| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 7 September 1852 |
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester,] Tuesday, 7 September 1852
Dear Marx,
I am having a great deal of trouble over Pieper's translation.[1]
The beginning is particularly difficult to translate and l'aimable candidat[2] Pieper seems to have given rein to charming lightheartedness. If possible, I'll let you have it on Thursday.
Pindar has been involved in a romance up here. I don't know whether I have already told you this, but recently I went to his house and found his mother there, A VERY RESPECTABLE OLD ENGLISH LADY, with a young lady of very un-English appearance whom I took to be a Russian. Last Friday I asked Pindar whether this krasàvitza (beauté) was his wife or his sister—ni l'un ni l'autre,[3] was the reply. On Monday his mother comes to my house: her dear Edward had gone, vanished. I wasn't in but, hearing about it, at once went to see her. Je trouve la digne mère en pleurs[4] and am told the following: In Petersburg Pindar fell madly in love with a Swede (or Finn) with whom, it seems, he ran away after his father's death. He married her in England—'her' being the afore-said krasàvitza. In London he makes the acquaintance of a Frenchwoman— an erstwhile Parisian whore and mistress of an English Grub Street dramatist by the name of Taylor, says his mother who, of course, makes her out to be a thoroughly bad lot. He gives her lessons, and the quiet candidate becomes amorously entangled with her. His wife discovers the affair (in the meantime his mother had come over from Kronstadt with some money and had made her peace with the Swedish woman) and, to wean Pindar from the Frenchwoman, the whole family moves to Liverpool. But again he sends for the lady of joy, and the Swede, evidently a woman of great patience and tenacity, finds out once more. Fresh migration to Manchester, where the mother finally establishes herself and even buys 2 houses (she is living on what remains, after her
fritterings, of the former Pindar fortune, made in the TIMBER AND BISCUIT TRADE). Here again, however, Pindar sends for his Frenchwoman—she has undoubtedly visited him three times, as I know from the fact that on each occasion he regularly touched me for a loan and as regularly paid me back afterwards. But last Saturday he brought things to a head by running away with her—as his mother maintains, to Australia, but either New York or simply Paris would seem more probable to me. He took from the FUNDS £190 belonging to him and promptly lost £20 in the omnibus (the waiter in the hotel where the Frenchwoman was staying thinks that she relieved him of it). The fellow had money enough, his mother kept him in everything and he had £100 pocket money.
Yesterday the Swede followed him to Liverpool. I am curious to know what comes of it.
For the rest of his life the poor devil will be plagued by this foolish early marriage to his Swedish ideal—voilà ce qui a toujours pesé sur lui.[5] With a little more experience and savoir-faire, he could have kept his Frenchwoman very nicely here on his £100, but how is a fellow to gain experience if at 21 he falls madly in love with a Swede, runs away with her and enters into respectable wedlock! If the silly boy had only told me about the affair, it would have been easy enough to straighten things out. But to go and let himself in for a plus ou moins[6] enduring, at any rate serious, affair with a Frenchwoman à l'étranger,[7] and to run away with her—quelle bêtise! Elle lui en fera voir, ma foi,[8] especially if he has really gone to Australia. Besides, his mater is a terribly kind and soft-hearted person and God knows what he couldn't have got her to agree to. But just as Kinkel sees betrothal,[9] so Pindar would seem to see elopement, as the essence of every love affair.
Your news about Vetter, etc. and the London people is splendid. I am returning Massol's letter[10] and also Weydemeyer's— Cluss' I shall keep here jusqu'à nouvel ordre.[11] What about the articles for Dana? Pindar's absence gives me more time; I am now doing Russian more con amore sine ira et studio,[12] and can already manage a little. At the moment things military are AT A DISCOUNT. Office work very lively.
As soon as I possibly can, i.e. in a few days' time, I shall send you £2 which is all I can screw out for the moment.
Your
F. E.