressing to part from her, but the REAL SUPPORT FOR HER IS Helen; MY OWN PRESENCE wasn't absolutely necessary. Moreover, my departure compelled her finally to make up her mind to tear herself away from Argenteuil, which after all had got to happen in view of her growing weakness.

So I left Paris on Tuesday evening at 7.45 by EXPRESS TRAIN via Calais, and arrived in London at ABOUT 6 O'CLOCK (MORNING).

I at once telegraphed Dr Donkin who was here by 11 o'clock and had a long consultation with Tussy. HER STATE IS ONE OF UTTER NERVOUS DEJECTION. She has been eating next to nothing for weeks, less than Dr Tanner during his experiment. 1 9 3 Donkin says there's no organic trouble, HEART SOUND, LUNGS SOUND, etc.; fundamentally the whole condition is attributable to a PERFECT DERANGEMENT OF ACTION OF STOMACH which has become unaccustomed to food (and she has made matters worse by drinking a great deal of tea: he at once forbade her all tea) and a DANGEROUSLY OVERWROUGHT NERVOUS SYSTEM. Hence SLEEPLESSNESS, NEURALGIC CONVULSIONS, etc. It was a miracle, he said, that a COLLAPSE of this kind hadn't happened before. H e intervened at once and, what is most important of all in this little person's case, brought it home to her that, if she was an obedient patient, there would be no danger, but that if she insisted on having her own way, all would be perdu. (Indeed he is convinced that this is so.) Fortunately she promised to do as he said, and when she makes a promise she keeps it. Later on, he says, she will have to go away in order to distract herself.

Another reason for hastening my departure was the knowledge that Donkin intended to take his HOLIDAYS in the Hebrides from 17 August. H e is staying here until Saturday on Tussy's account and will then leave a remplaçant for her and my wife.

At the latest meeting of électeurs M r Gambetta learnt something inside the MEETING-HALL 1 7 9 that he had learnt only at the hands of the crowd outside the meeting-hall at the first Belleville MEETING. 1 9 4 This second meeting also consisted solely of people who had been invited by his own COMMITTEE, and none of them was admitted except after a twofold triage by the stewards appointed by the comité. Hence the uproar was all the more significant. O n both occasions Galliffet! was the cri that predominated. Thus Gambetta learnt the lesson that effrontery of the Italian variety is out of place in Paris. H a d Rochefort been able to speak in public and had he thus been enabled to offer himself then and there as a competing candidate, Gambetta would certainly have been defeated. As a result of what happened at the time of the Commune, the Belleville working-class population lost about 20,000 men, most of whom have been replaced by lower middle-class philistines. And even the remaining or newly arrived working-class population of Belleville (both arrondissements) is one of arriérés, stick-in-the-muds, whose ideal, if it goes beyond Gambetta, stops at Rochefort; both were returned as deputies there in 1869.

As to the state of the parti ouvrier in Paris, someone who is wholly impartial in this respect, namely Lissagaray, admitted to me that, although only existing en germe, it alone counts for anything vis-à-vis the bourgeois parties OF ALL NUANCES. Its organisation, though still tenuous and plus ou moins fictive, is nevertheless sufficiently disciplined for it to be able to put up candidates in every arrondissement—to make its presence felt at MEETINGS and annoy the OFFICIAL SOCIETY PEOPLE. I myself have been following this aspect in Paris papers of every complexion and there's not one that doesn't grind its teeth at that GENERAL NUISANCE—le parti ouvrier collectiviste. 1 9 5

As regards the latest splits among the leaders of the parti ouvrier, it would be best if I told you about this in person later on.

With best wishes to Pumps and Mrs Rendstone.

Your

Moor