*296 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHYmuch increased particularly with the elder children going to school - a
'ladies seminary'^125 - and having private lessons in French, Italian, drawing
and music. A piano, too, had to be rented. From 1857 there was a second
servant, Helene Demuth's younger sister, Marianne, who stayed until her
death in 1862. Marx was as resolved as ever 'to pursue my aim through
thick and thin and not let bourgeois society turn me into a money-
making machine',^124 but was often rather naively surprised at the financial
difficulties that his attitude entailed. In 1859 he hoped to double his
revenue by an offer that Lassalle had negotiated on his behalf to write
for the Wiener Presse and announced to Engels that he would bother him
no more for money. Jenny - who was always much more hard-headed
about money - warned him that he could count on £ 2 a week maximum
and should not believe Engels with his airy talk of £10. The following
September his affairs were in a crisis. Engels, who was being prosecuted
for assaulting someone in a pub with his umbrella, had to find about £5 0
to settle the case and Marx turned to Lassalle, assuring him that he would
be able to recoup from the royalties of the Critique of Political Economy.
At the end of the year things were so bad that Jenny had to write secretly
to her brother Ferdinand, with whom she had kept on fairly friendly
terms, though all she gained was a feeling that she had compromised her
principles as he refused her request, saying that he had only his pension
to live on. The year i86 0 was slightly better, as Engels' financial position
was improving and he was able to sent Marx £10 0 in a lump sum. But a
lot of money went on the quarrel with Karl Vogt and by the end of the
year Engels was having to borrow money to bail Marx out, though his
own income was diminished by the American Civil War.
In February 1861 Marx decided, on his way to see Lassalle in Berlin,
to visit his uncle in Holland and try to anticipate his inheritance. This
trip was preceded by two weeks in which Marx spent his whole time in
avoiding 'the complete break up of the house'.^125 He could only keep
sane by reading in the evenings Appian on the Roman Civil War. His
favourite figure was Spartacus, 'the finest fellow produced by the whole
of classical history... a real representative of the ancient proletariat'.
This admiration was matched by a complete contempt for Pompey, 'a
pure louse of a man', into whose character Shakespeare in Love's Labour's
Lost had some real insights.^126 By the summer the £16 0 that he had got
from his uncle was gone. He felt the situation to be 'in every respect
unsettled' and was reading Thucydides to shake off his ill humour. 'At
least these ancients remain for ever new', he remarked to Lassalle.^127 In
the autumn he renewed his correspondence with the New York Daily
Tribune and at last obtained terms that enabled him to start writing for
the Wiener Presse. This work for New York and Vienna would give him