The Young Karl Marx Page #3

I'll see what I can find...

- Yes, do that.

You seem to know me well.

Have you read my writings?

I've read yours.

Notably your

Critique of Hegel is Philosophy of Right.

I couldn't care less.

Really?

An 1839 Chablis...

An excellent host, Ruge,

even if he doesn't pay...

Right?

I've never read anything so precise

and also so gripping.

You have put Hegelian dialectic

back on its feet.

I'm 24.

You can't be much older...

You're the greatest materialist thinker

of our times.

You're a genius, my clear fellow.

A genius.

Your investigation

of the English proletariat...

The Condition of the Working Class

in England? Yes.

That's mine.

May I be frank?

Go ahead.

I can take it.

It's a first class piece of work.

No one had clone it before.

In short...

it's colossal.

Karl...

Better than your cheap muck, isn't it?

It's different.

Your knowledge of the workers' world

is unrivalled...

Manchester, the slums, the factories...

You know both the workers' misery

and upper spheres of the bourgeoisie.

How do you do it?

I'm ashamed to say it.

I'm my father's signatory.

He has three mills there

with a partner,

and ten others in Barmen.

All right, but the rest?

The workers' lives?

- Yes.

That's something else.

A love affair.

Are your papers in order?

I have my passport somewhere.

Let's not risk it.

They're edgy with foreigners,

especially Germans.

Just follow me.

Keep moving.

At my signal, we turn right.

NOW!

Stop! Two men with me!

Leave it!

- It's an heirloom!

Stop!

I order you to stop!

Stop!

Hello.

- What a nerve!

Help!

Help! The police!

Help!

- Out of the way!

To return to your writings...

What you lack...

If I may...

- Go on.

Don't take it badly.

Your critique of religion and idealism

will leave a mark.

But read the English economists.

Ricardo. Smith.

Bentham.

They're the basis of everything.

Do you read English?

I'm a fast learner.

Check.

Another? On me.

- All right.

Waiter!

Two more!

Right...

I have no choice.

Checkmate.

To minds that truly think

and to free spirits!

Cheers.

I didn't see it.

Waiter!

I've had it with Ruge.

I'll give my writings to Vorwarts.

I'm completely broke...

So am I... Waiter!

I'm serious, I need money.

Have I mentioned my wife?

Jenny?

The prettiest aristocrat in Trier.

She's a Westphalen,

one of the country's oldest families...

And who did she marry? Me.

The son of a converted Jew.

You've no idea

how happy she makes me.

You're a lucky man.

- Yes.

And you?

What?

Didn't you mention

a love in your life?

Complicated.

Cheerio!

All right, cheerio!

Better?

Not really.

I'll see you home.

No!

I'll see you home.

Here...

Thank you.

You know...

I think I've understood something.

Thanks to you.

You've made me realize something.

- You too.

No, you.

Listen.

Until now, philosophers...

- Ah, philosophers...

Listen to me.

- Let's go.

Until now, philosophers

have simply interpreted...

Interpreted the world...

Yet it must be transformed...

But with what?

With whom?

Proudhon.

He'll help us.

Come on!

Karl...

Karl, where are you?

Oh, God...

God, my head.

You're leaving already?

Thank you for your hospitality.

Your... generosity.

Matters to see to.

- Matters of the heart.

Don't forget our matter.

- How could I?

We didn't just drink last night.

We took notes.

We're going to write a book together.

A critique of Stirner, Bauer...

Those sentimental Berlin Socialists.

The writers of the so-called

Critical Critique.

We'll bring things to a head, Jenny...

- To a head?

Sir...

And the title?

We're just starting...

I imagine a title,

looking at you both.

Critique of Critical Critique.

"The real price of everything... "

Der wahre Preis

"to the man who wants to acquire it,

is the toil and the trouble. "

Die Miihe und o'er Aufwand.

To acquire:
erwerben.

To dispose and exchange it...

it's the toil or trouble

which he can save himself

and which he can impose

upon other people. "

"Labour was the first price,

the original purchase money

that was paid for all things. "

You know, Karl has adopted you.

He doesn't make friends easily.

He never brought anyone home before.

You're the first.

Perhaps not a very good memory for you.

I've read your essay.

It sparkles like champagne.

I can measure what you bring Karl.

The thing is...

Allow me to be frank.

He doesn't have your constitution.

You're athletic.

After drinking,

you're as fresh as a daisy,

but he needs clays to recover.

So lead him wherever you like,

but please try to calm him.

You're an extraordinary woman, Frau Marx.

Jenny.

You're admirable.

You could have had a rich and idle life

with a fellow aristocrat,

basking in luxury and envy.

I escaped utter boredom, yes.

Happiness requires rebellion.

Rebellion against the establishment,

the old world. That's what I believe.

And I hope to see

the old world crack soon.

The two of us.

No.

The three of us, Jenny.

We'll overthrow it...

This old world.

It might take more than three of us,

don't you think?

My dear Marx,

as a filthy little peasant child,

I hoed for potatoes,

threshed wheat, kept cows...

Sitting is agony for me.

I'm doing it for you, Courbet.

Honoured, Master.

- No master!

You paint for the people

and so I approve of you.

I abhor all other artists.

So what of Raphael, Da Vinci,

Michelangelo?

I reject them.

Art in the future

will be collective, for the collective.

Swapping bishops?

A risky strategy.

Go on, swap them.

My knight is trapped.

Another game.

- That move is infallible.

There are no infallible moves

in chess, Dr Marx.

You're too sure of yourself.

Enough of this!

Sorry, I can't go on.

You've met my friend,

Friedrich Engels.

We're writing about you, sir.

- Really?

To defend you against German supporters

of Critical Critique, Bauer and so on...

Your friend Grun too.

- They attack me?

Violently.

- And you defend me?

You? Defending someone?

A low blow.

I believe there are two men in you.

The critical Proudhon,

thinking in abstract categories,

and the real Proudhon,

who sees real poverty.

We defend the second.

- Against the first?

No.

For Critical Critique,

owning and not owning,

stupidly called "having" and "non-having"

are abstract ideas.

Like you, we say to have nothing

is not an abstract notion,

but a reality,

an appalling reality.

These clays,

a man with nothing is nothing.

Money creates his worth.

That's why you were right

to analyse the economics behind that.

Especially as no socialist writer

had clone so.

Your book is the French proletariat's

first scientific manifesto.

Thank you.

Let's drink to your work.

Its title?

The title?

Critique of Critical Critique.

Very amusing.

It sounds very dialectical,

very Hegelian.

Assassination attempt!

Three shots fired! Assassination attempt

on Friedrich Wilhelm IV!

Assassination attempt

on the King of Prussia!

The key point...

is merchandise.

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