Page:Karl Kautsky - Frederick Engels - 1899.djvu/3



On the 6th of August, 1895, the International body of laborers was shocked to receive the news from London that on Monday, August the 5th, at half-past eleven in the evening, Frederick Engels, who had been unconscious since noon, passed away without a struggle. Only his nearest friends were aware that since March of the same year a cancer in the esophagus had been gradually spreading until it at last seized and throttled him. Even these did not think that death was so near—but three days before Comrade Dr. Adler had been with him—so it happened that only his oldest friend, Edward Bernstein, was present at his deathbed.

Two months before Engels, who was otherwise feeling well and in good spirits, went to Eastbourne, on the seashore, where he was accustomed to rest during the summer. The symptoms of his disease grew worse while there and he returned to London to die.

Shortly before his death a friend wrote to the "Vorwaerts":

"I cannot give you favorable news. Engels has returned to London in much worse condition. Two weeks ago he was still able to speak, and talked cheerfully for half an hour at a time. This has ceased. He can now only make himself understood by means of writing. Otherwise he is in good spirits, and apparantly does not suspect how seriously ill he is, although the characteristic symptoms of his disease cannot escape a carefully trained observer. He says jokingly that his age is a defense, and writes many a joke upon his slate. In short, he is wholly unchanged in spirit, though bodily he is very low. He can now take only liquid nourishment. At present he cannot even dress or undress without assistance, and before many days he will no longer need our help."

Not since twelve years before, when, on the 14th of March, 1883, word came that Karl Marx was dead, had the class