Karl Marx: A Biography

THE 'ECONOMICS' 297

enough to live on, he considered, but his debts still amounted to £100.
'It is astonishing', he remarked naively to Engels, 'how lack of income
together with debts that are never completely cleared blows up the old
shit in spite of all assistance in minor matters."^28
The year 1862 marked the nadir of Marx's fortunes. He had to pretend
not to have returned from a trip to Manchester in order to avoid creditors,
and Jenny even tried to sell his books. In such circumstances Lassalle's
visit in July could only be excruciating. Lassalle had come to the rescue
with £6 0 but by the autumn Marx was thinking of taking a job in a
railway office. He went as far as getting an interview but was turned
down owing to his appalling handwriting.^129 In January 1863 he wrote to
Kngels that the recent trouble had

at last brought my wife to agree to a suggestion that I made a long

time ago and which, with all its inconveniences, is not only the sole

solution, but is also preferable to the life of the last three years, and

particularly the last, as well as restoring our self-esteem.

I will write to all my creditors (with the exception of the landlord)

and say that, if they do not leave me in peace I will declare myself

bankrupt.... My two eldest daughters will get positions as governesses

through the Cunningham family. Lenchen will enter another service

and I, with my wife and Tussy, will go and live in the same City Model

Lodging House in which red Wolff and his family lived previously.^130

It is not clear how serious Marx really was, but Engels read the letter as
a cry for help and responded immediately by borrowing £10 0 at great
risk to himself. Marx still had to go off to the British Museum to avoid
his creditors, but in the summer Ernst Dronke lent Engels £25 0 for Marx,
which lasted until December when he received the telegram that presaged
substantial relief: his mother was dead.
Borrowing the money from Engels, Marx rushed to Trier, but the
administrative measures concerning the execution of the will took so long
that Marx left to visit his uncle in Zaltbommel. During the week he spent
in Trier, he wrote to Jenny, he went back to the old house of the
Westphalens 'that was of more interest to me than all the Roman antiqui-
ties because it reminds me of the happiest time of my youth and housed
my greatest treasure. Moreover, I was asked daily, left and right, after the
former "prettiest girl in Trier" and the "queen of the ball". It is damned
pleasant for a man when his wife lives on like that in the imagination of
a whole city as an "enchanted princess"."" Most of the money (of which
Marx's share was about £1000) was in the hands of Marx's uncle who was
the executor of the will as well as being his chief creditor. Here also the
legal processes were long but Marx only had time to visit two of his aunts