SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY^211tine exaggerations, sentimental coquetry, garish tints, word painting,
theatrical, sublime - in a word, a mish-mash of lies never before achieved
in form and content'.^50 Gumpert detected a swollen liver and strongly
advised Marx to take the Carlsbad cure. Harrogate certainly brought no
relief; even the carbuncles returned in the winter, Marx was still plagued
by insomnia and unable to do any serious writing or work - a situation
he described as 'a judgement of death on any man who is not a beast'.^51
In April 1874 he was in Ramsgate for three weeks and in July visited the
Isle of Wight, whose inhabitants amazed him by their religiosity. He had
to leave the Isle of Wight to look after Eleanor, whose nerves had once
again brought her to a state of collapse, and to attend the funeral of his
grandson Charles who had lived a little less than a year. Thus Marx was
temporarily left without grandchildren - the four born so far all having
died in infancy.
At the end of June 1874 Marx finally decided to take Gumpert's advice
and go to Carlsbad, the fashionable spa built on the steeply sloping banks
of the river Egen in Bohemia (now in the west of the Czech Republic).
As early as 1869 Kugelmann had tried to persuade Marx to go there with
bis daughter Jenny, and Marx had flatly rejected the place as 'boring and
expensive'.^52 Now, with more money and less health, he decided to go
and took Eleanor with him. The trip was arranged by Kugelmann who
booked them rooms at the Germania, one of the more modest hotels.
I 'he entry in the official list of visitors reads: 'Herr Charles Marx, private
gentleman, with his daughter Eleanor, from London.' As a private person,
Marx had to pay double bath tax, but hoped that the self-description
would 'avoid the suspicion that I am the notorious Karl Marx'.^55 In
anticipation of difficulties with the police Marx had applied for naturalis-
ation as a British subject before his departure. At the beginning of August,
his solicitor had forwarded the application to the Home Office together
with the necessary references from four respectable householders. The
I lome Office, however, rejected his request and refused to give a reason
when pressed. In fact, the information passed from Scotland Yard to the
I lome Office was that the applicant was 'the notorious German agitator'
and 'had not been loyal to his own King and Country'.^54 Nor did Marx
escape constant police surveillance in Carlsbad, though it was merely
reported that his conduct 'did not give rise to any suspicion'.^55
Marx took his cure very seriously and let himself be turned, as he put
it, into a sort of machine. He would be up at 5.3 0 at the latest and travel
round six different springs drinking a glass of water at each at fifteen-
minute intervals. After a breakfast of special medicinal bread, there would
be an hour's walk and mid-morning coffee in one of the cafes outside the
town. Then a further walking tour among the surrounding hills, then