KARL MARX

THE 'ECONOMICS' 299
nation. The children had to go and stay with the Liebknechts for several
weeks - they would not go to a boarding school 'because of the religious
rites'. 137 Marx hired a nurse to look after Jenny, who had lost the use of
her senses. She wrote later: 'I lay constantly by the open window so that
the cold November air would blow over me, while there was a raging
fire in the stove and burning ice on my lips, and I was given drops of
claret from time to time. I could hardly swallow, my hearing was getting
weaker, and finally my eyes closed, so that I did not know whether I
would remain enveloped in eternal night.' 138 In these circumstances Marx
could only preserve his 'quietness of mind' by absorbing himself in the
study of mathematics.
Eventually the crisis passed and by Christmas the children were allowed
back in the house. But the illness had after-effects: Jenny remained fairly
deaf and her skin was marked with red pocks that took a long time to
heal. In March of the following year she wrote to Louise Weydemeyer
that before her illness she 'had had no grey hair and my teeth and figure
were good, and therefore people used to class me among well-preserved
women. But that was all a thing of the past now and I seemed to myself
now a kind of cross between a rhinoceros and hippopotamus whose place
was in the zoo rather than among the members of the Caucasian race.' 139
Her nervous state also continued to frighten the doctor particularly in
times of financial trouble.
Marx found that his financial difficulties and Jenny's increasing irritability
made family life very difficult. By the end of December 1857 when
he was well into the Grundrisse, Jenny reported the return of his 'freshness
and cheerfulness' 140 which he had lost with the death of Edgar. But two
months later he declared to Engels: 'There is no greater stupidity than
for people of general aspirations to marry and so surrender themselves
to the small miseries of domestic and private life.' 141 The life in Grafton
Terrace was a very isolated one, with only the Freiligraths as close friends
and very few family visitors, and Marx felt that Engels was the only
person he could talk to frankly as at home he had to play the role of a
silent stoic. This was necessary to combat Jenny's increasing pessimism.
Marx's own health was seriously suffering: he continually complained to
Engels that his liver bothered him for weeks on end (his father had died
from a liver complaint) and he consumed enormous quantities of medicine
to heal the toothache, headaches and disorders of his eyes and nerves.
The boils were to follow shortly.
After Jenny's illness domestic troubles were aggravated. Marx tried to
keep bad news from Jenny as 'such news always induces a sort of paroxysm'.
142 The year 1862 he could only wish to the devil since 'such a lousy
life is not worth while living'. 143 Jenny's feelings were much the same: