MARX TO FERDINAND LASSALLE”™ 

London, 8 May 1861 
9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, 
Haverstock Hill 

Dear Lazarus, 

Post tot discrimina rerum’ If anyone is responsible for my 
silence—during my travels, that is, for here in London I had to 
spend my first week playing Amphitryon” to my cousin from 
Rotterdam ‘—it is the countess.? She had promised that I would 
find her portrait and a letter from her at Zalt-Bommel. Since 
neither of these materialised, and since I am a strict observer of 
the jus vindictae, I didn’t write either. In addition, my time at 
Bommel was completely taken up. On the one hand, I had 
business with my uncle,’ and on the other, I had to pay court to 
my cousin. So, you see, Sik, WRITING WAS OUT OF THE QUESTION. My stay in 
Trier was useful in as much as my mother destroyed some old 
1.0.U.s. Incidentally the old woman also intrigued me by her 
exceedingly subtle esprit and unshakable equanimity. 

First, then, to the financial side. Herewith an interim payment 
of £20. You still have £10 to come. The concatenation of 
circumstances was as follows: My uncle gave me £150 in cash to 
pay bills due at the beginning of May. He promised to send a 
further bill to London a few weeks later. In the meantime, 
therefore, I borrowed the enclosed £20 from my cousin,° ditto 
some money for the household, and a third amount for the 
repayment of various small loans in Germany. If, however, you 
must have the outstanding £10 straight away, let me know at once. 

I couldn’t go to Manchester as I had originally planned" because 
my cousin from Rotterdam“ decided to travel to London hard on 
my heels. The pretext was his interest in discussing politics with 
me. In ract, however, I believe he wanted to make the 
acquaintance of his various female cousins. I wrote to Engels the 
day before yesterday about the plans for the newspaper’ and shall 

4 After so many vicissitudes (Virgil, Aeneid, I). - > playing the host - ¢ Jacques 
Philips - ¢ Sophie von Hatzfeldt - ¢ law of retaliation - Lion Philips - 8 Antoinette 
Philips - » See this volume, p. 279. -' See this volume, p. 281. 

doubtless have an answer from him in a day or so. Conditions in 
America will probably be such that, even if nothing comes of the 
newspaper enterprise, I may move to Berlin for a semester or 
thereabouts, aways suppose THAT I GET My RENATURALISATION. London, I 
CANT DENY IT, possesses an extraordinary fascination for me, 
although, to a certain extent, I live a hermit’s life in this gigantic 
place. 

Apropos. Blanqui is still in Mazas prison”’’ (Paris) where he is 
being physically maltreated by the gendarmes, etc., on the 
instructions of the examining magistrate. Taking advantage of the 
general amnesty, he had travelled from here to Paris—with no 
plans for conspiracy whatever—as an agent for a businessman. In 
England, as elsewhere in Europe, the scoundrelly press Trizs ro BURKE 
THE WHOLE AFFAIR. I have made an appointment for next Saturday 
with Simon Bernard,who knows more about the matter,”* and we 
shall then discuss the subject thoroughly. We intend, possibly in 
concert with Ernest Jones, to hold a pustic meetinc about this 
outrage. As soon as I have spoken to Bernard and am better 
informed I shall send a report to the countess. But I would ask you to 
see to it at once through one channel or another that an item about 
this guet-apens* appears in the Breslau papers. The German papers 
reprint one another’s stuff, as you know. 

To turn from tragedy to tragi-comedy, did you see in the 
newspapers that workers in Geneva boxed Fazy’s ears in broad 
daylight? 

Kossuth’s behaviour here during the lawsuit“ was lamentable. 
Having at first taken the floor with such swagger in his arriavits, 
etc.. he bowed and scraped during the hearing itself, assumed as 
insignificant and subdued an air as possible, disavowed all 
revolutionary designs or intentions on his own part and thus 
stupidly deprived himself of the sympathies of a public predis- 
posed in favour of such melodramatic characters. 

I don’t know whether you have followed the parliamentary 
debates on the MacDonald case.?* Palmerston’s provocative be- 
haviour towards Prussia’ has, in fact, no other aim than to 
explode the idea (Schleinitz’s) of an Anglo-Prussian alliance. I 
need hardly tell you to what purpose, for you know the story. 

Toby Meyen, in a Berlin letter to the Hamburg Freischiitz, has 
produced very curious explanations of my stay in Berlin.‘ D’abord,* 

295 

@ trap - > Palmerston’s speech in the House of Commons on 26 April 1861, The 
Times, No. 23918, 27 April 1861. - © ‘Berliner Briefe’, Freischiitz, No. 49, 23 April 
1861. - 4 First