| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 12 November 1894 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 12 November 1894
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Löhr,
Qui s'excuse s'accuse,[1] you began your letter of 24th October, and your last note of Saturday, received this morning, shows how little time it has taken you to pass from 'excusing' to 'decusing'. However you will have to come it considerably stronger before you upset my good humour, and so I will only just state that since 9th October we are in No. 41, that I have had no end of trouble with lawyers, house-agents, contractors etc, before I got the house put into tenantable condition, so much so that I only got yesterday the last heap of books from my study-floor into the book-cases, where they await sorting; that no sooner was the place something like ship-shape when last Tuesday Louise became the mother of a little girl (both doing very well); that to crown all, London is becoming flooded with proscrits:[2] Russian, Italian, Armenian etc. etc. who duly honour me with their visits; that at the same time I had to hurry off the very badly printed proofs of the last 5 or 6 sheets Capital (proofs and revision); and that in consequence of all this not only my correspondence but also your French Manifesto[3] in the Ere Nouvelle got sadly neglected.
However this morning I hunted up the October and September Nos. of that revue from my higgledy-piggledy books and compared them with the original. Je vous en fais mes compliments[4] —this is better then even the Feuerbach! It is the first French translation of the old Manifest I read with real and unbroken pleasure. Unfortunately the November No. which contains the Conclusion has not yet come to hand, so I cannot look them over. A few suggestions follow, they are very unimportant.
You may well say trois déménagements valent un incendié[5] more than once I felt inclined to throw all my books into the fire, and house and all, such a bother it was. But now I expect the worst is over—that is to say the only little evil to contend with now is a flooded coal cellar and a sweating wine cellar! But that, too, must at last be vanquished.
The Czar[6] is dead, vive lé Czar,[7] and indeed the poor beggar does require all the encouragement the French bourgeoisie and press can give him by their shouts. He is next door to an idiot, weakly in mind and body, and promises just that vacillating reign of a man a mere playball of other people's cross-purpose-intrigues which is wanted to break up finally the Russian despotic system. Financial difficulties will help. Mother Crawford let it out the other day that France now holds not less than eight milliards of Russian Rentes[8] which accounts for the failure of the last Russian loan and makes very improbable the success, in France, of the impending one. Out of France Nicholas will get no cash. When 6 or 7 years ago an attempt was made to raise the wind in Berlin, the bankers replied unanimously: With the guarantee of a National Assembly, any amount; without it, not a farthing; could not that cry be raised now, when the opportunity offers, in the Petite République? To tell the French gogos[9] that a constitution must come in Russia and that therefore it will not be safe to entrust their money to a moribund absolutism? Or does le patriotisme render such a proceeding too dangerous?
Many thanks for your offer to translate my Urchristentum; but do you really think that theological subject—especially II and III—attractive enough for French readers? I have my very strong misgivings. The I article might perhaps pass: les Internationaux sous l'empire des Césars[10] or something like it—however that I leave entirely to you.
Bebel confirms in a letter today that Vollmar had said in Frankfurt, had expressly approved the new programme agricole of Nantes; now the only thing I wrote to anybody about it was to you[11] : that I was afraid the French would stand alone with their appeal to support, in this present condition, the petits propriétaires and even les fermiers qui sont obligés d'exploiter des ouvriers.[12] So Vollmar's assertion is an invention of his own. Unfortunately it will compel me to reply in public and in order to avoid provoking fresh misunderstandings, I shall be obliged to speak of the peasant question more fully, and then I cannot pass by the Nantes debates. I shall send it to the Neue Zeit,[13] perhaps you will find that more interesting than Christianity.[14]
This is how one gets always interrupted! This confounded peasant question will take me another week. And yet I have my hands full with work urgently needed, even before I come to start what I ought to do: the history of Mohr's part in the International. And that leads me to something: in the Berlin (anarchist) Sozialist they publish from the Société Nouvelle a letter of Bakounine—very long—in which he gives his version of the Hague affair etc.[15] Is that to be had in Paris? Or does it appear in Brussels? The German text I have only received in fragments, possibly in consequence of seizures by the police.
Paul says he wants to dedicate to me his Evolution de la propriété.
Very much obliged to him. In general I would rather remain undedicated, but I leave it entirely to him.
Praise no one happy before his death, said Solon. He must have foreseen the case of my présidence d'honneur[16] over the présidence effective[17] of Regnard! Who ever would have thought that! of all men, Regnard!
Ever yours F.E.
September No.
Page 4 - alinéa 2, Verkehrsmittel is given moyens de communication.[18]
Verkehr we used in the Manifesto generally in the sense of Handelsverkehr,[19]
and later on it is always translated correctly échange. In this passage échange would be better, though it is of no importance.
Page 7 alinéa 1: La Bourgeoisie, the e left out in the text. Page 10: alinéa 2: der Hausbesitzer,[20] der Krämer,[21] is rendered: le petit propriétaire[22] ; would it not be more textual to say: le propriétaire,[23] le boutiquier,[24] le prêteur sur gages[25] ?
Page 12, line 5: misprint: garantie locale for: légale. Page 15, " 3: Courgeoisie instead of Bourgeoisie. You see I must take refuge in common misprints in order to find fault! with the text in the October No. I cannot even manage to do that.