LONDON 237III. LIFE IN DEAN STREETA hasty reading of Marx's correspondence gives the impression that Marx's
family difficulties were largely due to their living in the most grinding
poverty; and Marx's own descriptions of his lack of funds appears to bear
this out. The year 1852 seems to have been the worst. In February:
'Already for a week I have been in the pleasant position of not going out
because my coat is in the pawnshop and of not being able to eat meat
because of lack of credit."^14 In the same month Jenny wrote: 'Everything
hangs on a hair, and 10/- at the right time can often obviate a terrible
situation.'^115 In April Marx had to borrow money to bury his daughter.
In September he gave a detailed description of the situation:
My wife is ill, little Jenny is ill, Lenchen has a sort of nervous fever, I
cannot and could not call the doctor because I have no money for
medicine. For 8-1 0 days I have fed the family on bread and potatoes
of which it is still questionable whether I can rustle up any today.
Naturally this diet was not recommended in the present climatic con-
ditions. I did not write any articles for Dana, because I did not have
the penny to go and read newspapers....
I had put off until the beginning of September all the creditors who,
as you know, are only paid off in small sums. Now there is a general
storm.
I have tried everything, but in vain. ...
The best and most desirable thing that could happen would be that
the landlady throw me out of the house. At least I would then be quit
of the sum of £22. But I can scarcely trust her to be so obliging. Also
baker, milkman, the man with the tea, greengrocer, old butcher's bills.
How can I get clear of all this hellish muck? Finally in the last 8-1 0
days, I have borrowed some shillings and pence (this is the most fatal
thing, but it was necessary to avoid perishing) from layabouts.^116In October, Marx had once more to pawn his coat in order to buy paper,
and in December he wrote, in a letter to Cluss accompanying his Revel-
ations concerning the Cologne Communist Trial-. 'You will be able to appreciate
the humour of the book when you consider that its author, through lack
of sufficient covering for his back and feet, is as good as interned and also
was and is threatened with seeing really nauseating poverty overwhelm his
family at any moment.'^117
The next year complaints were not so numerous, but still 'several
valuable things must be renewed in the pawnshop if they are not to be
forfeit and this is naturally not possible at a time when even the means
for the most necessary things are not there'.^118 And in October: 'The