Title: The Marx He Knew
Author: Spargo, John, 1876-1966
Language: English
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                       The Marx He Knew

                  [Illustration: KARL MARX.]



                       The Marx He Knew



                              BY
                         JOHN SPARGO


   Author of "The Bitter Cry of the Children," "Socialism,
          A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist
              Principles," "The Common Sense of
                 Socialism," "Karl Marx: His
                    Life and Work," Etc.,
                          Etc., Etc.



                           CHICAGO
                  CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY
                             1909



                       Copyright, 1909

                 BY CHARLES H. KERR & COMPANY



                              TO
                    MADAME LAURA LAFARGUE
                    DAUGHTER OF KARL MARX



List of Illustrations


KARL MARX, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH                  _Frontispiece_

                                                      FACING
                                                        PAGE

HIS BIRTHPLACE AT TRIER, FROM AN OLD PRINT                10

JOHANNA BERTHA JULIE VON WESTPHALEN,
  FROM A PAINTING FROM LIFE                               19

FREDERICK ENGELS, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH                       32

FERDINAND LASSALLE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH                     47

THE MARX FAMILY GRAVE, FROM A PHOTOGRAPH                  83



THE MARX HE KNEW

I


The pale, yellow light of the waning day streamed through the dusty
window panes of the little cigar shop, and across the bench where old
Hans Fritzsche worked and hummed the melody of _Der Freiheit_ the
while.

The Young Comrade who sat in the corner upon a three-legged stool
seemed not to hear the humming. His eyes were fixed upon a large
photograph of a man which hung in a massive oak frame above the bench
where Old Hans rolled cigars into shape. The photograph was old and
faded, and the written inscription beneath it was scarcely legible.
The gaze of the Young Comrade was wistful and reverent.

"Tell me about _him_, Hans," he said at last.

Old Hans stopped humming and looked at the Young Comrade. Then his
eyes wandered to the portrait and rested upon it in a gaze that was
likewise full of tender reverence.

Neither spoke again for several seconds and only the monotonous
ticking of the clock upon the wall broke the oppressive silence.

"Ach! he was a wonderful man, my comrade," said Old Hans at length.

"Yes, yes, he was a wonderful man--one of the most wonderful men that
ever lived," responded the Young Comrade in a voice that was vibrant
with religious enthusiasm.

Both were silent again for a moment and then the Young Comrade
continued: "Yes, Marx was a wonderful man, Hans. And you knew him--saw
him smile--heard him speak--clasped his hand--called him comrade and
friend!"

"Aye, many times, many times," answered Old Hans, nodding. "Hundreds
of times did we smoke and drink together--me and him."

"Ah, that was a glorious privilege, Hans," said the Young Comrade
fervently. "To hear him speak and touch his hand--the hand that wrote
such great truths for the poor working people--I would have gladly
died, Hans. Why, even when I touch your hand now, and think that it
held _his_ hand so often, I feel big--strong--inspired."

"Ach, but my poor old hand is nothing," answered Old Hans with a
deprecating smile. "Touching the hand of such a man matters nothing at
all, for genius is not contagious like the smallpox," he added.

"But tell me about him, Hans," pleaded the Young Comrade again. "Tell
me how he looked and spoke--tell me everything."

"Well, you see, we played together as boys in the Old Country, in
Treves. Many a time did we fight then! Once he punched my eye and made
it swell up so that I could hardly see at all, but I punched his nose
and made it bleed like--well, like a pig."

"What! you made him _bleed_?"

"Ach! that was not much; all boys fight so."

"Well?"

"My father was a shoemaker, you see, and we lived not far away from
where Karl's people lived. Many a time my father sent me to their
house--on the Bruckergrasse--with mended shoes. Then I would see Karl,
who was just as big as I was, but not so old by a year. Such a fine
boy! Curly-headed he was, and fat--like a little barrel almost.

[Illustration: BIRTHPLACE OF KARL MARX.]

"So, when I took the shoes sometimes I would stop and play with him a
bit--play with Karl and the girls. He was always playing with
girls--with his sister, Sophie, and little Jenny von Westphalen.

"Sometimes I liked it not so--playing with girls. They were older than
we boys and wanted everything to go their way, and I liked not that
girls should boss boys. So once I teased him about it--told him that
he was a baby to play with girls. Then it was that we fought and he
gave me a black eye and I gave him a bloody nose in return.

"Sometimes the Old Man, Karl's father, would come into my father's
shop and stay a long while chatting. He was a lawyer and father only a
shoemaker; he was quite rich, while father was poor, terribly poor.
But it made no difference to Herr Marx. He would chat with father by
the hour.

"You see, he was born a Jew, but--before Karl was born--he turned
Christian. Father had done the same thing, years before I was born.
Why he did it father would never tell me, but once I heard him and
Heinrich Marx--that was the name of Karl's father--talking about it,
so I got a pretty good idea of the reason.

"'Of course, I am not a believer in the Christian doctrines, friend
Wilhelm.' he said to my father. 'I don't believe that Jesus was God,
nor that he was a Messiah from God. But I do believe in a God--in one
God and no more.

"'And I'm not so dishonorable as to have become a Christian, and to
have had my children baptized as Christians, simply to help me in my
profession,' he said. 'Some of our Hebrew friends have said that, but
it is not true at all. As I see it, friend Wilhelm, Judaism is too
narrow, too conservative. Christianity makes for breadth, for culture,
for freedom. And it is keeping to ourselves, a people set apart, which
makes us Jews hated and despised, strangers in the land. To become one
with all our fellow citizens, to break down the walls of separation,
is what we need to aim at. That is why I forsook Judaism, Wilhelm.'

"From the way that father nodded his head and smiled I could tell,
though he said little, that he was the same sort of a Christian."

"But it was about _him_, the son, that you were speaking, Hans."

"Ach, be patient. Time is more plentiful than money, boy," responded
Hans, somewhat testily.

"Well, of course, we went to the same school, and though Karl was
younger than me we were in the same class. Such a bright, clever
fellow he was! Always through with his lessons before any of the rest
of us, he was, and always at the top of the class. And the stories he
could tell, lad! Never did I hear such stories. In the playground
before school opened we used to get around him and make him tell
stories till our hair stood on end."

"And was his temper cheerful and good--was he well liked?" asked the
Young Comrade.

"Liked? He was the favorite of the whole school, teachers and all, my
boy. Never was he bad tempered or mean. Nobody ever knew Karl to do a
bad thing. But he was full of mischief and good-hearted fun. He loved
to play tricks upon other boys, and sometimes upon the teachers, too.

"He could write the funniest verses about people you ever heard in
your life, and sometimes all the boys and girls in the school would be
shouting his rhymes as they went through the streets. If another boy
did anything to him, Karl would write some verses that made the fellow
look like a fool, and we would all recite them just to see the poor
fellow get mad. Such fun we had then. But, I tell you, we were awfully
afraid of Karl's pin-pricking verses!

"Once, I remember well, we had a bad-tempered old teacher. He was a
crabbed old fellow, and all the boys got to hate him. Always using the
rod, he was. Karl said to me one day as we were going home from
school: 'The crooked old sinner! I'll make him wince with some verses
before long, Hans,' and then we both laughed till we were sore."

"And did he write the verses?" asked the Young Comrade.

"Write them? I should say he did! You didn't know Karl, or you would
never ask such a question as that. Next morning, when we got in
school, Karl handed around a few copies of his poem about old Herr von
Holst, and pretty soon we were all tittering. The whole room was in a
commotion.

"Of course, the teacher soon found out what was wrong and Karl was
called outside and asked to explain about them. 'I'm a poet, Herr
teacher,' he said, 'and have a poet's license. You must not ask a poet
to explain.' Of course, we all laughed at that, and the poor Herr von
Holst was like a great mad bull."

"And was he disciplined?"

"To be sure he was! His father was very angry, too. But what did we
care about that? We sang the verses on the streets, and wrote them on
the walls or anywhere else that we could. We made it so hot for the
poor teacher that he had to give up and leave the town. I wish I could
remember the verses, but I never was any good for remembering poetry,
and it was a long, long time ago--more than three score years ago now.

"We thought it was funny that Karl never gave over playing with the
girls--his sister and Jenny von Westphalen. When we were all big boys
and ashamed to be seen playing with girls, he would play with them
just the same, and sometimes when we asked him to play with us he
would say, 'No, boys, I'm going to play with Jenny and Sophie this
afternoon.' We'd be mad enough at this, for he was a good fellow to
have in a game, and sometimes we would try to tease him out of it.
But he could call names better than we could, and then we were all
afraid of his terrible verses. So we let him alone lest he make us
look silly with his poetry.

"Well, I left school long before Karl did. My father was poor, you
see, and there were nine of us children to feed and clothe, so I had
to go to work. But I always used to be hearing of Karl's cleverness.
People would talk about him in father's shop and say, 'That boy Marx
will be a Minister of State some day.'

"By and by we heard that he had gone to Bonn, to the University, and
everybody thought that he would soon become a great man. Father was
puzzled when Heinrich Marx came in one day and talked very sadly about
Karl. He said that Karl had wasted all his time at Bonn and learned
nothing, only getting into a bad scrape and spending a lot of money.
Father tried to cheer him up, but he was not to be comforted. 'My
Karl--the child in whom all my hopes were centered--the brightest boy
in Treves--is a failure,' he said over and over again.

[Illustration: JOHANNA BERTHA JULIE JENNY VON WESTPHALEN.]

"Soon after that Karl came home and I saw him nearly every day upon
the streets. He was most always with Jenny von Westphalen, and people
smiled and nodded their heads when the two passed down the street. My!
What a handsome couple they made! Jenny was the beauty of the town,
and all the young men were crazy about her. They wrote poems about her
and called her all the names of the goddesses, but she had no use for
any of the fellows except Karl. And he was as handsome a fellow as
ever laughed into a girl's eyes. He was tall and straight as a line,
and had the most wonderful eyes I ever saw in my life. They seemed to
dance whenever he smiled, but sometimes they flashed fire--when he was
vexed, I mean. But I suppose that what the girls liked best was his
great mass of coal black curls.

"The girls raved about Karl, and he could have had them all at his
feet if he would. I know, for I had two sisters older than myself, and
I heard how they and their friends used to talk about him. But Karl
had no eyes for any girl but Jenny, except it was his sister.

"Folks all said that Karl and Jenny would marry. Rachel--that's my
oldest sister--said so one night at the supper table, but our good
mother laughed at her. 'No, Rachel, they'll never marry,' she said.
'Jenny might be willing enough, but the old Baron will never let her
do it. Karl's father is rich alongside of poor people like us, but
poor enough compared with Jenny's father. Karl is no match for the
beautiful Jenny.'

"Then father spoke up. 'You forget, mother, that Heinrich Marx is the
best friend that old Baron von Westphalen has, and that the Baron is
as fond of Karl as of Jenny. And anyway he loves Jenny so much that
he'd be sure to let her marry whoever she loved, even if the man had
not a thaler to his name.'

"Soon Karl went away again to the University at Berlin, not back to
Bonn. Thought he'd get on better at Berlin, I suppose. He might have
been gone a year or more when his father came into father's little
shop one day while I was there. He said that Karl wasn't doing as well
at Berlin as he had expected. He tried to laugh it off, saying that
the boy was in love and would probably settle down to work soon and
come out all right, upon top as usual.

"It was then that we learned for the first time that Karl and Jenny
were betrothed, and that the old Baron had given his blessing to his
daughter and her lover. Very soon all the gossips of the town were
talking about it. Some said that there had been quite a romance about
it; that the young folks had been secretly engaged for nearly a year,
being afraid that the Baron would object. 'Twas even said that Karl
had been made ill by the strain of keeping the secret. Then, when at
last Karl wrote to old Westphalen about it, and asked for Jenny in a
manly fashion, the old fellow laughed and said that he had always
hoped it would turn out that way. So the silly young couple had
suffered a lot of pain which they could have avoided.

"Of course, lots of folks said that it wasn't a 'good match,' that
Jenny von Westphalen could have married somebody a lot richer than
Karl; but they all had to admit that she couldn't get a handsomer or
cleverer man than Karl in all the Rhine Province.

"But things seemed to be going badly enough with Karl at the
University. Herr Heinrich Marx cried in our little shop one evening
when my father asked him how Karl was doing. He said that, instead of
studying hard to be a Doctor of Laws, as he ought to do, Karl was
wasting his time. 'He writes such foolish letters that I am ashamed of
him,' said the old man. 'Wastes his time writing silly verses and
romances and then destroying most of them; talks about becoming a
second Goethe, and says he will write the great Prussian drama that
will revive dramatic art. He spends more money than the sons of the
very rich, and I fear that he has got into bad company and formed evil
habits.'

"Then father spoke up. 'Don't be afraid,' he said. 'I'll wager that
Karl is all right, and that he will do credit to the old town yet.
Some of our greatest men have failed to pass their examinations in the
universities you know, Herr Marx, while some of the most brilliant
students have done nothing worthy of note after leaving the
universities crowned with laurels. There is nothing bad about Karl, of
that you may be sure.'

"The old man could hardly speak. He took father's hand and shook it
heartily: 'May it be so, friend Wilhelm, may it be so,' he said. I
never saw the old man again, for soon after that he died.

"Karl came home that Easter, looking pale and worn and thin. I was
shocked when he came to see me, so grave and sad was he. We went over
to the old Roman ruins, and he talked about his plans. He had given up
all hopes of being a great poet then and wanted to get a Doctor's
degree and become a Professor at the University. I reminded him of the
verses he wrote about some of the boys at school, and about the old
teacher, Herr von Holst, and we laughed like two careless boys. He
stood upon a little mound and recited the verses all over as though
they had been written only the week before. Ach, he looked grand that
night in the beautiful moonlight!

"Then came his father's death, and I did not see him again, except as
the funeral passed by. He went back to Berlin to the University, and I
went soon after that away from home for my wanderjahre, and for a
long time heard nothing about Karl.


II

"Two or three years after that I was working in Cologne, where I had a
sweetheart, when I read in a paper, the _Rhenische Zeitung_, that
there would be a democratic meeting. I liked the democratic ideas
which I found in the paper, for they were all in the interest of poor
toilers like myself. So I made up my mind to go to the meeting.

"So that night I went to the meeting and listened to the speeches.
Presently _he_ came in. I didn't see him at first, but heard a slight
noise back of me and heard someone near me say 'Here comes Doctor
Marx.' Then I turned and saw Karl making his way to the front, all
eyes fastened upon him. I could see in a moment that he was much
beloved.

"Then Karl made a speech. He was not a great orator, but spoke clearly
and right to the point in very simple language. The speaker who spoke
before him was very eloquent and fiery, and stirred the audience to a
frenzy. But never a sound of applause greeted Karl's speech; he was
listened to in perfect silence.

"This made me feel that Karl's speech was a great failure, but next
day I found that the only words I remembered of all that were spoken
that evening were the words Karl spoke. It was the same way with the
other men in the shop where I worked. As they discussed the meeting
next day, it was Karl's speech they remembered and discussed. That was
like Karl: he had a way somehow of saying things you couldn't forget.

"When the meeting was over I was slinking away without speaking to
him. I suppose that I was bashful and a bit afraid of the grave
'Doctor Marx,' the great man. But he saw me going out and shouted my
name. 'Wait a minute, Hans Fritzsche,' he cried, and came running to
me with outstretched hands. Then he insisted upon introducing me to
all the leaders. 'This is my good friend, Herr Fritzsche, with whom I
went to school,' he said to them.

"Nothing would satisfy him but that I should go with the other leaders
and himself for a little wine, and though I was almost afraid lest in
such company I seem foolish, I went. You should have heard Karl talk
to those leaders, my boy! It was wonderful, and I sat and drank in
every word. One of the great men was urging that the time had come
for some desperate action. 'Nothing but a bloody revolution can help
the working people, Herr Marx,' he said. But Karl smiled quietly, and
I thought I could see the old scornful curl of his lip as he said:
'Revolution? Yes, but not yet, Herr, not yet, and perhaps not a bloody
one at all.' Ach, what quiet power seemed to go with his words!

"After the little crowd broke up Karl took me with him to his office.
Then I learned that he was the editor of the _Rhenische Zeitung_, and
that the articles I had read in the paper pleading for the poor and
oppressed and denouncing the government were written by him. I felt
almost afraid of him then, so wonderful it seemed that he should have
become so great and wise. But Karl soon put all my fears to rest, and
made me forget everything except that we were boys from home enjoying
the memories of old times.

"Well, I saw him often after that, for I joined the Democratic Club.
Then the government suppressed the paper, and Karl went away to Paris.
Before he went he came to say good bye and told me that he was to
marry Jenny von Westphalen before going to Paris, and I told him that
I was going to marry, too.

"But we never thought that we should meet each other upon our
honeymoons, as we did. I was at Bingen with my Barbara the day after
our wedding when I heard someone calling my name, and when I turned to
see who it was that called me there stood Karl and his Jenny laughing
at me and my Barbara, and all of us were blushing like idiots. Such
happy days those were that we spent at old Bingen!

"I went back to Cologne, to work in the shop belonging to my Barbara's
father, and Karl went to Paris. That was in forty-three. We heard from
him sometimes, and later on we used to get copies of a paper,
_Vorwarts_, which published articles by Karl and other great men.
Bakunin wrote for it, I remember, and so did Heine and Herwegh, our
sweet singers.

"That paper was stopped, too. We heard that Guizot had suppressed the
paper and ordered Karl and some of the other writers to be expelled
from France. It was Alexander von Humboldt who persuaded Guizot, so it
was said. I got a letter from Karl to say that he had settled in
Brussels with his wife and that there was a baby, a little Jenny,
eight months old. Our little Barbara was just the same age.

"Not long after that letters came to the club asking for Karl's
address. They were from Engels, of whom I had never heard before. I
would not give the address until we found out that Engels was a true
friend and comrade. We were all afraid, you see, lest some enemy
wanted to hurt Karl. It was good, though, that I could send the
address to Engels, for I believe that he sent some money to help Karl
out of a very hard struggle. If we had known that he was in trouble
we, his friends in Cologne, would have sent money to help, but Karl
was too proud I suppose to let his trouble be known to us.


III

"It was in the winter of 1847 that I saw him again, in London. For
months all the workingmen's societies had been agitated over the
question of forming an international association with a regular
programme, which Karl had been invited to draw up. A congress was to
be held in London for the purpose of considering Karl's programme and
I was sent by the Cologne comrades as a delegate. All the members
'chipped in' to pay my expenses, and I was very happy to go--happy
because I should see him again.

[Illustration: FREDERICK ENGELS.]

"So I was present at the rooms of the Arbeiterbildungsverein, in Great
Windmill Street, when Karl read the declaration of principles and
programme he had prepared. That was the _Communist Manifesto_, you
know."

"What! were you really present when that immortal declaration of the
independence of our class was read, Hans?"

"Aye, lad, I was present during all the ten days the congress lasted.
Never, never shall I forget how our Karl read that declaration. Like a
man inspired he was. I, who have heard Bernstein and Niemann and many
another great actor declaim the lines of famous classics, never heard
such wonderful declamation as his. We all sat spellbound and still as
death while he read. Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks, and not
mine alone. When he finished reading there was the wildest cheering. I
lost control of myself and kissed him on both cheeks, again and again.
He liked not that, for he was always ashamed to have a fuss made over
him.

"But Karl--he always insisted that I should call him 'Karl,' as in
boyhood days--had shown us that day his inner self; bared the secret
of his heart, you might say. The workers of all countries must
unite--only just that, unite! And that night, after the long session
of the congress, when he took me away with Engels and a few other
friends--I remember that Karl Pfander was one--he could speak of
little else: the workers must be united somehow, and whoever proposed
further divisions instead of unity must be treated as a traitor.

"Some there were who had not his patience. Few men have, my lad, for
his was the patience of a god. They wanted 'action,' 'action,'
'action,' and some of them pretended that Karl was just a plain
coward, afraid of action. There was one little delegate, a Frenchman,
who tried to get me to vote against the 'coward Marx'--me that had
known Karl since we were little shavers together, and that knew him to
be fearless and lion-hearted. I just picked the creature up and shook
him like a terrier shakes a rat and he squealed bitterly. I don't
think he called Karl a coward again during the congress.

"Of course, Karl had courage enough for anything. But he was too wise
to imagine that any good could come from a few thousand untrained
workingmen, armed with all sorts of implements, dangerous most to
themselves, challenging the trained hosts of capitalist troops. That
was the old idea of 'Revolution,' you know, and it took more courage
to advocate the long road of patience than it would take to join in a
silly riot. And Karl showed them that, too, by his calm look and
scornful treatment of their cry for 'action.' The way he silenced the
noisy followers of Wilhelm Weitling--who was not a bad fellow,
mind--was simply wonderful to see. Oh, he was a born leader of men,
was Karl.

"When the congress was all over, I meant to stay a few days in London
to see the great city. Barbara had a sister living over in Dean street
and so it would cost me nothing to stay. But Karl came to me and
begged me to go back by way of Brussels. He and Engels were returning
there at once, and would like to have me go with them. I didn't want
to go at first, but when Karl said that there were some messages he
wanted me to take back to Cologne, why, of course, I went.

"Ach, what a glorious time we had on that journey to Brussels!
Sometimes Karl and Engels would talk seriously about the great cause,
and I just listened and kept my mouth shut while my ears were wide
open. At other times they would throw off their seriousness as a man
throws off a coat, and then they would tell stories and sing songs,
and of course I joined in. People say--people that never knew the
real Karl--that he was gloomy and sad, that he couldn't smile. I
suppose that is because they never saw the simple Karl that I knew and
loved, but only Marx, the great leader and teacher, with a thousand
heavy problems burdening his mind. But the Marx that I knew--my friend
Karl--was human, boy, very human. He could sing a song, tell a good
story, and enjoy a joke, even at his own expense."

A smile lit up the face of the Young Comrade. "I'm so glad of that,
Hans," he said. "I've always been told that he was a sad man, without
a sense of humor; that he was never known to unbend from his stiff
gravity. But you say that he was not so; that he could laugh and joke
and sing: I like him better so."

Old Hans seemed not to hear the words of the Young Comrade, though he
was silent while they were spoken. A faint smile played around his
lips, and the far-away expression of his eyes told that the smile
belonged to the memory of other days. It was dark now in the little
shop; only the flickering light of the fitful fire in the tiny grate
enabled the Young Comrade to see his friend.

It was the Young Comrade who broke the silence at last: "Tell me more,
Hans, for I am still hungry to learn about him."

The old man nodded and turned to put some chips upon the fire in the
grate. Then he continued:

"It was about the last of February, 1848, that we got the first copies
of the _Communist Manifesto_ at Cologne. Only a day or two before that
we had news of the outbreak of the Revolution in Paris. I have still
my copy of the _Manifesto_ which Karl sent me from Paris.

"You see, he had been expelled from Brussels by order of the
Government. Prussia had requested this, so Karl wrote me, and he was
arrested and ordered to leave Belgium at once. So he went at once to
Paris. Only a week before that the Provisional Government had sent him
an official invitation to come back to the city from which Guizot had
expelled him. It was like a conqueror that he went, you may imagine.

"Boy, you can never understand what we felt in those days. Things are
not so any more. We all thought that the day of our victory was surely
nigh. Karl had made us believe that when things started in France the
proletariat of all Europe would awaken: 'When the Gallican cock crows
the German workers will rise,' he used to say. And now the cock's
crowing had been heard! The Revolution was successful in France--so we
thought--and the people were planting trees of liberty along the
boulevards.

"Here in England, too, the Spirit of the Revolution was abroad with
her flaming torch. The Chartists had come together, and every day we
expected to hear that the monarchy had been overthrown and a Social
Republic established. Of course, we knew that Chartism was a 'bread
and butter question' at the bottom, and that the Chartists' cause was
ours.

"Well, now that we had heard the Gallican cock, we wanted to get
things started in Germany, too. Every night we held meetings at the
club in Cologne to discuss the situation. Some of us wanted to begin
war at once. You see, the Revolution was in our blood like strong
wine: we were drunk with the spirit, lad.

"When Karl wrote that we must wait, that we must have patience, there
was great disappointment. We thought that we should begin at once, and
there were some who said that Karl was afraid, but I knew that they
were wrong, and told them so. There was a fierce discussion at the
meeting one night over a letter which I had received from Karl, and
which he wanted me to read to the members.

"George Herwegh was in Paris, so the letter said, and was trying hard
to raise a legion of German workingmen to march into the Fatherland
and begin the fight. This, Karl said, was a terrible mistake. It was
useless, to begin with, for what could such a legion of tailors and
cigarmakers and weavers do against the Prussian army? It was plain
that the legion would be annihilated. Besides, it would hurt the cause
in another way by taking out of Paris thousands of good revolutionists
who were needed there.

"'Tell the comrades,' he wrote, 'that it is not a question of
cowardice or fear, but of wisdom. It takes more courage to live for
the long struggle than to go out and be shot.' He wanted the comrades
to wait patiently and to do all they could to persuade their friends
in Paris not to follow Herwegh's advice. Most of the Germans in Paris
followed Karl's advice, but a few followed Herwegh and marched into
Baden later on, to be scattered by the regular troops as chaff is
scattered by the wind.

"The German comrades in Paris sent us a special manifesto, which Karl
wrote, and we were asked to distribute it among the working people.
That would be a good way to educate the workers, Karl wrote to our
committee, but I tell you it seemed a very small thing to do in those
trying times, and it didn't satisfy the comrades who were demanding
more radical revolutionary action. Why, even I seemed to forget Karl's
advice for a little while.

"On the 13th of March--you'll remember that was the day on which more
than a hundred thousand Chartists gathered on Kennington Common--the
revolution broke out in Vienna. Then things began to move in Cologne,
too. As soon as the news came from Vienna, August von Willich, who had
been an artillery officer, led a big mob right into the Cologne
Council Chamber. I was in the mob and shouted as loud as anybody. We
demanded that the authorities should send a petition to the King, in
the name of the city, demanding freedom and constitutional government.

"And then on the 18th, the same day that saw the people of Berlin
fighting behind barricades in the streets--a great multitude of us
Cologne men marched through the streets, led by Professor Gottfried
Kinkel, singing the _Marseillaise_ and carrying the forbidden flag of
revolution, the black, red and gold tricolor."

"And where was he--Marx--during all this time?" asked the Young
Comrade.

"In Paris with Engels. We thought it strange that he should be holding
aloof from the great struggle, and even I began to lose faith in him.
He had told us that the crowing of the Gallican cock would be the sign
for the revolution to begin, yet he was silent. It was not till later
that I learned from his own lips that he saw from the start that the
revolution would be crushed; that the workers opportunity would not
come until later.


IV

"He told me that when he came to Cologne with Engels. That was either
the last of April or the beginning of May, I forget which. My wife
rushed in one evening and said that she had seen Karl going up the
street. I had heard that he was expected, but thought it would not be
for several days. So when Barbara said that she had seen him on the
street, I put on my things in a big hurry and rushed off to the club.
There was a meeting that night, and I felt pretty sure that Karl would
get there.

[Illustration: FERDINAND LASSALLE.]

"When the meeting was more than half through, I heard a noise in the
back of the hall and turned to see Karl and Engels making their way to
the platform. There was another man with them, a young fellow, very
slender and about five feet six in height, handsome as Apollo and
dressed like a regular dandy. I had never seen this young man before,
but from what I had heard and read I knew that it must be Ferdinand
Lassalle.

"They both spoke at the meeting. Lassalle's speech was full of fire
and poetry, but Karl spoke very quietly and slowly. Lassalle was like
a great actor declaiming, Karl was like a teacher explaining the rules
of arithmetic to a lot of schoolboys."

"And did you meet Lassalle, too?" asked the Young Comrade in awed
tones.

"Aye, that night and many times after that. Karl greeted me warmly and
introduced me to Lassalle. Then we went out for a drink of lager
beer--just us four--Karl, Lassalle, Engels and me. They told me that
they had come to start another paper in the place of the one that had
been suppressed five years before. Money had been promised to start
it, Karl was to be the chief editor and Engels his assistant. The new
paper was to be called the _Neue Rhenische Zeitung_ and Freiligrath,
George Weerth, Lassalle, and many others, were to write for it. So we
drank a toast to the health and prosperity of the new paper.

"Well, the paper came out all right, and it was not long before Karl's
attacks upon the government brought trouble upon it. The middle class
stockholders felt that he was too radical, and when he took the part
of the French workers, after the terrible defeat of June, they wanted
to get rid of their chief editor. There was no taming a man like Karl.

"One day I went down to the office with a notice for a committee of
which I was a member, and Karl introduced me to Michael Bakunin, the
great Russian Anarchist leader. Karl never got along very well with
Bakunin and there was generally war going on between them.

"Did you ever hear of Robert Blum, my lad? Ever read the wonderful
verses Freiligrath wrote about him? I suppose not. Well, Blum was a
moderate Democrat, a sort of Liberal who belonged to the Frankfort
National Assembly. When the insurrection of October, 1848, broke out
in Vienna Blum was sent there by the National Assembly, the so-called
'parliament of the people.'

"He assumed command of the revolutionary forces and was captured and
taken prisoner by the Austrian army and ordered to be shot. I remember
well the night of the ninth of February when the atrocious deed was
committed. We had a great public meeting. The hall was crowded to
suffocation. I looked for Karl, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was
a very busy man, you see, and had to write a great deal for his paper
at night.

"It was getting on for ten o'clock when Karl appeared in the hall and
made his way in silence to the platform. Some of the comrades
applauded him, but he raised his hand to silence them. We saw then
that he held a telegram in his hand, and that his face was as pale as
death itself. We knew that something terrible had happened, and a
great hush fell over the meeting. Not a sound could be heard until
Karl began to read.

"The telegram was very brief and very terrible. Robert Blum had been
shot to death in Vienna, according to martial law, it said. Karl read
it with solemn voice, and I thought that I could see the murder taking
place right there in the hall before my eyes. I suppose everybody felt
just like that, for there was perfect silence--the kind of silence
that is painful--for a few seconds. Then we all broke out in a perfect
roar of fury and cheers for the Revolution.

"I tried to speak to Karl after the meeting, but he brushed me aside
and hurried away. His face was terrible to behold. He was the
Revolution itself in human shape. As I looked at him I knew that he
would live to avenge poor Blum.

"Blum's death was followed by the _coup de' etat_. The King appointed
a new ministry and the National Assembly was dissolved. The _Neue
Rhenische Zeitung_ came out then with a notice calling upon all
citizens to forcibly resist all attempts to collect taxes from them.
That meant war, of course, war to the knife, and we all knew it.

"Karl was arrested upon a charge of treason, inciting people to armed
resistance to the King's authority. We all feared that it would go
badly with him. There was another trial, too, Karl and Engels and a
comrade named Korff, manager of the paper, were placed on trial for
criminal libel. I went to this trial and heard Karl make the speech
for the defence. The galleries were crowded and when he got through
they applauded till the rafters shook. 'If Marx can make a speech like
that at the 'treason' trial, no jury will convict,' was what everybody
in the galleries said.

"When we got outside--oh, I forgot to say that the three defendants
were acquitted, didn't I? Well, when we got outside, I told Karl what
all the comrades, and many who were not comrades at all, were saying
about his defence. He was pleased to hear it, I believe, but all that
he would say was, 'I shall do much better than that, Hans, much better
than that. Unless I'm mistaken, I can make the public prosecutor look
like an idiot, Hans.'

"You can bet that I was at the 'treason' trial two days later. I
pressed Karl's hand as he went in, and he looked back and winked at me
as mischievously as possible, but said not a word. The lawyers for
the government bitterly attacked Karl and the two other members of the
executive of the Democratic Club who were arrested with him. But their
abuse was mostly for Karl. He was the one they were trying to strike
down, any fool could see that.

"Well, when the case for the prosecution was all in, Karl began to
talk to the jury. He didn't make a speech exactly, but just talked as
he always did when he sat with a few friends over a glass of lager. In
a chatty sort of way, he explained the law to the jury, showed where
the clever lawyers for the government had made big mistakes, and
proved that he knew the law better than they did. After that he gave
them a little political lecture, you might say. He explained to them
just how he looked at the political questions--always from the
standpoint of the working people.

"Sitting beside me was an old man, a Professor of Law they told me he
was. He sat there with his eyes fastened upon Karl, listening with all
his ears to every word. 'Splendid! Splendid! Wonderful logic,' I heard
him say to himself. 'What a lawyer that man would make!' I watched the
faces of the jury and it was plain to see that Karl was making a deep
impression upon them, though they were all middle class men. Even the
old judge forgot himself and nodded and smiled when Karl's logic made
the prosecution look foolish. You could see that the old judge was
admiring the wonderful mind of the man before him.

"Well, the three prisoners were acquitted by the jury and Karl was
greatly pleased when the jury sent one of their members over to say
that they had passed a vote of thanks to 'Doctor Marx' for the very
interesting and instructive lecture he had given them. I tell you,
boy, I was prouder than ever of Karl after that, and went straight
home and wrote letters to half a dozen people in Treves that I knew,
telling them all about Karl's great speech. You see, I knew that he
would never send word back there, and I wanted everybody in the old
town to know that Karl was making a great name in the world.

"The government got to be terribly afraid of Karl after that trial,
and when revolutionary outbreaks occurred all through the Rhine
Province, the following May, they suppressed the paper and expelled
Karl from Prussia.

"We had a meeting of the executive committee to consider what was to
be done. Karl said that he was going to Paris at once, and that his
wife and children would follow next day. Engels was going into the
Palatinate of Bavaria to fight in the ranks, with Annecke, Kinkel, and
Carl Schurz. All the debts in connection with the paper had been paid,
he told us, so that no dishonor could attach to its memory.

"It was not until afterward that we heard how the debts of the paper
had been paid. Karl had pawned all the silver things belonging to his
wife, and sold lots of furniture and things to get the money to pay
the debts. They were not his debts at all, and if they were his
expulsion would have been a very good reason for leaving the debts
unpaid. But he was not one of that kind. Honest as the sun, he was. It
was just like him to make the debts his own, and to pinch himself and
his family to pay them. More than once Karl and his family had to live
on dry bread in Cologne in order to keep the paper going. My Barbara
found out once in some way that Karl's wife and baby didn't have
enough to eat, and when she came home and told me we both cried
ourselves to sleep because of it."

"Could none of the comrades help them, Hans?"

"Ach, that was pretty hard, my boy, for Karl was very proud, and I
guess Jenny was prouder still. Barbara and I put our heads together
and says she: 'We must put some money in a letter and send it to him
somehow, in a way that he will never know where it came from, Hans.'
Karl knew my writing, but not Barbara's, so she wrote a little letter
and put in all the money she had saved up. 'This is from a loyal
comrade who knows that Doctor Marx and his family are in need of it,'
she wrote. Then we got a young comrade who was unknown to Karl and
Engels to deliver the letter to Karl just as he was leaving for his
office one morning.

"Barbara and I were very happy that day when we knew that Karl had
received the money, but bless your life I don't believe it did him any
good at all. He just gave it away."

"Gave away the money--that was giving away his children's
bread--almost. Did he do _that_?"

"Well, all I know is that I heard next day that Karl had visited that
same evening, a comrade who was sick and poor and in deep distress,
and that when he was leaving he had pressed money into the hand of the
comrade's wife, telling her to get some good food and wine for her
sick husband. And the amount of the money he gave her was exactly the
same as that we had sent to him in the morning.

"Karl was always so. He was the gentlest, kindest-hearted man I ever
knew in my life. He could suffer in silence himself, never
complaining, but he could not stand the sight of another's misery.
He'd stop anything he was doing and go out into the street to comfort
a crying child. Many and many a time have I seen him stop on the
street to watch the children at play, or to pick up some crying little
one in his great strong arms and comfort it against his breast. Never
could he keep pennies in his pocket; they all went to comfort the
children he met on the streets. Why, when he went to his office in the
mornings he would very often have from two to half a dozen children
clinging around him, strange children who had taken a fancy to him
because he smiled kindly at them and patted their heads.

"I heard nothing from Karl for quite a while after he went to Paris.
We wondered, Barbara and I, why he did not write. Then, one day,
about three months after he had gone to Paris, came a letter from
London and we saw at once that it was in his handwriting. He'd been
expelled from Paris again and compelled to leave the city within
twenty-four hours, and he and his family were staying in cheap
lodgings in Camberwell. He said that everything was going splendidly,
but never a word did he say about the terrible poverty and hardship
from which they were suffering.


V

"Well, a few months after that, I managed to get into trouble with the
authorities at Cologne, along with a few other comrades. We heard that
we were to be arrested and knew that we could expect no mercy. So
Barbara and I talked things over and we decided to clear out at once,
and go to London. We sold our few things to a good comrade, and with
the money made our way at once to join Barbara's sister in Dean
street. I never dreamed that we should find Karl living next door to
us.

"But we did. Nobody told me about him--I suppose that nobody in our
house knew who he was--but a few days after we arrived I saw him pass
and ran out and called to him. My, he looked so thin and worn out that
my heart ached! But he was glad to see me and grasped my hand with
both of his. Karl could shake hands in a way that made you feel he
loved you more than anybody else in all the world.

"In a little while he had told me enough for me to understand why he
was so pale and thin. If it were not for hurting his feelings, I
could have cried at the things he told me. He and the beautiful Jenny
without food sometimes, and no bed to lie upon! And it seemed all the
worse to me because I knew how well they had been reared, how they had
been used to solid comfort and even luxury.

"But it was not from Karl that I learned the worst. He was always
trying to hide the worst. Never did I hear of such a man as he was for
turning things bright side upwards. But Conrad Schramm, who was
related to Barbara--a sort of second cousin, I think--lodged in the
same house with us. Schramm was the closest friend Karl and Jenny had
in London then, and he told me things that made my heart bleed. Why,
when a little baby was born to them, soon after they came to London,
there was no money for a doctor, nor even to buy a cheap cradle for
the little thing.

"For years that poverty continued. I used to see Karl pretty near
every day until I fell and hurt my head and broke my leg in two places
and was kept in the hospital many months. Barbara had to go out to
work then, washing clothes for richer folks, and we couldn't offer to
help dear old Karl as we would. So we just pretended that we didn't
know anything about the poverty that was making him look so haggard
and old. Karl would have died from the worry, I believe, if it had not
been for the children. They kept him young and cheered him up. He
might not have had anything but dry bread to eat for days, but he
would come down the street laughing like a great big boy, a crowd of
children tugging at his coat and crying 'Daddy Marx! Daddy Marx!
Daddy Marx!' at the top of their little voices.

"He used to come and see me at the hospital sometimes. No matter how
tired and worried he might be--and I could tell that pretty well by
looking at his face when he didn't know that I was looking--he always
was cheerful with me. He wanted to cheer me up, you see, so he told me
all the encouraging news about the movement--though there wasn't very
much that was encouraging--and then he would crack jokes and tell
stories that made me laugh so loud that all the other patients in the
room would get to laughing too.

"I told him one day about a little German lad in a bed at the lower
end of the ward. Poor little chap, he had been operated on several
times, but there was no hope. He was bound to die, the nurse told me.
When I told Karl the tears came into his eyes and he kept on moaning,
'Poor little chap! So young! Poor little chap!' He went down and
talked with him for an hour or more, and I could hear the boy's
laughter ring through the long hospital ward. We'd never heard him
laugh before, for no one ever came to see him, poor lonesome little
fellow.

"Karl always used to spend some of his time with the little chap after
that. He would bring books and read to him in his mother tongue, or
tell him wonderful stories. The poor little chap was so happy to see
him and always used to kiss 'Uncle Nick,' as Karl taught the boy to
call him. And when the little fellow died, Karl wept just as though
the lad had been his own kin, and insisted upon following him to the
grave."

"Ah, that was great and noble, Hans! How he must have felt the great
universal heart-ache!"

"I used to go to the German Communist Club to hear Karl lecture. That
was years later, in the winter of 1856, I think. Karl had been staying
away from the club for three or four years. He was sick of their
faction fights, and disgusted with the hot-heads who were always
crying for violent revolution. I saw him very often during the time
that he kept away from the club, when Kinkel and Willich and other
romantic middle-class men held sway there. Karl would say to me: 'Bah!
It's all froth, Hans, every bit of it is froth. They cry out for
revolution because the words seem big and impressive, but they mustn't
be regarded seriously. Pop-gun revolutionists they are!'

"Well, as I was saying, I heard the lectures on political economy
which Karl gave at the club along in fifty-six and fifty-seven. He
lectured to us just as he talked to the juries, quietly and
slowly--like a teacher. Then he would ask us questions to find out how
much we knew, and the man who showed that he had not been listening
carefully got a scolding. Karl would look right at him and say: 'And
did you _really_ listen to the lecture, Comrade So-and-So?' A fine
teacher he was.

"I think that Karl's affairs improved a bit just them. Engels used to
help him, too. At any rate, he and his family moved out into the
suburbs and I did not see him so often. My family had grown large by
that time, and I had to drop agitation for a few years to feed and
clothe my little ones. But I used to visit Karl sometimes on Sundays,
and then we'd talk over all that had happened in connection with the
movement. I used to take him the best cigars I could get, and he
always relished them.

"For Karl was a great smoker. Nearly always he had a cigar in his
mouth, and, ugh!--what nasty things he had to smoke. We used to call
his cigars 'Marx's rope-ends,' and they were as bad as their name.
That the terrible things he had to smoke, because they were cheap,
injured his health there can be no doubt at all. I used to say that it
was helping the movement to take him a box of decent cigars, for it
was surely saving him from smoking old rope-ends.'

"Poor Jenny! She was so grateful whenever I brought Karl a box of
cigars. 'So long as he must smoke, friend Fritzsche, it is better that
he should have something decent to smoke. The cheap trash he smokes is
bad for him, I'm sure.' She knew, poor thing, that the poverty he
endured for the great Cause was killing Karl by inches, as you might
say. And I knew it, too, laddie, and it made my heart bleed."

"Ah, he was a martyr, Hans--a martyr to the cause of liberty. And 'the
blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,' always and
everywhere," said the Young Comrade.


VI

Old Hans was silent for a few seconds. He gazed at the photograph
above his bench like one enraptured. The Young Comrade kept silent,
too, watching old Hans. A curious smile played about the old man's
face. It was he who broke the silence at length.

"Of course, you've heard about the International, lad? Karl had that
picture taken just about the time that the International was started.
Always promised me a picture he had, for years and years. And when he
brought me that one Sunday he seemed half ashamed of himself, as if he
thought it was too sentimental a thing for a serious man to do.
'You'll soon get tired looking at it, Hans,' he said.

"Ach, I remember that afternoon as though it were only day before
yesterday. We were sitting smoking and talking after dinner when Karl
said: 'Hans, I've made up my mind that it is time things begun to move
a bit--in connection with the movement I mean. We must unite, Hans.
All the workers ought to unite--can unite--_must_ unite! We've got a
good start in the visit of these French and German workingmen to the
Universal Exhibition. The bourgeoisie have shown the way. It must be
done.' Then he explained to me how the movement was to be launched,
and I promised to help as much as possible in my union. Karl always
wanted to get the support of the unions, and many a time did he come
to me to get me to introduce some motion in my union.

"It was that way when the great Civil War broke out in America. Karl
was mad at the way in which Gladstone and the middle class in general
sided with the slave-holders of the South. You see, he not only took
the side of the slaves, but he loved President Lincoln. He seemed
never to get tired of praising Lincoln. One day he came to me and said
with that quiet manner he had when he was most in earnest, 'Hans, we
must do something to offset Gladstone's damned infernal support of
the slave-traders. We must show President Lincoln that the working
class in this country feel and know that he is in the right. And
Abraham Lincoln belongs to us, Hans; he's a son of the working class.'

"He said a lot more in praise of Lincoln, and told me how proud he was
that the German Socialists had gone to the war, all enlisted in the
Northern army; said he'd like to join with Weydemeyer, his old friend,
who was fighting under Fremont. So earnest he was about it! Nobody
could have guessed that the war meant ruin to him by cutting off his
only regular income, the five dollars a week he got for writing for
the _New York Tribune_--I think that was the name of the paper.

"Well, he begged me to get resolutions passed at our union condemning
Gladstone and supporting President Lincoln, and I believe that our
union was the first body of workingmen in England to pass such
resolutions. But Karl didn't stop at that. He got the International to
take the matter up with the different workingmen's societies, and
meetings were held all over the country. And he kept so much in the
background that very few people ever knew that it was Karl Marx who
turned the tide of opinion in England to the side of Lincoln. And when
Lincoln was murdered by that crazy actor, Booth, Karl actually cried.
He made a beautiful speech, and wrote resolutions which were adopted
at meetings all over the country. Ah, boy, Lincoln appreciated the
support we gave him in those awful days of the war, and Karl showed me
the reply Lincoln sent to the General Council thanking them for it.

"Karl was always like that; always guiding the working people to do
the right thing, and always letting other people get the credit and
the glory. He planned and directed all the meetings of the workers
demanding manhood suffrage, in 1866, but he never got the credit of
it. All for the cause, he was, and never cared for personal glory. For
years he gave all his time to the International and never got a penny
for all he did, though his enemies used to say that he was 'getting
rich out of the movement.'

"Ach, that used to make me mad--the way they lied about Karl. The
papers used to print stories about the 'Brimstone League,' a sort of
'inner circle' connected with the International, though we all knew
there was never such a thing in existence. Karl was accused of trying
to plan murders and bloody revolutions, the very thing he hated and
feared above everything else. Always fighting those who talked that
way, he was; said they were spies and hired agents of the enemy,
trying to bring the movement to ruin. Didn't he oppose Weitling and
Herwegh and Bakunin on that very ground?

"I was with Karl when Lassalle visited him, in 1862, and heard what he
said then about foolish attempts to start revolutions by the sword.
Lassalle had sent a Captain Schweigert to Karl a little while before
that with a letter, begging Karl to help the Captain raise the money
to buy a lot of guns for an insurrection. Karl had refused to have
anything to do with the scheme, and Lassalle was mad about it. 'Your
ways are too slow for me, my dear Marx,' he said. 'Why, it'll take a
whole generation to develop a political party of the proletariat
strong enough to do anything.'

"Karl smiled in that quiet way he had and said: 'Yes, it's slow
enough, friend Lassalle, slow enough. But we want brains for the
foundation of our revolution--brains, not powder. We must have
patience, lots of patience. Mushrooms grow up in a night and last only
a day; oaks take a hundred years to grow, but the wood lasts a
thousand years. And it's oaks we want, not mushrooms.'"

"How like Marx that was, Hans," said the Young Comrade then, "how
patient and far-seeing! And what did Lassalle think of that?"

"He never understood Karl, I think. Anyhow, Karl told me that Lassalle
ceased to be his friend after that meeting. There was no quarrel, you
understand, only Lassalle realized that he and Karl were far apart in
their views. 'Lassalle is a clever man all right,' Karl used to say,
'but he wants twelve o'clock at eleven, like an impatient child.' And
there's lots of folks like Lassalle in that respect, my lad; folks
that want oaks to grow in a night like mushrooms.

"Well, I stayed in the International until the very last, after the
Hague Congress when it was decided to make New York the headquarters.
That was a hard blow to me, lad. It looked to me as if Karl had made a
mistake. I felt that the International was practically killed when the
General Council was moved to America, and told Karl so. But he knew
that as well as I did, only he couldn't help himself.

"'Yes, Hans, I'm afraid you're right. The International can't amount
to much under the circumstances. But it had to be, Hans, it had to be.
My health is very poor, and I'm about done for, so far as fighting is
concerned. I simply can't keep on fighting Bakunin and his crowd,
Hans, and if I drop the fight the International will pass into
Bakunin's control. And I'd rather see the organization die in America
than live with Bakunin at the head; it's better so, better so, Hans.'
And it was then, when I heard him talk like that, and saw how
old-looking he had grown in a few months, that I knew we must soon
lose Karl."


VII

"But he did not die soon--he lived more than ten years after that,
Hans," said the Young Comrade. "And ten years is a good long time."

"Ach, ten years! But what sort of years were they? Tell me that,"
demanded old Hans with trembling voice. "Ten years of sickness and
misery--ten years of perdition, that's what they were, my lad! Didn't
I see him waste away like a plant whose roots are gnawed by the worms?
Didn't I see his frame shake to pieces almost when that cough took
hold of him? Aye, didn't I often think that I'd be glad to hear that
he was dead--glad for his own sake, to think that he was out of pain
at last?

"Yes, he lived ten years, but he was dying all the while. He must have
been in pain pretty nearly all the time, every minute an agony! 'Oh,
I'd put an end to it all, Hans, if I didn't have to finish _Capital_,'
he said to me once as we walked over Hampstead Heath, he leaning upon
my arm. 'It's Hell to suffer so, year after year, but I must finish
that book. Nothing I've ever done means so much as that to the
movement, and nobody else can do it. I must live for _that_, even
though every breath is an agony.'

"But he didn't live to finish his task, after all. It was left for
Engels to put the second and third volumes in shape. A mighty good
thing it was for the movement that there was an Engels to do it, I can
tell you. Nobody else could have done it. But Engels was like a twin
brother to Karl. Some of the comrades were a bit jealous sometimes,
and used to call Karl and Engels the 'Siamese twins,' but that made no
difference to anybody. If it hadn't been for Engels Karl wouldn't have
lived so long as he did, and half his work would never have been done.
I never got so close to the heart of Engels as I did to Karl, but I
loved him for Karl's sake, and because of the way he always stood by
Karl through thick and thin.

"I can't bear to tell about the last couple of years--how I used to
find Karl sick abed in one room and his wife, the lovely Jenny, in
another room tortured by cancer. Terrible it was, and I used to go
away from the house hoping that I might hear they were both dead and
out of their misery forever. Only Engels seemed to think that Karl
would get better. He got mad as a hatter when I said one day that Karl
couldn't live. But when Jenny died Engels said to me after the
funeral, 'It's all over with Marx now, friend Fritzsche; his life is
finished, too.' And I knew that Engels spoke the truth.

"And then Karl died. He died sitting in his arm chair, about three
o'clock in the afternoon of the fourteenth of March, 1883. I heard the
news that evening from Engels and went over to the house in
Maitland Park Road, and that night I saw him stretched out upon the
bed, the old familiar smile upon his lips. I couldn't say a word to
Engels or to poor Eleanor Marx--I could only press their hands in
silence and fight to keep back the sobs and tears.

[Illustration: THE MARX FAMILY GRAVE IN HIGHGATE CEMETERY.]

"And then on the Saturday, at noon, he was buried in Highgate
Cemetery, in the same grave with his wife. And while Engels was
speaking over the grave, telling what a wonderful philosopher Karl
was, my mind was wandering back over the years to Treves. Once more we
were boys playing together, or fighting because he would play with
little Jenny von Westphalen; once more I seemed to hear Karl telling
stories in the schoolyard as in the old days. Once again it seemed as
if we were back in the old town, marching through the streets shouting
out the verses Karl wrote about the old teacher, poor old Herr von
Holst.

"And then the scene changed and I was in Bingen with my Barbara,
laughing into the faces of Karl and his Jenny, and Karl was picking
the bits of rice from his pockets and laughing at the joke, while poor
Jenny blushed crimson. What Engels said at the grave I couldn't tell;
I didn't hear it at all, for my mind was far away. I could only think
of the living Karl, not of the corpse they were giving back to Mother
Earth.

"It seemed to me that the scene changed again, and we were back in
Cologne--Karl addressing the judge and jury, defending the working
class, I listening and applauding like mad. And then the good old
Lessner took my arm and led me away.

"Ah, lad, it was terrible, terrible, going home that afternoon and
thinking of Karl lying there in the cold ground. The sun could no
longer shine for me, and even Barbara and the little grandchild, our
Barbara's little Gretchen, couldn't cheer me. Karl was a great
philosopher, as Engels said there at the graveside, but he was a
greater man, a greater comrade and friend. They talk about putting up
a bronze monument somewhere to keep his memory fresh, but that would
be foolish. Little men's memories can be kept alive by bronze
monuments, but such men as Karl need no monuments. So long as the
great struggle for human liberty endures Karl's name will live in the
hearts of men.

"_Aye, and in the distant ages--when the struggle is over--when happy
men and women read with wondering hearts of the days of pain which we
endure--then Karl's name will still be remembered. Nobody will know
then that I, poor old Hans Fritzsche, went to school with Karl; that I
played with him--fought with him--loved him for nearly sixty years.
But no matter; they can never know Karl as I knew him._"

Tears ran down the old man's cheeks as he lapsed into silence once
more, and the Young Comrade gently pressed one of the withered and
knotted hands to his lips and went out into the night.

       *       *       *       *       *





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Marx He Knew" ***

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