London, 23 September 1882 

Dear Bebel, 

We have had a fine old fright on your account. A week ago yester- 
day, on Friday the 15th” inst., 2 people from the Society came to see 
me at 10 o’clock at night in order to ascertain the truth of the report, 
which had already appeared (with obituary) in 2 issues of the Citoyen, 
that you were dead. I told them that it was highly unlikely but could 

* A reference to Chapter III of the German translation of Engels’ Socialism: Utopian and 
Scientific and the article “he Mark’ appended to it (see this volume, pp. 331-32). - 
> 16th in the ms. 

say nothing definite. As I had a boring visitor sitting with me, who 
wouldn’t go although I had ceased to utter a word, it was not until af- 
ter 1] that I was able to hurry round to Tussy Marx and found her 
still up. She had the Bataille, likewise with an obituary, but with no 
details as to the source of the news which was, however, considered to 
be beyond doubt. Hence general consternation. The greatest mis- 
fortune that could befall the German party was at least a strong 
probability. That there should have been no mention of it in the 
English papers, exulting as they were over Egypt, °° was only too 
understandable. Well, on Satu.day evening my Sozialdemokrat failed 
to arrive, which sometimes happens, but on Sunday morning I was 
lucky enough to discover that Tussy had got hers and, to judge by its 
contents, the news seemed highly improbable. To have consulted 
German newspapers in cafés would have been hopeless from the 
start, since they replace them each day. And so we remained in a 
state of the most excruciating uncertainty until finally, on Monday 
evening, the Justice arrived with an official denial. 

Marx had just the same experience. He was at Vevey on Lake 
Geneva *’* and read the story in the reactionary Journal de Genéve 
which naturally retailed it as being beyond doubt. He wrote to me 
the same day absolutely aghast.* His letter arrived that same Mon- 
day evening and so I was able to cc ey to him by the early post the 
happy news that the whole thing was an invention.» 

No, old fellow, you won’t be allowed to peg out on us at such a ten- 
der age. You’re 20 years younger than I am, we have many a jolly 
battle ahead of us and, when we have fought them side by side, it will 
be your duty to stay in the firing line, even though I may have cut my 
last caver. And, since people alleged to be dead are supposed to live 
longest, you, like Marx, # have now doubtless been condemned to 
a good long life. 

But who in heaven’s name brought this nonsense up —is that liar 
Mehring at the back of it again 9°°? 

Did you get my last letter— written some 2-3 months ago? 
The one in which I replied about the tamer elements in the 
party? © 

Meanwhile you will have seen that your wish that I should contrib- 
ute openly to the Sozialdemokrat has been met on several occasions. 
Moreover I yesterday sent off to Bernstein the first two of the three 

@ See this volume, p. 326.-° Ibid., p. 328.-° Ibid., pp. 280-83. 

Dühring chapters which are to come out in German after the French 
edition and which I have extensively revised and popularised. 
The rest is finished but I shall keep it here, provided it does not upset 
the printing arrangements, so that this, the most difficult section, can 
be thoroughly gone over again. An appendix will follow in the shape 
of a lengthy note on early German common ownership of land. When 
you go to quod I would advise you to procure from one library or 
another: 

G. L. v. Maurer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der Marken-, Hof-, Dorf- 
und Stddteverfassung in Deutschland, © 

also his Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland. 

It is very necessary that someone in Germany should familiarise 
himself to some extent with the subject — a person capable of reading 
these things with an open mind and without ready-made ‘cultivated’ 
preconceptions. These are the chief works and a knowledge of 
them would mean that you would have extremely solid foundations 
to go on in any debate about landownership or agrarian ques- 
tions. 

Judging by the few articles he has written in the Sogealdemokrat 
(on the possible repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law), °°? Vollmar would 
appear to have turned out very well. I should be glad if this also 
proved to be the case elsewhere; we could damned well do with some 
efficient chaps. 

Marx is slowly recovering from his three attacks of pleurisy. For his 
long-standing, highly troublesome, sleep-inhibiting bronchial cough 
he had recourse while in Argenteuil to the nearby sulphur springs at 
Enghien, but in view of the bad weather did not, out of consideration 
for his general condition, effect the complete recovery that would oth- 
erwise have been virtually certain. After that he went to Vevey for 
three weeks with Madame Lafargue, intending to leave there the day 
before yesterday, first for Geneva, then Paris and then, given passable 
weather, to come over here for a few weeks in October. Under no cir- 
cumstances ought he to spend the winter in London, but whether in 
the south of England or elsewhere is for the doctors to decide. How- 
ever I can tell from his letters that there has been a steady improve- 
ment, albeit hampered by the bad summer. 

Where exactly are you chaps at this moment? It seems as though 
you have all been turned by the ‘Lesser’? ! into a lot of Flying 
Dutchmen, just as Marx has been by his illness. 

Give Liebknecht my kindest regards when you see him. 

The whole Egyptian affair is an act of vengeance by the Jews 
(Rothschild, Erlanger, etc.) for their erstwhile expulsion from Egypt 
under Pharaoh. °°! 

Your 
F. E.