“But he did not die soon ­he lived more than ten years after that, Hans,” said the Young Comrade.  “And ten years is a good long time.”

“Ach, ten years!  But what sort of years were they?  Tell me that,” demanded old Hans with trembling voice.  “Ten years of sickness and misery ­ten years of perdition, that’s what they were, my lad!  Didn’t I see him waste away like a plant whose roots are gnawed by the worms?  Didn’t I see his frame shake to pieces almost when that cough took hold of him?  Aye, didn’t I often think that I’d be glad to hear that he was dead ­glad for his own sake, to think that he was out of pain at last?

“Yes, he lived ten years, but he was dying all the while.  He must have been in pain pretty nearly all the time, every minute an agony!  ’Oh, I’d put an end to it all, Hans, if I didn’t have to finish Capital,’ he said to me once as we walked over Hampstead Heath, he leaning upon my arm.  ’It’s Hell to suffer so, year after year, but I must finish that book.  Nothing I’ve ever done means so much as that to the movement, and nobody else can do it.  I must live for that, even though every breath is an agony.’

“But he didn’t live to finish his task, after all.  It was left for Engels to put the second and third volumes in shape.  A mighty good thing it was for the movement that there was an Engels to do it, I can tell you.  Nobody else could have done it.  But Engels was like a twin brother to Karl.  Some of the comrades were a bit jealous sometimes, and used to call Karl and Engels the ‘Siamese twins,’ but that made no difference to anybody.  If it hadn’t been for Engels Karl wouldn’t have lived so long as he did, and half his work would never have been done.  I never got so close to the heart of Engels as I did to Karl, but I loved him for Karl’s sake, and because of the way he always stood by Karl through thick and thin.

“I can’t bear to tell about the last couple of years ­how I used to find Karl sick abed in one room and his wife, the lovely Jenny, in another room tortured by cancer.  Terrible it was, and I used to go away from the house hoping that I might hear they were both dead and out of their misery forever.  Only Engels seemed to think that Karl would get better.  He got mad as a hatter when I said one day that Karl couldn’t live.  But when Jenny died Engels said to me after the funeral, ’It’s all over with Marx now, friend Fritzsche; his life is finished, too.’  And I knew that Engels spoke the truth.

“And then Karl died.  He died sitting in his arm chair, about three o’clock in the afternoon of the fourteenth of March, 1883.  I heard the news that evening from Engels and went over to the house in Maitland Park Road, and that night I saw him stretched out upon the bed, the old familiar smile upon his lips.  I couldn’t say a word to Engels or to poor Eleanor Marx ­I could only press their hands in silence and fight to keep back the sobs and tears.

“And then on the Saturday, at noon, he was buried in Highgate Cemetery, in the same grave with his wife.  And while Engels was speaking over the grave, telling what a wonderful philosopher Karl was, my mind was wandering back over the years to Treves.  Once more we were boys playing together, or fighting because he would play with little Jenny von Westphalen; once more I seemed to hear Karl telling stories in the schoolyard as in the old days.  Once again it seemed as if we were back in the old town, marching through the streets shouting out the verses Karl wrote about the old teacher, poor old Herr von Holst.

“And then the scene changed and I was in Bingen with my Barbara, laughing into the faces of Karl and his Jenny, and Karl was picking the bits of rice from his pockets and laughing at the joke, while poor Jenny blushed crimson.  What Engels said at the grave I couldn’t tell; I didn’t hear it at all, for my mind was far away.  I could only think of the living Karl, not of the corpse they were giving back to Mother Earth.

“It seemed to me that the scene changed again, and we were back in Cologne ­Karl addressing the judge and jury, defending the working class, I listening and applauding like mad.  And then the good old Lessner took my arm and led me away.

“Ah, lad, it was terrible, terrible, going home that afternoon and thinking of Karl lying there in the cold ground.  The sun could no longer shine for me, and even Barbara and the little grandchild, our Barbara’s little Gretchen, couldn’t cheer me.  Karl was a great philosopher, as Engels said there at the graveside, but he was a greater man, a greater comrade and friend.  They talk about putting up a bronze monument somewhere to keep his memory fresh, but that would be foolish.  Little men’s memories can be kept alive by bronze monuments, but such men as Karl need no monuments.  So long as the great struggle for human liberty endures Karl’s name will live in the hearts of men.

“Aye, and in the distant ages ­when the struggle is over ­when happy men and women read with wondering hearts of the days of pain which we endure ­then Karl’s name will still be remembered.  Nobody will know then that I, poor old Hans Fritzsche, went to school with Karl; that I played with him ­fought with him ­loved him for nearly sixty years.  But no matter; they can never know Karl as I knew him.”

Tears ran down the old man’s cheeks as he lapsed into silence once more, and the Young Comrade gently pressed one of the withered and knotted hands to his lips and went out into the night.