KARL MARX

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208 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
in Chelsea. The rent was high (about £6 a month 2 ) but their own meagre
resources were supplemented by money from Jenny's mother, and they
managed for the time being. 'On 5 November,' Jenny wrote in her
memoirs, 'while the people outside were shouting "Guy Fawkes for ever"
and small masked boys were riding the streets on cleverly-made donkeys
and all was in an uproar, my poor little Heinrich was born. We call
him Little Fawkes in honour of the great conspirator." Thus, as Weerth
remarked, Marx had four nations in his family, each of his children having
been born in a different country.
The Marx family soon moved from the Chelsea flat. When they had
been there scarcely more than six months, trouble with their landlady
and a lack of ready cash caused their summary eviction. Jenny related
what happened shortly afterwards in a letter to Weydemeyer:
I shall describe to you just one day of that life, exactly as it was, and
you will see that few emigrants, perhaps, have gone through anything
like it. As wet-nurses here are too expensive I decided to feed my child
myself in spite of continual terrible pains in the breast and back. But
the poor little angel drank in so much worry and hushed-up anxiety
that he was always poorly and suffered horribly day and night. Since
he came into the world he has not slept a single night, two or three
hours at the most and that rarely. Recently he has had violent convulsions,
too, and has always been between life and death. In his pain
he sucked so hard that my breast was chafed and the skin cracked and
the blood often poured into his trembling little mouth. I was sitting
with him like that one day when our landlady came in. We had paid
her 250 thalers during the winter and had an agreement to give the
money in the future not to her but to her own landlord, who had a
bailiffs warrant against her. She denied the agreement and demanded
five pounds that we still owed her. As we did not have the money at
the time (Naut's letter did not arrive until later) two bailiffs came and
sequestrated all my few possessions - linen, beds, clothes - everything,
even my poor child's cradle and the best toys of my daughters, who
stood there weeping bitterly. They threatened to take everything away
in two hours. I would then have to lie on the bare floor with my
freezing children and my bad breast. Our friend Schramm hurried to
town to get help for us. He got into a cab, but the horses bolted and
he jumped out and was brought bleeding back to the house, where I
was wailing with my poor shivering children.
We had to leave the house the next day. It was cold, rainy and dull.
My husband looked for accommodation for us. When he mentioned
the four children nobody would take us in. Finally a friend helped us,
we paid our rent and I hastily sold all my beds to pay the chemist, the
baker, the butcher and the milkman who, alarmed at the sight of
the sequestration, suddenly besieged me with their bills. The beds