| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 31 March 1893 |
ENGELS TO JULIE BEBEL
IN BERLIN
London, 31 March 1893
Dear Mrs Bebel,
August's presence[1] has made me conscious of the shameful fact that I have long owed you an answer to your kind letter, so I have at once taken up my pen lest you should continue to have cause to resent my tardiness. August, I can assure you, is exceptionally well and takes his raw eggs in brandy with admirable punctuality. The fact that his stomach is in excellent fettle was proved conclusively last evening at the Mendelsons and still more so later on at home, for after that good but truly enormous supper he slept more soundly than any of us.
We are expecting Burns here today and thus, for the first time in history, three Socialist members of parliament from Germany, France[2] and England will come together. That such a meeting should be possible, a meeting of the three deputies of the three leading parliaments of Europe—three Socialist Party leaders representing the three dominant nations of Europe—is in itself proof of what enormous advances we have made. I only wish that Marx were alive to witness it.
Well, now it is also time to remind you of your promise to visit us here in the summer and take me back with you to Germany.[3] True, August is afraid that a possible dissolution of the Reichstag might upset everything, but that is something I cannot see, for if there is in fact a dissolution, it will happen this month, i.e. in April (which will be upon us tomorrow), while the elections will be held in June at the latest,[4] in which case a holiday will be more necessary than ever—for August as well as for yourself—and if you were to see the fine weather we have here and all the greenness of spring which also brings with it a mass of flowers that lasts until the end of June, you would assuredly come, dissolutions and fresh elections or not. So, as always, I shall count on your keeping your word and shall also accompany you to Berlin, for since last autumn our respective trips have been indissolubly linked.
And now for yet another matter. August had taken it into his head to return on Monday.[5] But over the past ten years or so Easter Monday has become a proper holiday over here—one of the four so-called Bank Holidays.[6] It is a real popular festival. That being the case, all the railways are busy with extra trains and excursion parties, all the stations are filled to overflowing and all the regular trains are neglected by the management, since what matters is the extra profit. These Bank Holidays are the only days in the year when it is somewhat dangerous to travel on English trains, and consequently no one travels on those days unless he has to. We therefore implored August to abandon his plan and not leave until Tuesday, which he has promised to do. I am positive you will agree that he shouldn't travel on a day when arrivals and departures are never punctual and when all the accidents that didn't occur during the previous three months have a habit of occurring all on one day.
And now I shall take a hearty swig in honour of your coming visit—for we are at this moment enjoying our morning glass of ale.
With warm regards,
Yours,
F. Engels