London, 29 May 1885 

My dear Laura, 

So then at least one thing is settled, and that is poor Paul in his 
Kittchen in Ste Pélagie. *°? Hope it will not be for four months — the 
four best of the year too! Anyhow, what a consolation it is for him, to 
be no longer crucified between the braconnier on one side and the vol 
avec effraction (de puanteur)° on the other! And to consider it a hard- 
fought victory that he can have his old Avttchen again in company 
with a spouting anarchist. Well let us hope Révillon and a few more 
deputies will make it hot for the Liberal ministry and procure his re- 
lease. 

Harney is gone to Macclesfield yesterday, and arrived safely. He is 
a good deal better, intrinsically, but of course the pains do not go all 
at once, and as soon as he is a bit better, he begins stirring about in 
cabs; he did so for two days before he left, then the journey, and of 
course arrived worse. I am afraid he will never get quite over it, part- 
ly because the complaint is too inveterate and partly on account of 
his inconsistency and listening to everybody who has a remedy to 
propose. It has been a hard time for poor Nim, and I am glad for her 
sake it has come to an end. Sam Moore had to go to Pumps’, I think 
he rather liked it this time as he was bent on exhibitions, picture 
galleries, Royal Academies and the like, and so he and Pumps 
have a fine time of it. Today they are gone to see a cricket match at 
Lords. ¢ 

I had this morning the last proof-sheet of my preface to Second Vol- 
ume,° so from that you see that the report of its being out is another 
canard. You may be sure that as soon as it is out and we get copies, 
you have one sent the same day. The 3rd edition of the 18th Brumaire' 
is in the press, two sheets printed. 

@ jail (slang) - » poacher - © burglar (stinking) - 4 Lords Cricket Ground in Lon- 
don - ‘ of Capital - ‘K. Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 

The Italian translation of the Ursprung is also in the press. But you 
will at once see that it will be hardly possible to translate from that 
into French. *°? If Paul uses it merely to facilitate to him the compre- 
hension of the original, well and good; otherwise it would only enable 
him to give a very enfeebled Abklatsch* and poor rechauffé,” and 
I have no ambition to appear before the French public in that shape. 
The man‘ has done his best and some passages are really good. But it 
is not to be expected from him, who learnt German without assis- 
tance in Benevento, that he should put idiomatic German into 
equally idiomatic Italian. And that defect I could not remedy, as my 
idiomatic Italian is not Italian but only Milanese, and that, too, 
nearly forgotten. 

I hope there will not be much more of that fighting about red flags, 
etc., in Paris— the police want a few barricades, and if they get them, 
there will be a jolly massacre—the people have not a ghost of 
a chance of victory. *°* Even if the government should show hesita- 
tion, the reactionary military chiefs will take care to be ready for ac- 
tion and to act. 

There is one consolation for Paul — that he will be virtually ‘out of 
Paris’ on the day of the French Grand Old Man’s funeral. 

What with proof-sheet, and writing to Harney 3° and making par- 
cels up for him and writing to a confectioner from Colmar‘ *° who 
asked my advice as to his finding work in London (answer: certainly 
not) and one thing and another, it has become 5.20, and so I must 
close if I want to catch this post. So with hopes that Paul will not be 
too unhappy, nor too long where he is, and that you will keep up, in 
spite of all, your state of, in Paris, abnormal health, here is the conclu- 
sion. 

Love from Nim. 
Yours affectionately, 

F. Engels