AT LE PERREUX 

London, 8 January 1890 

My dear Laura, 

Prosit Neujahr avant tout! Et puis aprés, as I cannot bear the idea that 
you should translate Walther von der Vogelweide from a modernisation, 
I send you a copy of the original.5*° You are quite right, the metre and 
rhyme of the original ought to be preserved in every translation of poetry, 
or else go the whole hog like the French and turn it at once into prose. 

Hope you got over your influenza by this. We have it here too and 
pretty thick, although of our nearer circle none has as yet been caught. 

* The original erroneously has: ‘89’ — > First of all, a Happy New Year to you! 
Then, next, 

Percy is better, but Pumps is laid up with bronchitis and congested 
lungs, will however be up soon. Charley R.* ts the only one I know who 
can boast of having the influenza. 

Old Harney is laid up at Enfield with chronic bronchitis; I shall have to 
go some day this week and see him. Poor fellow, but he feels happy in one 
thing: being out of America! It is most amusing to see how America makes 
all Englishmen patriotic, even Edward was not without a touch. And all on 
account of a quarrel about ‘manners’ and ‘breeding’! The Yankees, too, 
have a rather provoking way of asking you how you like the country, what 
you think of it, and expect of course an outburst of admiration. And so 
poor old Harney has got so disgusted with the ‘Land of the free’ that his 
only wish is to be well back to the ‘effete monarchy’ and never to return to 
Yankeeland. I am afraid he will have his wish; bodily he is aging very much, 
no wonder after the eight years’ torture with rheumatic gout he has had. 
But in spirit he is the old inveterate punster and full of humour. 

I was glad, on receiving Paul’s letter about the new paper,**! that I had 
written to Bonnier my opinion that they ought formally to engage you 
on the rédaction for the German part. So he will see that I had no idea of 
the situation and at the same time considered it as self-understood that 
everybody got paid. He has not written again to me but to Tussy, saying 
the paper will come out 11th January, and wanting them to write and to 
get Burns, etc. to do the same. 

I really think you are about the only person who can keep his or her 
head above water and clear in Paris; that place seems to make people 
cracked. Here is Bonnier who was sensible enough as long as he was here 
and now all at once he is as mad as Guesde can be over this impossible 
paper. A daily paper with unpaid rédaction, unpaid correspondents, 
unpaid everything—why it is ruination to begin with, and being kicked 
out of the paper you have made as soon as you demand the payment due 
for your work! He might well write to me que la partie internationale 
doit étre écrasante-—when the partie parisienne is as good as non-existent 
from the beginning! And to expect people here to write 4 jour fixe regu- 
lar letters, so that the fact may be announced Ja veille!¢ for that he actu- 
ally expected all of us, Burns and God knows whom besides, to do here, 
and all for the honour of having the honour of being allowed to speak to 
the inhabitants de Ja ville lumiére qui se fichent pas mal de nous tous!* 

@ Either Charles Roesgen or Charles Rosher — > that the international side must 
be an overwhelming burden! —¢ on fixed days —4 the day before - ¢ of the City of 
Light which doesn’t give a damn for any of us 

It strikes me this affair will end in all sorts of muddles, if not in quarrels 
amongst our own people at the moment when everything seemed to 
promise well. 

Anyhow I shall feel obliged and it will be useful to all of us if you or 
Paul will keep us well posted up with regard to this matter; for we shall 
surely be bombarded with all sorts of demands when once the paper is 
out, and experience shows that ‘in the interest of the cause’ one half of 
the facts are kept from us. Of course we shall be very shy in engaging 
ourselves, but at the same time it will be better if we have not in every 
case first to inquire from you how the matter really stands. 

I don’t understand how Guesde can act in that way upon his own 
hook and let his meridional imagination run away without the consent 
of Paul, Deville and others. Bonnier’s letters sound as if these people 
thought the whole world was idle, had more time on their hands than 
they knew to employ, and was anxiously waiting for the chance of a 
French paper coming out to which they might contribute gratis! Such 
things would not be suffered in the German or any other party—that 
one man engages the responsibility of all without a special mandate; that 
he acts upon delusions, as to the chances of his getting foreign contrib- 
utors, which you and Paul would have at once destroyed, or if you had 
a chance of refuting them, acts in spite of your better experience. Really 
if our friends will be guided by their delusion and fancies alone, nobody 
can prevent them from coming to grief. 

I am called away suddenly and must conclude. 

Ever yours 
F. Engels 

Richtig ware: 

Under der linden 
an der heiden 
da unser zweier bette was, 
da mugent ir vinden muget 
schéne beide 
gebrochen bluomen unde gras 
vor dem walde in einem tal 

tandaradei 
schéne sanc diu nahtegal. 

Ich kam gegangen 

zuo der ouve: 

dé was min friedel komen é. vriedel 

dé wart ich empfangen emphangen 

hére frouwe, vrouwe 

daz ich bin saelic iemer mé. 

kuster mich? wol tisentstunt: kuste er 
tandaradei 

séht wie r6t ist mir der munt. Mir ist 

D6 het er gemachet hete 

als6 riche 
von bluomen eine bettestat: 
des wirt noch gelachet 

innecliche, 
kumt iemen an daz selbe pfat. phat 
bi den rosen er wol mac 
tandaradei 
merken wa mirz houbet lac. 
Da zer bi mir gelaege, laege 

wessez iemen 
(nu enwelle* got!) s6 schamt ich mich. schamte 
was er mit mir pflaege, phlaege 
niemer niemen 
bevinde daz, wan er unt ich, 
unt ein kleinez vogellon - 
tandaradei 
daz mac wol getriuwe sin 
*enwelle = wolle nicht. 

Pronunciation: 

ie, iu, uo, the accent on first vowel: fe, fu, to. 

ei = ei in Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Russian etc. e+i, not ati as in 
Neuhochdeutsch 

sch = stch same as in Dutch & Greek. 

H at end of syllable or before consonant = Swiss ch, nahtegal, schr. nachte- 
gal, lacht. 

Z = ts, ZZ = Ss. 

Vowels with circumflex long, al] others short: tal, not tal, schamt, not schamt. 

Dipthongs of course long.