Letter to Ferdinand Fleckles, September 21, 1876

Author(s)	Karl Marx
Written	21 September 1876

First published in Marx-Engels-Lassalle. Eine Bibliographie des Sozialismus, Berlin, 1994
Printed according to the original
Translated from the German and French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45

MARX TO FERDINAND FLECKLES

IN KARLSBAD

Liège, Belgium, 21 September 1876
Hôtel de Suède

Dear Fleckles,

I am sending you POST-HASTE a line or two concerning an urgent matter.

A medical examination of my friend, Nikolai Utin, aged 35, has indicated incipient fatty degeneration of the heart. Karlsbad has been recommended to him, but since he is exceptionally busy in the spring, summer and autumn—he is an engineer in charge of big railway and similar undertakings—he can only spare time for treatment in December and during the winter months.

Since he is greatly afraid of the cold, he would like to know whether he might not go to Vichy rather than Karlsbad.

It is of course difficult, perhaps impossible, to reply to such a question without knowledge of his person. But at all events you will be able to give a general opinion as to whether Vichy might serve as a substitute for Karlsbad in cases of this kind.

The man in question is one of my dearest friends and for that reason I take the liberty of appealing to your friendship and requesting your early reply (to my London address: 41 Maitland Park Road, London). The child^[1] and I leave here for home tomorrow.^[2]

Yours very sincerely,

Karl Marx

[From Eleanor Marx in French]

Dear Doctor,

I've just received the photographs from Karlsbad—but only eleven—have you got one of them? If so, send it off to me—if not, will you tell Hirsch?

I'm eagerly awaiting the letter you sent to London. Let me have some news about 'Marion', which interests me greatly—and work away at the last acts.

Good-bye—write and send me your portraits.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Marx

↑ Eleanor Marx
↑ Between 15 August and 15 September 1876, Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor (Tussy), was in Karlsbad taking a cure for the third time. Having completed it, he spent a few days with Max Oppenheim in Prague, and then, after brief visits to Kreuznach and Liège, returned to London on 22 September 1876.

[1] Eleanor Marx

[2] Between 15 August and 15 September 1876, Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor (Tussy), was in Karlsbad taking a cure for the third time. Having completed it, he spent a few days with Max Oppenheim in Prague, and then, after brief visits to Kreuznach and Liège, returned to London on 22 September 1876.

[1]

[2]