38 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
who had been lecturing in theology at the university since 1834 and was
to be Marx's closest friend for the next four years.'^01 One of his contem-
poraries described him as follows: 'His pointed nose, with sharp bone,
|uts out boldly, his forehead is high and domed, and his mouth delicately
shaped; his figure is almost Napoleonic. He is a very decided man who,
under a cold exterior, burns with an inner fire. He will not brook any
opposition and will sooner be a martyr to his own convictions.'^102 Bauer's
special field was New Testament criticism where he made a lasting contri-
bution.
Marx himself seems to have been a lively and central figure in the
club. Edgar Bauer (Bruno's brother) gave the following description of
Marx in a satirical poem on club members:
But who advances here full of impetuosity?
It is a dark form from Trier, an unleashed monster,
With self-assured step he hammers the ground with his heels
And raises his arms in full fury to heaven
As though he wished to seize the celestial vault and lower it to earth.
In rage he continually deals with his redoubtable fist,
As if a thousand devils were gripping his hair.^103
Koppen called his friend 'a true arsenal of thoughts, a veritable factory
of ideas' and remarked that Bruno Bauer's The Christian State in our Time
- the first directly political article of the Young Hegelians - drew largely
on Marx's ideas.^104 Meanwhile his life-style, which was in keeping with
the studied bohemianism of the Doctors' Club, led Marx to become
more and more estranged from his family. While his mother merely
recommended moderation in his consumption of wine, coffee and pepper,
the long 'confession' of November 1837 prompted a very tart reply from
his father:
Alas, your conduct has consisted merely in disorder, meandering in all
the fields of knowledge, musty traditions by sombre lamplight; degener-
ation in a learned dressing gown with uncombed hair has replaced
degeneration with a beer glass. And a shirking unsociability and a
refusal of all conventions and even all respect for your father. Your
intercourse with the world is limited to your sordid room, where per-
haps lie abandoned in the classical disorder the love letters of a Jenny
and the tear-stained counsels of your father. .. And do you think that
here in this workshop of senseless and aimless learning you can ripen
the fruits to bring you and your loved one happiness? ... As though
we were made of gold my gentleman-son disposes of almost 700 thalers
111 a single year, in contravention of every agreement and every usage,
whereas the richest spend no more than 500.^105
