Letter from Karl Marx to Laura Lafargue, December 14, 1882

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 14 December 1882


First published, in the languages of the original (German and English), in Annali, an. I, Milano, 1958
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46


MARX TO LAURA LAFARGUE

IN PARIS

Ventnor, Isle of Wight, 14 December 1882 1 St Boniface Gardens

Darling Cacadou,

All your letters have arrived on time and yet, miserable sinner that I am, it is only now that I write to you, having learned from the General's letter[1] just received that Paul[2] has been arrested. The General enclosed Paul's letter and yours, so that I am au fait. No doubt Paul will be released within a few days.

Why haven't I written before? Because I had nothing particularly cheerful to report, for you will anyhow have learned from your correspondence with the General that I myself am not at all in bad shape and have only been confined to the house for the past fortnight because of a TRACHEAL CATARRH, nor have I again succumbed either to pleurisy or to bronchitis. This, then, is most encouraging, CONSIDERING THAT MOST OF MY CONTEMPORARIES, I MEAN FELLOWS OF THE SAME AGE, JUST NOW KICK THE BUCKET in gratifying numbers. There are too many young donkeys for the old ones to be kept alive.

Paul has latterly been writing his best stuff with humour, impudence, and solidity combined with verve, whereas before that I had been troubled by certain ultra-revolutionary turns of phrase, having always regarded these as 'hot air' — a speciality our people would be well-advised to leave to the so-called anarchists who are, in fact, props of the existing order, not creators of disorder, and are, by their nature, poor, childish creatures — ce n'est pas leur faute, le chaos.[3] Just now they have, as péril social come to the aid of the affaires véreuses cabinet.[4] The worst of it is that, even if there were in existence a purely impartial 'examining magistrate', he would be compelled publicly to pronounce them wholly and utterly 'innocuous'! One could forgive these anarchists anything if only they weren't too 'innocent' for words! Not that that means they are 'saints'. A good joke was made by a Pope[5] upon his being asked by Henry VII (Richard Ill's victorious antagonist) to translate Henry VI to the community of saints; the Pope replied that an innocens[6] (alias 'IDIOT') was not, as such, eligible to be nominated a sanctus.[7]

Here, my child, you would at any rate find better weather than in most other districts including, I need hardly say, France and Italy. I live the life of a hermit here, consorting with no one, SAVE when Dr Williamson's visits, costing SUCH PER MINUTE,[8] bring me in contact with the latter.

Well, child, as soon as your devoirs[9] permit (for Paul's GALLANT FIGHT WITH THE POWERS THAT BE MAKE THE MAN SYMPATHIC [SIC], TO USE THIS, A FRENCH PENNY-A-LINER'S PHRASE) come over here and stay with me

  • Some recent Russian publications, printed in Holy Russia, not abroad, show the great run of my theories in that country.[10] Nowhere my success is to me more delightful; it gives me the satisfaction that I damage a power, which, besides England, is the true bulwark of the old society.

Yours,

Nick*

  1. ↑ 'General' was the Marx family's nickname for Engels. See this volume, p. 396.
  2. ↑ Lafargue
  3. ↑ it is not their fault if there's chaos
  4. ↑ A reference to the abortive attempts by Italian anarchists to launch an uprising in Bologna and Apulia early in the morning of 8 August 1874.
  5. ↑ Julius II
  6. ↑ an innocent
  7. ↑ a saint
  8. ↑ Should read 'so much per minute'.
  9. ↑ duties
  10. ↑ In the original 'von Fall zu Fall'—a phrase that came to designate unpredictable and indefinite policies. In connection with the Berlin Conference (1876) of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary (see Note 430), the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Andrássy stated that the three great powers had not reached a definite decision on the Eastern Question but had agreed to coordinate their positions 'von Fall zu Fall'. Applying the phrase to Bismarck's policies, Engels puns on the word 'Fall', 'failure', changing the meaning of the expression to 'one cropper after another'.