Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 27, 1863

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MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

Zalt-Bommel, 27 December 1863

DEAR FREDERICK, I wrote and told you last Wednesday about the recurrence of my furunculosis and the 'bitter' night I passed. The next day Dr van Anrooij discovered that a damned carbuncle had reappeared beside the furuncles, almost exactly beneath the site of the old one. Ever since then—leaving aside the ill-effects of such a discovery on one's morale—I have been in loathsome pain for much of the time, particularly at night. My uncle, a splendid old BOY, applies my poultices and cataplasms with his own hands, while my charming and witty cousin with the dangerously dark eyes nurses and cossets me in exemplary fashion. Nevertheless, in view of these circumstances, I would gladly set out for HOME, but that is temporarily out of the question on physical grounds. The Dr has opened up the agreeable prospect of my being troubled by this loathsome complaint until well into January. He will tell me when my condition permits a removal to London. However, this second Frankenstein on my back is less ferocious BY FAR than was the first one in London, as you will already have gathered from the fact of my being able to write.

I gave up smoking completely 2 V2 months ago and it's unlikely that I'll start again very soon.

Anyone wishing to spew up politics in disgust should take it daily in the form of the telegraphic pills dispensed by the small Dutch newspapers.

However, we are in for a spectacle, and the comical thing so far as Germany is concerned is that it will start with a movement in favour of the 'legitimate' duke, accompanied by clamorous requests for a 36th potentate.

Those scoundrelly parliamentary cretins, who had assembled in Frankfurt a.M., set aside without debate a resolution moved by a German from Posen in which the TRUE QUESTION between Germany and Russia was presented in highly comprehensive and rational form.

My best wishes for the New Year. Will you also convey them to Lupus?

Your

K. M.

P.S. Apropos. Like all 'dametjes', my cousin keeps an album, and I've promised to help her collect photographs for it, inter alia yours. If you have a spare photograph perhaps you would be so good as to enclose it in the letter I trust you will at long last be writing m e here.

P.S. I was about to place this letter in its envelope when the Dr walked in and, without more ado, operated on me again. T h e business was over IN NO TIME AND NOW THINGS WILL GO ON SWIMMINGLY.