London, 17 April 1882 

Dear Mr Bernstein, 

As soon as I heard from Lavrov that the preface* had appeared in 
the Narodnaya Volya*°* 1 asked for a copy of the original,’ but he had 
left it in his desk in Paris; however, he said he would write. Then 
I went to Marx’s and searched in vain for the brouillon.. Finally 
I got Lavrov to let me have a copy of the Russian translation so that, 
if the worst came to the worst, I could retranslate it myself; I feared, 
as indeed happened, that some Russian or other would see to this. 
Lavrov has just sent me the enclosed copy of the original. However, 
I have only myself to blame for this. For I had meant to send you 
a postcard, but have got Schorlemmer and Adolf Beust staying with 
me, and there’s quite a lot of gadding about with Mrs Lafargue 
(whose husband‘ is in Paris) and Tussy Marx, so that the postcard 
got overlooked. But in order that you may see that good intentions 
were not wanting, I am belatedly sending you the thing. 

Congratulations on your attack upon Geiser’s spineless conduct.?°3 

Confidential: Marx has been in Algiers since 21 February. On ar- 
rival he had a fresh attack of pleurisy as a result of catching cold on 
the journey; he found wretched weather conditions, but is now pretty 
well all right again. How long he’ll stay there is not yet certain. Has 
had distinctly bad luck with the weather. 

Kindest regards from 

Yours, 
F. Engels