| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 24 March 1861 |
MARX TO ANTOINETTE PHILIPS
IN ZALT-BOMMEL
Berlin, 24 March 1861
13 Bellevuestrasse (Address: Dr F. Lassalle)
My dear Cousin,
I cannot thank you enough for your precious letter which fails only in being too short, although you have acted up to the English rule of packing the best things in the smallest compass.
I arrived at Berlin on Sunday last (17th March), at 7 o'clock in the morning. My travel was not marked by any incident save a 6 V2 hours' delay at Oberhausen, an abominably tedious little place. Lassalle who lives in a very fine house, situated in one of the finest
streets of Berlin, had everything prepared for my reception, and gave me a most friendly welcome. The first hours having been talked away and my railway-fatigue chased by some rest and some refreshments, Lassalle introduced me at once to the house of the countess of Hatzfeldt who, as I soon became aware, dines every day in his house at 4 o'clock p. m., and passes her evenings with him. I found her hair as 'blond' and her eyes as blue as formerly, but for the remainder of her face I read the words imprinted in it: twenty and twenty make fifty seven. There were in fact wrinkles full of 'vestiges of creation', there were cheeks and chin betraying an embonpoint which, like coal beds, wants much time to be formed, and so forth. As to her eyebrows, I was at once struck by the circumstance that they had improved instead of deteriorating, so that art had by far got the better of nature. On later occasions I made the general remarks that she perfectly understands the art of making herself up and of finding in her toilette-box the tints no longer derived from her blood. Upon the whole, she reminded me of some Greek statues which still boast a fine bust but whose heads have been cruelly 'beknappered' by the vicissitudes of time. Still, to be not unjust, she is a very distinguished lady, no blue-stocking, of great natural intellect, much vivacity, deeply interested in the revolutionary movement, and of an aristocratic laissez aller very superior to the pedantic grimaces of professional femmes d'esprit.[2]
On Monday, my friend Lassalle drew up for me a petition to the chief of the Prussian police for my restoration to the civil rights of a Prussian subject.[3] On Tuesday, Lassalle himself, who is a man of extraordinary audacity, carried the petition to Herr von Zedlitz (Polizeipräsident, partisan of the Junkerpartei and the king's[4] confidant) and, what with menaces, what with flatteries—Zedlitz considering this direct appeal to himself, instead of to the subaltern authorities, as a compliment paid to his person—he has so far succeeded that to-day the ministerial paper—Die Preussische Zeitung—announces my return to the 'fatherland'. Still I have not yet received an official answer in regard to my re-naturalisation.
On Tuesday evening Lassalle and the countess led me to a Berlin theatre where a Berlin comedy, full of Prussian self-glorification, was enacted. It was altogether a disgusting affair. On Wednesday evening I was forced by them to assist at the performance of a ballet in the Opernhouse. We had a box for
ourselves at the side—horribile dictu[6] —of the king's 'loge'. Such a ballet is characteristic of Berlin. It forms not, as at Paris, or at London, an entrejeu,[7] or the conclusion, of an opera, but it absorbs the whole evening, is divided into several acts, etc. Not a syllable is spoken by the actors, but everything is hinted at by mimickry. It is in fact deadly—dull. The scenery, however, was beautiful; you assisted for instance at a sea-voyage from Livorno to Naples; sea, mountains, seacoast, towns, etc., everything being represented with photographical truth.
On Thursday Lassalle gave a dinner in honour of my return, gentlemen and ladies being invited. Among the celebrities there were the old general von Pfuel, 'Schlachtenmahler'[8] Bleibtreu, Hofrath Förster (a known Prussian historiograph and formerly called the 'Hofdemagog',[9] he being a personal friend of the late king[10] ) and so forth. Hofrath Förster brought out a toast on my humble self. I was seated at table between the countess and Fräulein Ludmilla Assing, the niece of Varnhagen von Ense and the editor of Varnhagen's correspondence with Humboldt.[11] This Fräulein, who really swamped me with her benevolence, is the most ugly creature I ever saw in my life, a nastily Jewish physiognomy, a sharply protruding thin nose, eternally smiling and grinning, always speaking poetical prose, constantly trying to say something extraordinary, playing at false enthusiasm, and spitting at her auditory during the trances of her ecstasis. I shall to-day be forced to pay a visit to that little monster which I treated with the utmost reserve and coldness, giving her to understand by friend Lassalle that the power of attraction works upon myself always in a centrifugal direction and that, when I happen to admire a person very much, I am very apt to steal altogether out of its presence.
The state of things here is illboding for the powers that be. The Prussian Exchequer labours under a deficit, and all the old parties are in a movement of dissolution. The chamber of deputies will have to be re-elected during this season, and there is every probability that, during the process of its reconstitution, a great movement will pervade the country. This may, as my friend Lassalle thinks, be the proper moment for starting a newspaper[12]
here in the Prussian capital, but I have not yet come to a firm resolution. The necessity of waiting for the official answer of the authorities to my petition may prolong my sojourn beyond the term originally contemplated.
You see, my dear child, I have much seen during a few days, but still you may be sure that I always wish myself back to Bommel.[13]
With my best compliments to yourself, your father,[14] and the whole family, believe me always
Your most sincere admirer
Charles Marx