Letter to Friedrich Engels, September 1, 1874

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 1 September 1874


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO ENGELS

IN LONDON

Karlsbad, Austria, 1 September 1874 Germania, am Schlossberg

Dear FRED,

By next Wednesday[1] I shall have been here for two weeks and my powder, ALIAS MONEY, will just suffice for a third week. If you should write to me, please use the above address, but put Miss Eleanor Marx on the envelope. The cure has done wonders for Tussy; I am feeling better but my insomnia has not yet been overcome.

We are both living in strict accordance with the rules. We go to our respective springs at 6 every morning, where I have to drink seven glasses. Between each two glasses there has to be a break of 15 minutes during which one marches up and down. After the last glass, an hour's WALK, and finally, coffee. Another cold glass in the evenings before bed.

I am not allowed to drink anything but pure Pumpenheimer[2] ; Tussy, on the other hand, DAILY receives a glass of Pilsner beer, which makes me envious. The doctor[3] prescribed for me by Kugelmann, an Austrian, very like the celebrated General Cecilia in his mannerisms, speech, etc., felt some initial anxiety at the prospect of my staying here. On his advice I have registered as Charles Marx, Privatier,[4] London, and this Privatier meant that I had to pay double the usual spa taxes, both for Eleanor and myself, into the worthy municipal treasury. But it did remove the suspicion that I might be the notorious Karl Marx. Yesterday,[5] however, I was denounced as such in the Viennese scandal-sheet Sprudel (a spa paper), and the Polish patriot Count Plater (a good Catholic and liberal aristocrat) was bracketed with me as 'head of the Russian Nihilists'.[6] But this has probably come too late, since I already have the municipal receipt for the spa tax I have paid. I could also have lived much more cheaply than where Kugelmann has lodged me, but his arrangements were useful and possibly essential, in view of my specific need to appear respectable. I shall not travel back via Hanover under any circumstances, although Kugelmann does not yet know it, but shall instead take the southern route by which I came. The man irritates me with his grizzling and carping—and the sheer brutishness with which he quite baselessly poisons both his own life and that of his family. On the other hand, it is quite possible that I shall have to remain in Karlsbad for five weeks.

The surroundings here are very beautiful, and one cannot have enough of the walks here over the wooded granite mountains. But there are no birds in these forests. Birds are healthy and do not like the mineral vapours.

I hope that Jennychen is feeling somewhat better. Best regards to all from

Moor

  1. ↑ 2 September
  2. ↑ i.e. water
  3. ↑ probably Ferdinand Fleckles
  4. ↑ private gentleman
  5. ↑ Marx is mistaken. It should be 'the day before yesterday', i.e. 30 August (see Der Sprudel, No. 18, 30 August 1874).
  6. ↑ On 30 August 1874, the Viennese newspaper Der Sprudel reported: 'The long-standing leader of the International, Marx, and the head of the Russian Nihilists, the Polish Count Plater, have arrived at Karlsbad for a cure.' The next issue (No. 19, 6 September 1874) stated that Count Plater was associated neither with the Russian Nihilists nor with the International.