The Marx He Knew | Page 2

and wanted everything to go their way, and I liked not that
girls should boss boys. So once I teased him about it--told him that he
was a baby to play with girls. Then it was that we fought and he gave
me a black eye and I gave him a bloody nose in return.
"Sometimes the Old Man, Karl's father, would come into my father's
shop and stay a long while chatting. He was a lawyer and father only a
shoemaker; he was quite rich, while father was poor, terribly poor. But
it made no difference to Herr Marx. He would chat with father by the
hour.
"You see, he was born a Jew, but--before Karl was born--he turned
Christian. Father had done the same thing, years before I was born.
Why he did it father would never tell me, but once I heard him and
Heinrich Marx--that was the name of Karl's father--talking about it, so I
got a pretty good idea of the reason.
"'Of course, I am not a believer in the Christian doctrines, friend
Wilhelm.' he said to my father. 'I don't believe that Jesus was God, nor
that he was a Messiah from God. But I do believe in a God--in one God
and no more.
"'And I'm not so dishonorable as to have become a Christian, and to
have had my children baptized as Christians, simply to help me in my
profession,' he said. 'Some of our Hebrew friends have said that, but it
is not true at all. As I see it, friend Wilhelm, Judaism is too narrow, too
conservative. Christianity makes for breadth, for culture, for freedom.
And it is keeping to ourselves, a people set apart, which makes us Jews
hated and despised, strangers in the land. To become one with all our
fellow citizens, to break down the walls of separation, is what we need
to aim at. That is why I forsook Judaism, Wilhelm.'
"From the way that father nodded his head and smiled I could tell,
though he said little, that he was the same sort of a Christian."

"But it was about him, the son, that you were speaking, Hans."
"Ach, be patient. Time is more plentiful than money, boy," responded
Hans, somewhat testily.
"Well, of course, we went to the same school, and though Karl was
younger than me we were in the same class. Such a bright, clever
fellow he was! Always through with his lessons before any of the rest
of us, he was, and always at the top of the class. And the stories he
could tell, lad! Never did I hear such stories. In the playground before
school opened we used to get around him and make him tell stories till
our hair stood on end."
"And was his temper cheerful and good--was he well liked?" asked the
Young Comrade.
"Liked? He was the favorite of the whole school, teachers and all, my
boy. Never was he bad tempered or mean. Nobody ever knew Karl to
do a bad thing. But he was full of mischief and good-hearted fun. He
loved to play tricks upon other boys, and sometimes upon the teachers,
too.
"He could write the funniest verses about people you ever heard in your
life, and sometimes all the boys and girls in the school would be
shouting his rhymes as they went through the streets. If another boy did
anything to him, Karl would write some verses that made the fellow
look like a fool, and we would all recite them just to see the poor fellow
get mad. Such fun we had then. But, I tell you, we were awfully afraid
of Karl's pin-pricking verses!
"Once, I remember well, we had a bad-tempered old teacher. He was a
crabbed old fellow, and all the boys got to hate him. Always using the
rod, he was. Karl said to me one day as we were going home from
school: 'The crooked old sinner! I'll make him wince with some verses
before long, Hans,' and then we both laughed till we were sore."
"And did he write the verses?" asked the Young Comrade.

"Write them? I should say he did! You didn't know Karl, or you would
never ask such a question as that. Next morning, when we got in school,
Karl handed around a few copies of his poem about old Herr von Holst,
and pretty soon we were all tittering. The whole room was in a
commotion.
"Of course, the teacher soon found out what was wrong and Karl was
called outside and asked to explain about them. 'I'm a poet, Herr
teacher,' he said, 'and have a poet's license. You must not ask a poet to
explain.' Of course, we all laughed at that, and the poor Herr