Friedrich Engels to Karl Marx
in Brussels
Paris, 15 January 1847

Dear Marx,

I would have written to you sooner if B[ernay]s had not kept me waiting until now. The accursed Börnstein, whom I also asked, among others, about your coming here, was never to be found, and so I entrusted the matter to Bs, who already on Monday meant to bring a letter for you into town. Instead, late yesterday evening I received the enclosed scrawl, which the lazy fellow had scribbled in Sarcelles the evening before yesterday; and the explanations contained in it are certainly not of the kind that would have required five or six days' study. But that is the fellow all over. I shall, however, speak with Bstn himself, for this explanation is by no means enough for me, and, frankly, I believe no one's word less than Bs's. For six months now the man has been bawling into my ears that you could come any day with bag and baggage, and when it comes to the point he makes a long story out of a passport. As if you needed a passport! At the frontier no one asks for it; Moses came here without being asked, just as I did, and if you live with me I should like to know who would ask about it. At most, a Belgian passeport pour l'intérieur for possible identification, or Mr Leopold's well-known epistle: Cabinet du Roi; that is sufficient for every case. Heine is of exactly the same opinion, and as soon as I can catch Börnst., I shall question him about it. Bs had also worked out the Tolstoy story, or rather had let Bstein palm it off on him, for Bst can palm off on him whatever he likes. All the various reports that Bs wrote us earlier come from the same source, and after I have several times witnessed the infallibility with which Bstein prophesies his suppositions, gossip, and inventions of his own to Bs, and Bs takes them for ready cash, I do not believe a single word of all the important reports he formerly wrote [...] "from the best source".

I myself saw how Bstein, merely by affected omniscience, made Bs believe (and you know with what enthusiasm Bs believes once he believes) that the National was sold to Thiers skin and hair, body and soul, argent comptant. The little man would have let himself be shot over it. In this he is incorrigible, as he is in his mood of heaven-high rejoicing and deathly grief. Pendant le cours de la dernière quinzaine il a été seize fois au bord du désespoir.

Cela entre nous. As for your coming, then, I shall ask Bst again; Heine, as I said, maintains that you can come without hesitation. Or do you want to go to the French ambassador and demand a passport on the basis of your Prussian certificate of emigration?

I was very glad that you announced Mosen to me. The noble fellow came to me, did not find me; I wrote to him that he should give me a rendezvous. Yesterday it took place. The man has changed greatly. Youthful locks flow around his head, a dainty little beard gives some grace to his sharp chin, a virginal blush passed over his cheeks, but la grandeur déchue se peignait dans ses beaux yeux, and a strange modesty had come over him. Here in Paris I have grown used to a very impudent tone, for rattling the bells belongs to the trade and one gets somewhere with it among women. But this ravished exterior of the formerly world-shaking high-flier Hess almost disarmed me. The heroic deeds of the true socialists, his disciples, however (of which more below), and his own unchanged core gave me courage again. In short, I treated him so coldly and mockingly that he will have no desire to come again. The only thing I did for him was give him some good advice for the clap he brought with him from Germany. He has also made a complete fiasco among some German painters, whom he partly knew from earlier times. Only Gustav Adolf Köttgen has remained faithful to him.

The Bremen man is in any case to be preferred to the Swiss. I cannot write to the Swiss, first because I have forgotten his address, and second because I do not want to propose to the fellow a lower fee per sheet than you propose to the Bremen man. [...] therefore send me your proposals for the Bremen man and at the same time the fellow's address. He paid Bs well for his bad Rothsch[ild] pamphlet, but he cheated Püt[tmann], had him printed, but under the pretext that he had committed his funds postponed payment of the fee indefinitely.

It is very good that you are writing in French against Proudhon. I hope the pamphlet is already written by the time this arrives. It goes without saying that, as far as I am concerned, you can anticipate from our publication whatever you like. I also believe that Pr.'s Association comes down to Bray's plan. I had quite forgotten good Bray.

You may perhaps have read in the Trier newspaper about the new Leipzig socialist journal, entitled "Violets", Pages for Harmless Modern Criticism!! in which Herr Semmig bellows as Sarastro: In these holy halls revenge is unknown; within these holy walls no traitor may lurk; then he walks, hand in hand with Freu-eu-eu-eu-eund, contented and glad into the better land; but unfortunately he has no bass for it, as Reichel once had. Sarastro-Semmig here sacrifices to the three divinities: 1. Hess, 2. Stirner, 3. Ruge, all in one breath. The first two have fathomed the depths of science. This little sheet, or violet, is the craziest thing I have ever read. Such quiet and at the same time brazen madness is possible only in Saxony. If only we could do the chapter on true socialism once more, now that they have developed on all sides, now that the Westphalian school, the Saxon school, the Berlin school, etc., along with the solitary stars Püttmann and so forth, have constituted themselves separately. One could divide them according to the constellations of heaven. Püttmann the Great Bear and Semmig the Little Bear, or Püttmann the Bull and the Pleiades his eight children. He deserves horns, if he does not already have them anyway. Grün Aquarius, etc. Apropos Grün: I shall rework the article on Grün's Goethe, reduce it to half a sheet, and adapt it for our publication, if that is all right with you; write to me soon about it. The book is too characteristic: Gr. praises all Goethe's philistine traits as human, makes Goethe the Frankfurter and official into the "true human being", while he passes over everything colossal and genial or even spits on it. In this way the book supplies the most brilliant proof that the human being equals the German petty bourgeois. I had only hinted at this, but could develop it and strike out a good deal of the rest of the article, since it does not fit our thing. What do you think?

Yours,
Engels.

Friday, 15 Jan. 47.

Monsieur Charles Marx
42 rue d'Orléans
Faubg. de Namur
Bruxelles.