Letter to Jenny Longuet, December 7, 1881

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To Jenny Longuet in Argenteuil

London, 7 Décembre 1881

My dear, sweet Jennychen,

You will, assuredly, find it quite natural that I should not feel in the mood for ‘writing’ at the moment and hence only now be sending you this brief note. Since I haven’t yet even left the sick room, there was no gainsaying the doctor’s interdict on my attending the funeral. Moreover I resigned myself, for only the day before her death our dear departed had told her NURSE, apropos some neglected formality: ‘WE ARE NO SUCH EXTERNAL PEOPLE!’

Schorlemmer came up from Manchester of his own accord.

I still have to paint my chest, neck, etc., with iodine and, when regularly repeated, this produces a somewhat tiresome and painful inflammation of the skin. The said operation, which is only being performed to prevent a relapse during convalescence (now complete apart from a slight cough), is therefore doing me sterling service just at this moment. There is only one effective antidote for mental suffering, and that is physical pain. Set the end of the world on the one hand against a man with acute toothache on the other.

It now gives me extraordinary happiness to recall that, despite numerous misgivings, I ventured on the trip to Paris. Not only because of the time itself that she, of undying memory, spent with you and the little ones — ‘barely’ marred by the image OF A CERTAIN DOMESTIC BULLY et Mirabeau de la cuisine, but also the reliving of that time during the final phase of her illness. There can be no doubt that during that phase the presence of you and the children could not have distracted her to such good purpose as her mental preoccupation with you all!

Her resting-place is fairly close to that of dear ‘Charles’.

It is a comfort to me that her strength gave out before it was too late. Because of the highly unusual location of the growth — which meant that it was moveable, not static—the really typical and unbearable pain did not set in until the very last days (and even then could still be kept within limits by the injection of morphine which the doctor had intentionally held in reserve for the end, since with protracted use it ceases to have any effect). As Dr Donkin had predicted, the course of the illness assumed the form of a gradual decline, as in the weakness that comes of old age. Even during her last hours, there were no death agonies, a gradual falling asleep, her eyes larger, lovelier, more luminous than ever.

The ever faithful Engels has sent you a number of the Irish World at my request, containing a declaration against landownership (private) by an Irish bishop. This was the latest news that I passed on to your mamma and she thought you could perhaps insert it in a French paper to frighten the French clericals. In any case, it shows that these gentlemen can pipe any tune.

(In La Justice of 2 December 1881 a certain laddie by the name of B. Gendre seeks, under the title 'Le catholicisme socialiste en Allemagne’, to assuage his chauvinism by taking au sérieux, like Laveleye before him, the fanciful statistics of our friend R. Meyer (in his book Emancipationskampf des 4. Standes). The fact is that, since the German Empire came into being, the so-called Catholic socialists have only once elected a deputy to the Reichstag and that, from the moment of his election, he ‘figured’ only as a ‘member of the Centre’. As to the numerical strength of the Catholic labour unions, on the other hand, our R. Meyer accords France a number disproportionately greater even than that he accords Germany.)

Have just received La Justice of 7 Décembre and see that, under the rubric Gazette du jour, there is an obituary, which says inter alia:

‘On devine que son' (il s’agit de votre mère) ‘mariage avec Karl Marx, fils d’un avocat de Trêves, ne se fit pas sans peine. Il y avait à vaincre bien des préjugés, le plus fort de tous était encore le préjugé de race. On sait que l’illustre socialiste est d’origine Israélite.’

Toute cette histoire is A SIMPLE INVENTION, THERE WAS NO préjugés à vaincre. * I suppose, I am not mistaken in crediting Mr Ch. Longuet’s inventive genius with this literary * ‘enjolivement’. * The same writer when speaking of the limitation of the working day and the factory acts, mentioned in another number of the Justice — ‘Lassalle and Karl Marx’, the former having never printed or spoken a syllable on the matter in question. Longuet would greatly oblige me in never mentioning my name in his writings.

The allusion to your Maman’s occasional anonymous correspondence (in fact in behalf of Irving) I find indiscreet. At the time she wrote to the Gazette de Francfort (she never wrote to the Journal de Francfort — as the Justice calls it —, a simply reactionary, and philistine paper) the latter (the Gazette) was still on more or less friendly terms with the socialist party.

As to the ‘von Westphalenf[s]’, they were not of Rhenish, but of * Brunswickian origin. * The father of your mother’s father was the factotum of the * notorious * Duke of Brunswick (during the ‘seven years’ war’). As such he was also overwhelmed with favours on the part of the British government and married a near relative of the Argyll’s. His papers relative to the war and politics have been published by the Minister v. Westphalen. On the other hand, * ‘par sa mère,’ * your mother descends from a small Prussian functionary and was actually born at Salzwedel in the Mark. All these things need not be known, but knowing nothing of them, one ought not to pretend correcting * d’autres ‘BIOGRAPHIES’.

* And now, my dear child, send me a long description of the doings of Johnny et Co. I still regret that Henry was not left to us at the time he went on so well. He is a child who wants a whole family’s attendance being singly, exclusively concentrated upon him. As it is, with so many other little ones requesting your care, he is rather an impediment. With many kisses to you and your ‘little men’

Your devoted father,

K. M.

I was rather disagreeably affected by Meissner’s communication, that a new third edition of the Capital Vol. I has become necessary. I wanted indeed to apply all my time — as soon as I should feel myself able again — exclusively to the finishing of the 2nd volume.

Please write a few words in my name to Reinhardt. I could not find his address. He was an acquaintance of Mama's.