London, 8 November 1883 

Dear Bernstein, 

I have been keeping to my bed for the past few weeks in order to 
rid myself of a chronic ailment, mild in itself but tiresome and long 
neglected; I shall be up again in a few days. Hence my silence. Please 
accept my apologies and also convey them to Kautsky; I don’t know 
whether he is still in Stuckert.* 

@ See Engels’ letter to Laura Lafargue, 21 March 1887 (present edition, Vol. 48). - 
> of the third German edition of Volume I of Capital-° Paul Lafargue-¢ Stuttgart 

The article on the right to work was very good and very much @ 
propos.* Kautsky had already bombarded me about the same subject” 
and I shall be perfectly willing as soon as it becomes necessary, but 
I think one should first let these gentlemen compromise themselves 
a little more; they ought first to formulate more precisely what they 
mean by it; one must never stop people from giving ‘complete and 
full’ expression to their nonsense; only then does one get something 
really tangible. I hope your article will commit the chaps to this 
course. 

If the Germans in Paris have not had their eyes opened to Malon 
& Co. now, there’s no helping them. Their open alliance with the ¢raz- 
tors of the English labour movement, the official representatives of the 
TRADES UNIONS, has earned them the applause of the entire English 
bourgeois press from The Times and The Daily News to The Stand- 
ard.'15 A good thing that Guesde and Lafargue were doing time,’ 
thereby enabling this magnificent performance to be put on with no 
interruptions whatever! 

Apropos. Do you know a Dr Moritz‘ Quarck (sic!) In Rudolstadt? 
This man, with whom I am totally unfamiliar, has referred me 
to a pamphlet,’ with which I am equally unfamiliar, attacking 
one Fleischmann * with whom I am even less familiar, and wants to 
translate The Poverty of Philosophy into German.' I have my misgiv- 
ings. 

Well, let me know sometime soon what is going on in the world. 
I have become so stupid, lolling about in bed, that I can no longer 
marshal my thoughts. 

Yours, 
F. E.