Karl Marx: A Biography

LONDON *4 7

April 1855. Edgar, whom they had nicknamed 'Musch' or 'little fly' was
'very gifted, but ailing from the day of his birth - a genuine, true child
of sorrow this boy with the magnificent eyes and promising head that
was, however, made too large for the weak body'.^156 His final illness - a
sort of consumption - lasted all through March. By the beginning of
April it seemed to be fatal and Marx wrote on the sixth to Engels: 'Poor
Musch is no more. He went to sleep (literally) in my arms today between
five and six.' Liebknecht described the scene:

the mother silendy weeping, bent over the dead child, Lenchen sobbing

beside her, Marx in a terrible agitation vehemendy, almost angrily,

rejecting all consolation, the two girls clinging to their mother crying

quiedy, the mother clasping them convulsively as if to hold them and

defend them against Death that had robbed her of her boy.^157

In spite of a holiday in Manchester and the new prospects opened up by
Jenny's inheritance, the sorrow remained. At the end of July, Marx wrote
to Lassalle:

Bacon says that really important men have so many relations with

nature and the world that they recover easily from every loss. I do not

belong to these important men. The death of my child has deeply

shaken my heart and mind and I still feel the loss as freshly as on the

first day. My poor wife is also completely broken down.^158

Years later Marx still found a visit to the Soho area a shattering

experience.^159

Difficulties did not prevent Marx from holding what amounted to an

open house:

You are received in the most friendly way [wrote one visitor] and

cordially offered pipes and tobacco and whatever else there may happen

to be; and eventually a spirited and agreeable conversation arises to

make amends for all the domestic deficiencies, and this makes the

discomfort tolerable. Finally you grow accustomed to the company, and

find it interesting and original.^160

No relations of either family seem to have come to the rooms in Dean

Street - with the exception of Marx's sister Louise together with the

Dutchman she had just married in Trier. But there was a constant stream

of other visitors; Harney and his wife, Ernest Jones, Freiligrath and his

wife, and Wilhelm Wolff were all regular visitors. The most frequent was

a group of young men whose company Marx liked and encouraged. One

of this group was Ernst Dronke, a founder-member of the Communist

League who had also worked on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung-, he occasion-

ally helped Marx with his secretarial work, but later went into commerce