MARX TO ENGELS” 

Karlsbad, 21 August 1875 
Germania, Schlossplatz 

Dear Frep, 

I arrived here last Sunday.'** Dr Kraus had already left for 
average where he has joined his family; has sorted out his 
relations with his wife. 

As was my intention, I am now my own doctor and, as Dr Gans 
confided to me more in sorrow than in anger, the same applies to 
one third of the older visitors to the spa. Another very therapeutic 
factor so far as I am concerned is the absence of my personal 
physician Kugelmann.* 

Though the dramatis personae may change, the public here looks 
much the same one time as another: Quetelet’s averacz MAN” is the 
exception; instead, extremes prevail—round as a barrel and thin 
as a rake. 

I spend at least 12 hours out of doors, and once I have completed 
my business, my principal diversion consists in discovering new 
walks, beauty spots and vistas in the mountain forests, and here I am 
the more subject to surprises for having so little sense of direc- 
tion. 

As from today—when I received chits in return for the spa 
tax—I am safe from the police. I registered as a D. Phil. and not 
as a rentier, which is advantageous to my pocket. My namesake, 
the Vienna chief of police, is civil enough to arrive here always at 
the same time as myself. 

Yesterday I went to the Hopfenstock,’? renowned for its beer, to 
drink my glass of Giesshibler mineral water. There were some 
Karlsbad philistines there, and the entire conversation turned on 
what is locally an everlasting bone of contention, viz., the respective 
merits of the old Pilsner, Biirgerbrau and commercialised beer. 
‘Aye,’ says one, ‘I can sup 15 glasses (and they’re big ’uns) of the 
old stuff and be none the worse.’ ‘Well,’ says another, ‘I used to 
stick up for it too, but now I’m above such bickering. I drink all 
and any of ’em and the result’s the same,’ etc. Beside these 

« See this volume, pp. 46-47. - > Hop Pole—a hotel in Karlsbad. 

sagacious Natives, however, there sat two Berlin swells, Referen- 
darien or some such.’ They were arguing about the merits of the 
coffee in the various well-known Karlsbad restaurants, and one of 
them declared in all seriousness: ‘It has been statistically’ (!) 
‘demonstrated that the coffee at the Garten von Schénbrunnen* is 
the best.’ At this point a native cried: ‘Our Bohemia’s a pretty big 
place and it’s done big things. Its Pilsner beer goes to every 
country in the world; Salzmann, the big brewer, has got a branch 
in Paris now, and it goes to America as well! A pity we can’t also 
supply them with our big natural rock cellars, for they’re part and 
parcel of Pilsner!’ 

Now that I’ve imparted to you the insights I have just gained 
with regard to the bustle of the world in nuce,? here are some of 
my travelling experiences. 

In London, a crafty-looking little Jew with a small box under his 
arm climbed into our carriage with great haste. Shortly before we 
got to Harwich, he started looking for keys with which to open his 
box in order to see, as he said, whether his office-boy had packed 
the clothes he needed. ‘For, while I was at the office,’ he 
continued, ‘I got a telegram from miy brother in Berlin telling me 
to leave for Berlin immediately, so I sent the boy to my house to 
fetch the stuff I needed.’ After searching here, there and 
everywhere, he at last found admittedly not the right key, but 
nevertheless a key that opened the box, only to discover that 
trousers and coat didn’t match and that nightshirts, top-coat, etc., 
were missing. On the ship the little Jew poured out his heart to 
me. ‘Such double-dealing! The world’s never seen the like of it,’ he 
cried, over and over again. This was his story: A German Yankee 
by the name of Administration- or Bernstein, recommended to him by his 
Berlin friend Neumann, had done him out of £1,700—him, who 
passed for one of the cleverest traders! This laddie, ostensibly 
engaged in the African trade, showed him invoices for goods 
worth many thousands of pounds which he had bought from 
leading houses in Bradford and Manchester; the ship they were in 
was berthed at Southampton. At this he gave him the advance he 
had asked for. But hearing nothing more from the man, he grew 
anxious and wrote to Manchester and Bradford. He even showed 
me the replies he received saying that Bornstein had taken 
samples and purchased goods from them, but payment was to be 
made only on receipt of the goods; the invoices were just a formality; 

* Schénbrunn—royal palace and park in Vienna. - > in miniature 

goods never received. In Southampton they were placed under 
distraint and the discovery made that B.’s shipment consisted 
merely of bales stuffed with straw matresses. Our little Jew who 
was incensed, not only about the £1,700, but above all by the fact 
that such a cunning trader should have let himself be taken in, 
wrote to his friend Neumann and to his brother in Berlin. The 
latter informed him by telegraph that B. had been located in 
Berlin, that the police had been notified and were keeping an eye 
on him, and that he must set off for Berlin without delay. ‘Do you 
intend,’ I asked, ‘to hand the man over to the law?’ ‘Not on your 
life. I aim to get the money off him.’ I: ‘He'll have squandered it.’ 
He: ‘Not on your life! In the City, I tell yer, he did the fellers’ (at 
this point he listed all manner of blokes) ‘out of £12,000. It’s me 
he’s got to pay. The others will have to nab ’im where they can.’ 
But the really choice part was that, when we arrived at Rotterdam, 
it was discovered that he couldn’t travel beyond Minden where he 
would have to wait until 11 o’clock the following morning before 
continuing his journey. The fellow cursed the Railway Apministra- 
tion like mad. All to no purpose. 

We had a curious passenger on board—a corpse. His attendant 
was a red-haired German; he told me the dead man was called 
Nassauer, a young fellow of 34 from Mainz, on a trip to London, 
run over, his family wanted him buried at home. The dead man’s 
escort, too, was unable to continue his journey straight away. 
The ship’s captain told him they couldn’t hand over the corpse 
until he had completed certain formalities with the German con- 
sul. 

Between Cologne and Frankfurt (I travelled straight through) a 
Catholic priest* of worldly mien got in. From his conversation with 
others I gathered that he was on his way back to Frankfurt, his 
home, from Dublin where he had attended O’Connell’s cente- 
nary.’ He had plenty to say for himself. At Koblenz, where the 
carriages were changed, I found myself téte-a-téte with him in the 
carriage. He had come by the new route via Flushing; obviously 
the boat was far preferable to the Harwich Dreckshuite. I tried to 
draw him on the subject of the Kulturkampf. But to start off with 
he was mistrustful and exceedingly reserved, though he spoke 
with much enthusiasm of Monsignore Cappele’s eloquence. 
Eventually the Holy Ghost came to my aid. The priest pulled out a 
BOTTLE—It was empty; and he now told me that he had been 

a Mutzelberger 

hungry and thirsty ever since arriving in Holland. I offered him 
my brandy sortie, a few swigs from which loosened his tongue. He 
now began to talk nineteen to the dozen. When passengers got in, 
he cracked bad jokes with them in our mother tongue, but 
resumed his conversation with me in English, which he speaks 
very well. ‘So great is the freedom we enjoy in the German 
Empire that one has to chat about the Kulturkampf in English.’ 
Before we got out in Frankfurt I told him—without, however, 
disclosing my name——that he must not be surprised if, next day, 
he were to read in the newspapers about yet another conspiracy 
between the black and the red International.’ At Frankfurt I 
learned (in the editorial office of the Frankfurter Zeitung) that my 
companion had been Mr Mutzelberger who acts as a kind of 
substitute for a Catholic bishop there. He too will have seen my 
name in the Frankfurter Zeitung (which he reads). It published a 
note about my passing through there.’ 

Saw Sonnemann, who had just made another appearance in 
court for refusing to reveal a correspondent’s name and had been 
granted a further ten days’ stay of execution which, however, was 
to be the last.’'° Sonnemann is a man of the world, though one 
can see that he is aware of his own importance. In what was a 
fairly long conversation he explained that his principal aim was to 
involve the petty bourgeoisie in the Social-Democratic movement. 
The financial strength of his paper lay in its being avowedly the 
best commercial and stock-market paper in southern Germany. He 
was, he said, well aware of the service his paper rendered as 
political retailer of the workers’ press. By contrast, however, that 
party did nothing for him. He had, for instance, taken on 
Vahlteich as correspondent; but the latter had been forbidden to 
act as such by the Executive Committee of the united party.''' In 
the Reichstag, he said, Liebknecht’s attitude was unduly de- 
magogic; Bebel, on the other hand, was accorded the most 
universal acclaim, etc. I shall see him again on my return journey. 
I also saw Dr Guido Weiss who is spending a few days with his 
daughter (wife of Dr Stern, one of the editors of the Frankfurter 
Zeitung). Had I arrived at the office a little earlier, I would have 
had the misfortune to encounter Karl Mayer from Swabia (the 
former Beobachter man). 

Incidentally, business in Frankfurt and all the other leading 
commercial centres is far worse than would appear from the 
German press. 

Your friend Cafiero is living with Bakunin and he even bought 
the house in Lugano for him. 

R* 

And now vale faveque* 1 must get back to business. My kindest 
regards to Madame Lizzy. 

Your 
Moor