Ostend, 27 July 1846 
11, rue St. Thomas 

Dear Marx, 

I’ve been out on several occasions hunting for anes for you, 
but I haven’t found anything much. Either too large or too small. 
Seldom two habitable rooms together, the bedrooms for the most 
part wretchedly cramped. Enfin” yesterday I discovered 2 lodgings 
au choix: 1. two large rooms, first and second floor respectively; 
each with bed, for 95 fr. a month, 30 fr. extra for the third bed, 
breakfast '/, fr. a day per head or stomach. 2. a small house 
belonging to the same propriétaire, one living-room downstairs, 
upstairs two communicating bedrooms, one of them tolerably 
large, and a closet, at 150 fr. a month. Breakfast méme prix‘ 
Whoever takes the house will have a maid’s services included. The 
two rooms mentioned above are part of a restaurant, ‘au duc de 
Brabant’, rue du lait battu, so meals could be had there if required. 
But in this respect you’d be quite independent there. At all events - 
you would do well, if you are considering one of these two 
lodgings, to put up at the ‘duc de Brabant’, it’s cheaper than an 
hotel and, should you not like the rooms, you can ask the woman 

4 Louise Lining - > At last - ¢ for your choosing - 4 same price 

there to show you the house, which is situated in the rue des seurs 
blanches No. 5, and if that doesn’t suit you either, you will no 
doubt find another. By the way, as compared with last year, 
there’s been a fearsome rise in the cost of lodgings as of 
everything, or rather, ‘and the same for everything’. Fr. 5 will 
cover the cost of dinner for the whole of your family, beef-steak 1 
fr., cutlets idem, wine 2-3 fr. Beer bad, cigars bad and expensive, 
you’d be well advised to bring a few 100 from Brussels, in which 
case you can assume that the following table of expenses is correct: 

Accommodation fr. 125-fr. 150 
Breakfast ms 45" 45 (if you sometimes 
Dinner ........... » 150- " 175 eat by the sea) 
Supper, 2-3 beef- 

steaks we. ”  60-" 90 (people stuff 

themselves here) 
Afternoon coffee 
on the beach, 

per month very necessary, 
2 cups » 18" 18 
Laundering is very 
dear, at least »  90-" 30 (In addition ba- 
thing @ fr. 
1.30-fr.  1.50— 

Appr. 40 fr.) 
fr. 418-fr. 508 

Besides this it would be desirable to have another 100 fr. for 
INCIDENTAL EXPENSES, for without it you can be very bored here. You 
needn’t stay here more than a month. Only those with broken 
backs, or who are complete and utter wrecks both inside and out, 
stay any longer. But you must so arrange the rent that, should you 
stay beyond the month, the additional period is paid a tant par 
jour,* otherwise they will charge you for a full half month if you 
stay two days longer. 

For the rest, life is very sluggish here. During the first few days 
a boring philistine from Barmen, la béte des bétes,’ was, with the 
exception of my family and imposed upon me by the same, my 

a at so much a day - » a monumental ass 

one and only companion. Yesterday Blank, whom you know, 
arrived from London and through him I at last made the 
acquaintance of a Frenchman qui a beaucoup d’esprit* and who is an 
altogether excellent fellow, although he has spent 15 years in 
Elberfeld and speaks German par conséquent.” 

‘Finally I would touch on’ the Mrs Hess affair. It’s bad, but one 
cannot possibly let her suffer for the stupidities of the aforemen- 
tioned Hess; I shall therefore try to smuggle her across the border 
if, that is, I get enough money from my old man for the journey 
to Paris, which is still not sure. Send the enclosed scribble to the 
beloved man of God‘ in Cologne, to cheer him up. So the woman is 
in Brussels already? 

Great men there are none here. They don’t arrive till August. No 
one has yet divulged the identity of the great Germans who are due 
to arrive. For the time being, therefore, I must content myself with 
the Prussian Bank project.” It’s farcical that the gents should 
imagine they’re going to make a lot of money out of it. A few of these 
big bankers, who want to become ‘major stockholders’ and conclude 
their secret agreements with the bureaucrats, e.g. to the effect that 
their shares are not redeemable, that they are introduced by stealth 
onto the main board, etc., may perhaps allow themselves to be 
persuaded. But no one else. Delightful that ‘neither the subscribers 
nor the amounts subscribed are to be made known’. This means that 
they’re expecting damned little money and are seeking, in true 
bureaucratic fashion, to cover themselves to some extent in case of 
failure. 

Write soon and let me know whether you’re coming and when.™ 

Your 
FE. 

2 who has a very lively mind - > as a result - © Moses Hess, see this volume, p. 47. 

23. Engels and Marx to Hess. 27 July and about 29 July 1846 47 

Yesterday these visions were to be seen in the sea by male and 
female spectators alike.