3 i 8 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
wrote to Engels, 'my wife had to take to the pawn-brokers everything
that was not actually nailed down.'^108 It was all the more galling, there-
fore, that Lassalle had just thrown away almost £10 0 in speculation and
to see him spend more than £i daily just on cabs and cigars. Marx was
even more riled when Lassalle offered to obtain the protection of a
London Jewish banker for him and take one of his daughters as
a 'companion' to the countess. Marx wanted nothing more than to get
on with his 'Economics', but Lassalle coolly assumed that since the lack
of a market for his articles meant that he had 'no job' and was only doing
'theoretical' work, then Marx had all the time in the world to kill with
him.^109 As annoying as Lassalle's flamboyant display of wealth was his
boastfulness. In Marx's view he had changed much since the previous year
in Berlin. Lassalle's success had turned his head and 'he is now not only
confirmed as the greatest scholar, profoundest thinker, a genius in
research, etc.; he is also Don Juan and a revolutionary Cardinal Richelieu.
And there is also his continual chatter in an unnatural falsetto voice, his
ugly demonstrative gestures and didactic tone.'^110 And it must indeed have
been difficult for Marx to tolerate long the company of a man who could,
with complete self-assurance, begin a speech with the words: 'Working
men! Before I leave for the Spas of Switzerland ..After three weeks
of this Marx gave vent to his pent-up frustration in a letter to Engels: 'It
is now quite clear to me that, as shown by the shape of his head and the
growth of his hair, that he is descended from the negroes who joined
the flight of Moses from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on
his father's side were crossed with a nigger). This union of Jew and
German on a negro foundation was bound to produce something out of
the ordinary. The importunity of the fellow is also negroid.'^112 Jenny's
comment on Lassalle's visit is also worth quoting as her touch is a little
lighter than Marx's:
In July 1862 we had a visit from Ferdinand Lassalle. He was almost
crushed under the weight of the fame he had achieved as a scholar,
thinker, poet and politician. The laurel wreath was fresh on his Olym-
pian brow and ambrosian head or rather on his stiff bristling Negro
hair. He had just victoriously ended the Italian campaign - a new
political coup was being contrived by the great man of action - and
fierce battles were going on in his soul. There were still fields of science
that he had not explored! Egyptology lay fallow: 'Should I astonish the
world as an Egyptologist or show my versatility as a man of action, as
a politician, as a fighter, or as a soldier?' It was a splendid dilemma.
He wavered between the thoughts and sentiments of his heart and often
expressed that struggle in really stentorian accents. As on the wings of
the wind he swept through our rooms, perorating so loudly, gesticulat-