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Special pages :
Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 3, 1881
| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 August 1881 |
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46
MARX TO ENGELS
AT BRIDLINGTON QUAY
Argenteuil, 3 August 1881
11 Boulevard Thiers
DEAR FRED,
Drawing so heavily on your EXCHEQUER is a great embarrassment to me, but the anarchy which has wrought havoc with the housekeeping over the past 2 years and given rise to all sorts of arrears has been oppressing me for some considerable time. On the 15th of this month I have £30 to pay in London, and this has been a weight on my mind since the day we left.
When we shall return is far from clear. Every day we experience the same ups and downs here as we did in Eastbourne,[1] only with the difference — as for instance yesterday — that there are sudden and frightful bouts of pain. Our Dr Dourlen, who is an excellent doctor and fortunately lives quite close by, immediately intervened and used one of the powerful opiates which Donkin had been deliberately keeping up his sleeve. After that she[2] had a good night and today feels so well that she got up for once as early as 11 o'clock and is finding distraction in the company of Jenny and the children.[3] (The diarrhoea was STOPPED on the 2nd day after our arrival. From the start Dourlen had said that if it was merely an ACCIDENT, it didn't matter; but it might also be a symptom of an actual intestinal infection. Fortunately this was not the case, therefore.)
The temporary 'improvements' do not, of course, inhibit the natural course of the disease, but they delude my wife and fortify Jenny — despite my objurgations — in the belief that our stay in Argenteuil should last as long as possible. I know better how things stand, and my anxiety is all the greater for that. Last night, IN FACT, was the first occasion on which I had anything like a decent sleep. My thoughts, they are so dull and dead as turned a mill-wheel in my head.[4] And this is why I have so far remained exclusively in Argenteuil, neither visiting Paris nor writing so much as a line to anybody there encouraging them to come and visit me. Longuet has already heard Hirsch,[5] in the office of La Justice, express legitimate surprise at this 'abstention'.
And, INTO THE BARGAIN, a Kotzebue-like drama has been played out here during the past 5 days.
Jenny had, for cook, A VERY LIVELY YOUNG GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY with whom she was satisfied in every respect, since she also behaved most amiably towards the children. Her only testimonial from her last MISTRESS, wife of Dr Reynaud (another Argenteuil doctor), was a 'negative' one to the effect that she had quitted her service voluntarily. Old MOTHER Longuet who, so far as she is able, exercises a dictatorship over Jenny, was by no means satisfied with this, nor could she think of anything better to do than to go and write, off her own bat, to Madame Reynaud.
Madame Reynaud is a pretty coquette and her husband a dissolute jackass; hence things happen in this couple's house that are much gossiped about in Argenteuil. They didn't know that their former maid had again taken service in the same locality, and with none other than Mr Longuet, an intimate friend of Dr Dourlen's whose wife was an intimate enemy of Madame Reynaud's! THIS WAS TO BE LOOKED AFTER.
So one fine morning along comes Madame Reynaud — not, hitherto, personally acquainted with Jennychen —, tells the latter that the girl had had improper affairs with men (et Madame?) and, what is worse, is a thief having, dans l'espèce,[6] stolen a gold ring of hers; she assures Jenny that she means to settle the matter en famille,[7] without appealing to the autorités etc. Well and good, Jennychen SUMMONS THE GIRL, Madame Reynaud chats with and AT THE SAME TIME threatens her, the girl confesses, returns the ring — whereat Dr Reynaud denounces the unfortunate creature to the juge de paix.[8] UPSHOT: yesterday she was brought before the juge d'instruction[9] at Versailles. As you know, the Code,[10] being a relic of Roman Law whereby familia = servi,[11] refers to Assizes petty crimes which would ordinarily come before a police court.
In the meantime Jenny had made every imaginable representation to the juge de paix, an excellent man, but the matter had ceased to rest with him the moment he had been officially notified of it. Nevertheless, Jenny's statements, which he wrote down, and la Reynaud's extra-judicial procedure, which she also placed on record, will be of some benefit to the girl.
Jenny's defence of the girl surprised the juge de paix, but he took it all in a very light vein. Mais vous ne voulez pas défendre le vol? he asked her.— Mais non, Monsieur, commencez par arrêter tous les grands voleurs d'Argenteuil, et de Paris par dessus le marché![12]
The immediate upshot is that she has no cook. The stupid GIRL from London — sister of our one-time Carry — is GOOD FOR NOTHING IN THAT LINE and in any case has her hands full with the 4 children.
Apropos. Nordau — who is taking Hirsch's place on the Vossische Zeitung — was awarded a French order! Whereupon Hirsch denounced him to La Justice! The latter attacked the government for decorating such a traducer of France (he is a German-Hungarian Jew who attacked Tissot on Bismarck's behalf in his le vrai pays des milliards[13]), likewise Bleichröder who wished to encumber la belle France with indemnities of 10 rather than 5 milliards.[14]
That jackass Nordau, presently in Paris, replied to La Justice, in a letter in which he made himself out to be the CHAMPION of France. Whereupon he was unmasked in La Justice and, the day after, in La République française. Salut.
Your
Moor
- ↑ See this volume, p. 166
- ↑ Mrs Marx
- ↑ Jenny Longuet and her sons Jean, Henri, Edgar and Marcel
- ↑ A paraphrase from Goethe's Faust (Der Tragödie Erster Teil, 'Studierzimmer').
- ↑ Carl Hirsch
- ↑ Here: in this particular case.
- ↑ Here: in private.
- ↑ police court magistrate
- ↑ examining magistrate
- ↑ See this volume, p. 167
- ↑ slaves
- ↑ You're not proposing to stand up for theft? — No, monsieur, but start off by arresting all the big thieves of Argenteuil, not to mention those of Paris.
- ↑ A reference to the Berlin Memorandum of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, to which France and Italy also acceded. It was drawn up on 13 May 1876 by the representatives of the three states: Gorchakov, Andrássy and Bismarck. The Berlin Memorandum, which was addressed to the Turkish government on the occasion of the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Note 157), demanded that a two-month truce be concluded with the insurgents. The Memorandum was to be handed to the Turkish government on 30 May, but the plan was not carried through due to the palace revolution in Constantinople on that same day (see Note 162).
- ↑ See this volume, p. 169