“It was in the winter of 1847 that I saw him again, in London.  For months all the workingmen’s societies had been agitated over the question of forming an international association with a regular programme, which Karl had been invited to draw up.  A congress was to be held in London for the purpose of considering Karl’s programme and I was sent by the Cologne comrades as a delegate.  All the members ‘chipped in’ to pay my expenses, and I was very happy to go ­happy because I should see him again.

“So I was present at the rooms of the Arbeiterbildungsverein, in Great Windmill Street, when Karl read the declaration of principles and programme he had prepared.  That was the Communist Manifesto, you know.”

“What! were you really present when that immortal declaration of the independence of our class was read, Hans?”

“Aye, lad, I was present during all the ten days the congress lasted.  Never, never shall I forget how our Karl read that declaration.  Like a man inspired he was.  I, who have heard Bernstein and Niemann and many another great actor declaim the lines of famous classics, never heard such wonderful declamation as his.  We all sat spellbound and still as death while he read.  Tears of joy trickled down my cheeks, and not mine alone.  When he finished reading there was the wildest cheering.  I lost control of myself and kissed him on both cheeks, again and again.  He liked not that, for he was always ashamed to have a fuss made over him.

“But Karl ­he always insisted that I should call him ‘Karl,’ as in boyhood days ­had shown us that day his inner self; bared the secret of his heart, you might say.  The workers of all countries must unite ­only just that, unite!  And that night, after the long session of the congress, when he took me away with Engels and a few other friends ­I remember that Karl Pfander was one ­he could speak of little else:  the workers must be united somehow, and whoever proposed further divisions instead of unity must be treated as a traitor.

“Some there were who had not his patience.  Few men have, my lad, for his was the patience of a god.  They wanted ‘action,’ ‘action,’ ‘action,’ and some of them pretended that Karl was just a plain coward, afraid of action.  There was one little delegate, a Frenchman, who tried to get me to vote against the ’coward Marx’ ­me that had known Karl since we were little shavers together, and that knew him to be fearless and lion-hearted.  I just picked the creature up and shook him like a terrier shakes a rat and he squealed bitterly.  I don’t think he called Karl a coward again during the congress.

“Of course, Karl had courage enough for anything.  But he was too wise to imagine that any good could come from a few thousand untrained workingmen, armed with all sorts of implements, dangerous most to themselves, challenging the trained hosts of capitalist troops.  That was the old idea of ‘Revolution,’ you know, and it took more courage to advocate the long road of patience than it would take to join in a silly riot.  And Karl showed them that, too, by his calm look and scornful treatment of their cry for ‘action.’  The way he silenced the noisy followers of Wilhelm Weitling ­who was not a bad fellow, mind ­was simply wonderful to see.  Oh, he was a born leader of men, was Karl.

“When the congress was all over, I meant to stay a few days in London to see the great city.  Barbara had a sister living over in Dean street and so it would cost me nothing to stay.  But Karl came to me and begged me to go back by way of Brussels.  He and Engels were returning there at once, and would like to have me go with them.  I didn’t want to go at first, but when Karl said that there were some messages he wanted me to take back to Cologne, why, of course, I went.

“Ach, what a glorious time we had on that journey to Brussels!  Sometimes Karl and Engels would talk seriously about the great cause, and I just listened and kept my mouth shut while my ears were wide open.  At other times they would throw off their seriousness as a man throws off a coat, and then they would tell stories and sing songs, and of course I joined in.  People say ­people that never knew the real Karl ­that he was gloomy and sad, that he couldn’t smile.  I suppose that is because they never saw the simple Karl that I knew and loved, but only Marx, the great leader and teacher, with a thousand heavy problems burdening his mind.  But the Marx that I knew ­my friend Karl ­was human, boy, very human.  He could sing a song, tell a good story, and enjoy a joke, even at his own expense.”

A smile lit up the face of the Young Comrade.  “I’m so glad of that, Hans,” he said.  “I’ve always been told that he was a sad man, without a sense of humor; that he was never known to unbend from his stiff gravity.  But you say that he was not so; that he could laugh and joke and sing:  I like him better so.”

Old Hans seemed not to hear the words of the Young Comrade, though he was silent while they were spoken.  A faint smile played around his lips, and the far-away expression of his eyes told that the smile belonged to the memory of other days.  It was dark now in the little shop; only the flickering light of the fitful fire in the tiny grate enabled the Young Comrade to see his friend.

It was the Young Comrade who broke the silence at last:  “Tell me more, Hans, for I am still hungry to learn about him.”

The old man nodded and turned to put some chips upon the fire in the grate.  Then he continued: 

“It was about the last of February, 1848, that we got the first copies of the Communist Manifesto at Cologne.  Only a day or two before that we had news of the outbreak of the Revolution in Paris.  I have still my copy of the Manifesto which Karl sent me from Paris.

“You see, he had been expelled from Brussels by order of the Government.  Prussia had requested this, so Karl wrote me, and he was arrested and ordered to leave Belgium at once.  So he went at once to Paris.  Only a week before that the Provisional Government had sent him an official invitation to come back to the city from which Guizot had expelled him.  It was like a conqueror that he went, you may imagine.

“Boy, you can never understand what we felt in those days.  Things are not so any more.  We all thought that the day of our victory was surely nigh.  Karl had made us believe that when things started in France the proletariat of all Europe would awaken:  ’When the Gallican cock crows the German workers will rise,’ he used to say.  And now the cock’s crowing had been heard!  The Revolution was successful in France ­so we thought ­and the people were planting trees of liberty along the boulevards.

“Here in England, too, the Spirit of the Revolution was abroad with her flaming torch.  The Chartists had come together, and every day we expected to hear that the monarchy had been overthrown and a Social Republic established.  Of course, we knew that Chartism was a ’bread and butter question’ at the bottom, and that the Chartists’ cause was ours.

“Well, now that we had heard the Gallican cock, we wanted to get things started in Germany, too.  Every night we held meetings at the club in Cologne to discuss the situation.  Some of us wanted to begin war at once.  You see, the Revolution was in our blood like strong wine:  we were drunk with the spirit, lad.

“When Karl wrote that we must wait, that we must have patience, there was great disappointment.  We thought that we should begin at once, and there were some who said that Karl was afraid, but I knew that they were wrong, and told them so.  There was a fierce discussion at the meeting one night over a letter which I had received from Karl, and which he wanted me to read to the members.

“George Herwegh was in Paris, so the letter said, and was trying hard to raise a legion of German workingmen to march into the Fatherland and begin the fight.  This, Karl said, was a terrible mistake.  It was useless, to begin with, for what could such a legion of tailors and cigarmakers and weavers do against the Prussian army?  It was plain that the legion would be annihilated.  Besides, it would hurt the cause in another way by taking out of Paris thousands of good revolutionists who were needed there.

“‘Tell the comrades,’ he wrote, ’that it is not a question of cowardice or fear, but of wisdom.  It takes more courage to live for the long struggle than to go out and be shot.’  He wanted the comrades to wait patiently and to do all they could to persuade their friends in Paris not to follow Herwegh’s advice.  Most of the Germans in Paris followed Karl’s advice, but a few followed Herwegh and marched into Baden later on, to be scattered by the regular troops as chaff is scattered by the wind.

“The German comrades in Paris sent us a special manifesto, which Karl wrote, and we were asked to distribute it among the working people.  That would be a good way to educate the workers, Karl wrote to our committee, but I tell you it seemed a very small thing to do in those trying times, and it didn’t satisfy the comrades who were demanding more radical revolutionary action.  Why, even I seemed to forget Karl’s advice for a little while.

“On the 13th of March ­you’ll remember that was the day on which more than a hundred thousand Chartists gathered on Kennington Common ­the revolution broke out in Vienna.  Then things began to move in Cologne, too.  As soon as the news came from Vienna, August von Willich, who had been an artillery officer, led a big mob right into the Cologne Council Chamber.  I was in the mob and shouted as loud as anybody.  We demanded that the authorities should send a petition to the King, in the name of the city, demanding freedom and constitutional government.

“And then on the 18th, the same day that saw the people of Berlin fighting behind barricades in the streets ­a great multitude of us Cologne men marched through the streets, led by Professor Gottfried Kinkel, singing the Marseillaise and carrying the forbidden flag of revolution, the black, red and gold tricolor.”

“And where was he ­Marx ­during all this time?” asked the Young Comrade.

“In Paris with Engels.  We thought it strange that he should be holding aloof from the great struggle, and even I began to lose faith in him.  He had told us that the crowing of the Gallican cock would be the sign for the revolution to begin, yet he was silent.  It was not till later that I learned from his own lips that he saw from the start that the revolution would be crushed; that the workers opportunity would not come until later.