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Special pages :
Letter to Jenny Marx, May 13, 1864
First published: in the language of the original (German), in Annali, an. 1, Milan, 1958.
To Jenny Marx in London
[Manchester,] Friday, 13 May 1864[edit source]
Dear Heart,
Today was the day of our good comrade’s funeral [Wilhelm Wolff’s]. We purposely didn’t send out any invitations, otherwise half the town would have been there. So, it was attended by Borchardt, Gumpert, Engels, Dronke, Steinthal, Marotzki (the Friends of Light Protestant pastor at whose house Lupus used to teach and who came as a personal friend), Beneke (one of the leading business men here), Schwabe (ditto), 3 other business men, a few boys and some 15-20 members of the ‘lower classes’ amongst whom Lupus was very popular. I naturally made a short funeral oration. It was an office by which I was much affected so that once or twice my voice failed me. Freiligrath wrote, begging to be excused, because of the presence in London of his principal, Fazy. Engels, and more especially Dronke, refused to countenance this excuse, and tomorrow D. will be taking him to task in London.
I shall have to stay here for at least another 3 or 4 days in order to get through with the whole business, pay the estate duty, swear oaths, etc. Naturally I shall not leave Manchester until everything is settled.
At first, it was thought that poor Lupus was suffering from incipient softening of the brain. This was wrong, however. Gumpert had previously said that he was suffering from cerebral hyperaemia (excessive accumulation of blood in the brain). This was confirmed at the post mortem, which also proved that he would still be alive today had he received correct treatment of the most common or garden kind. Borch had completely and utterly neglected the thing in the most unscrupulous way. And yet one can’t raise a shindy about it, if only because of B.’s family, who were deeply attached to Lupus (especially B.’s eldest daughter) and did a great deal for him, and whom he for his part thought highly of. All the same I refused B.’s invitation to dinner today (at which Engels, etc., were to be present) on the grounds that I could not accept hospitality on the day of Wolff’s funeral.
Dronke asks you to excuse him for not having replied to your letter. The poor little man was too much distressed by the death of his children to be able to write.
Lupus had carefully kept all our children’s letters, and it was only a few weeks ago that he again told Mrs Borchardt how much he enjoyed getting little Tussy’s notes.
The day before yesterday Marotzki (while confirming the children, amongst them one of the younger Borchardts) pronounced a public eulogy on Lupus in his church. I don’t believe anyone in Manchester can have been so universally beloved as our poor little friend (who as a child broke both legs and was in pain for years until they had healed again). Amongst the letters he left, I found evidence of the warmest sympathy on the part of all kinds of people — pupils, both girls and boys, and, in particular, their mothers.
My warmest greetings to all.
Your
Karl
Send 3 photographs of dear Eleanor immédiatement.