Miss Marx (2020) Movie Script
Karl was a young man of seventeen
when he became engaged to Jenny.
For them the course of true love
was not a smooth one.
It is easy to understand
that Karl's parents opposed
the engagement
of a young man of his age.
The earnestness with which Karl
expressed his love explaines
the rather stormy scenes the
engagement caused within the home.
But soon the matter was settled and,
shortly before
or after his eighteenth birthday,
the betrothal was formally
recognized.
Seven years Karl waited for his
beautiful Jenny,
but it felt like seven days to him,
because he loved her so much.
On the 19th of June, 1843 the couple
were wedded.
Having played together as children
and become engaged as young man and
young woman,
they held hands
and went together through the
battle of life.
And what a battle it was!
Years of bitter pressing need and
still worse,
of brutal suspicion,
of infamous calumny and of icy
indifference.
But through all this unhappiness
and happiness,
the two lifelong friends and lovers
never doubted,
they never faltered
and they were faithful unto death.
And now that Papa has joined Mama,
they rest one next to the other.
After the death of his wife,
Papa undertook a long, sad journey
to recover his health,
for he always wanted to complete his
work.
He had with him
a photograph of my mother
on glass in a case.
And one of my sister Jenny.
After his death, we found them in
his breast pocket.
And along with Helene,
dearest Helene,
who cared for Papa until the end,
and Friedrich Engels, a friend of a
lifetime,
we have laid them in his coffin.
He died in harness,
his intellect untouched.
He has earned his rest.
We should be grateful for so much.
Doctor Aveling.
-Yes.
I saw your last play, and loved it.
Oh that's very kind of you.
Seems we have to celebrate your
recent inclusion into our movement.
There's not much to celebrate today,
especially for the movement.
No, not today.
But tomorrow there will be more to
celebrate.
The future is on our side.
Yes, of course.
We gonna have to go through all the
volumes, page by page.
Some of the papers,
speeches he gave at assemblies and
conferences, he simply left them
in the middle of whatever book
he happened to be reading
at the moment.
We never finished the game.
He was winning.
I'll finish it with you tonight.
And I'll let you win for once.
I did beat your father sometimes,
when he was tipsy.
All these algebraic equations.
I wonder what he was looking for.
the old fox!
These are all our letters.
And they're perfectly filed by date.
So he could be tidy when
he wanted to be.
Paul here are Laura's letters.
You should take them to her,
she might want to keep them.
Sure.
Tussy
she was really too upset to come,
mentally she couldn't endure a long
trip.
I understand.
What about Jenny's letters?
I would like to keep them.
I'd rather keep them, for Johnny.
I'm glad Friedrich took the chair.
I couldn't bear to see it empty.
Tussy.
It's late, Johnny, go to sleep.
Aunt Tussy.
Don't go.
What is it?
Are you sure there isn't another
life after this one?
Yes. I'm sure.
No, Johnny, you don't have to be
sad.
It makes the life we are living even
more special,
because it's unique.
Your mother.
Jenny had a wonderful life
cos' she had you
and that's what matters.
And grandpa?
Grandpa.
Think of it this way.
If there is another life after this
one,
if what they all say is true,
then your grandfather, my father,
is burning in hell right now.
So it is better this way, isn't it?
Speak gently. It's better far
to rule with love than with fear.
Speak gently. Let no harsh words
mar the good we can do here.
Eleanor Marx.
And for how many days will you be
away?
I told you, not more than a month,
but it's an important trip, I am so
proud they've chosen me.
It's normal.
They always choose you.
You'll have a nice time with
Friedrich, you'll have a big room
and you'll be nearer to school.
Helene will be with you.
What did you say the birthday boy's
name was?
Oliver
but I can't see him.
May I take your cape Miss?
Thank you.
Thank you.
If he announciated views such as
these, or even approximated to
these,
it is clear that we must admit
that Shelley was a teacher as well
as a poet.
For the large and interesting
question, whether a
poet has the right to be
didactic as well as merely...
-Excuse me.
descriptive, analytical, musical,
cannot be entered upon here.
But, in passing, we may note that
poets have a habit of doing things,
whether they have the right to or
not.
By instinct,
intuition, whatever we are to call
that fine faculty
that feels truths before they are
put into definite language.
Shelley was an Evolutionist.
He understood that men and peoples
are the result of their ancestry
and of their environment.
Therefore, Shelley recognized crime
as the natural result of social
conditions.
The criminal was to him as much a
creature of the society in which he
lived
as the capitalist.
or the monarch.
Shame! Shame on you!
"Society," he said,
"grinds down poor wretches
into the dust of abject poverty,"
"till they are scarcely
recognizable as human beings."
I will not tolerate any more of
this.
If Byron hadn't died at thirty-six,
he would have become a
reactionary bourgeois.
Should we walk?
On the other hand, if Shelley hadn't
died at twenty-nine,
he would have become part of the
advanced guard of Socialism.
You seem very certain.
It's what my father thought.
He said that, that Shelley was
essentially a revolutionary.
Papa said that Shelley was one of
the few
who really understood the meaning
of the word freedom.
The statement England
is a free country was to Shelley the
merest non sense.
He wrote "The white shores of
Albion are free no more".
Why do people call you Tussy?
I don't know. We all had a
nicknames, when we were little,
even my parents.
Do you mind if I call you Eleanor?
I wanted to tell you.
I am leaving for America.
The trip has been organized by the
German Socialist Party,
would you come with me?
You're such a good communicator.
And I love to travel.
We work untill twelve or one o'clock
sometimes,
sleep for a few hours,
and then start working again.
There are little children
working as tailors,
some are employed by the
week,
some work by the piece.
We work and sleep in these rooms
together with our own children.
They work on pulling threads out of
coats, at one or two cents per coat.
The owners are so hard on them, they
don't treat them like human beings,
they treat them like slaves.
The bells, the bells, the bells!
The bells.
And he dances and yells.
The working-class question is the
same in America as it is in Europe.
The question is always in essence
the same.
Why is it that the actual producers
and distributors of wealth own the
least wealth,
and those who are not actual
producers
and distributors own the most
wealth?
For some six to eight months of the
year,
that's the working time on the
plains,
we gotta be in the saddle from
morning until night,
often all through night as well.
I have been with a party,
when we were obliged to ride
200 miles before we got the cattle
under,
in all that time
not one of us took a moment to rest.
I can accept the restaurant costs,
we can still consider them the
price of hospitality,
but
I really don't understand all these
flower bouquets,
it's a huge amount of money.
How could you think it is proper
to charge them to the party?
Tussy?
Is this a way
to present your
expenditures to the arty?
Tussy.
Your pamphlet on the American
working- class marvellous.
I wish I could have come with you.
It's not only my pamphlet.
I wrote it with Eddy.
Of course.
Tussy,
you know that it's not
the first time
that Edward has had money trouble.
The incident with the Party during
your trip was
not the only one.
He also had problems when he was
part of the Secular Society.
I know,
he has absolutely
no sense of money.
But he is wonderful. Believe me.
Of course, I believe you, Tussy.
I always believe you.
There is something I want to
announce to you both.
I've decided to live with Edward
as his wife.
You know he was married before,
when he was very young,
his wife won't divorce him,
so I cannot be his wife legally,
but it will be a true marriage for
me.
I know what your thinking.
You're thinking I'll lose a lot of
friends,
but not the real friends.
For me this is a risk worth taking.
Friedrich, we have talked about it
so many times,
marriage is such an obsolete
institution.
We couldn't agree more,
could we Helena?
We won't be gone for long.
Yes.
We have meetings and assemblies to
attend on the coast,
but we'll be back right after
Christmas.
I think the only place
where this is expressed is
in "The Confessions"
of Saint Augustine,
where him and his mother stand at
the open window.
Isn't the relation between these two
beautiful?
The most beautiful relation that
ever existed between man and woman.
Sometimes I dream that such
relations
won't be as uncommon as they are
now, one day.
Will you have some Eleonor?
It's fun!
No, really.
I had a bad experience with opium,
in the past.
I have to be careful.
Well, they do say you risk getting
hooked then,
but not if you only try once.
I understand what you say, and I
agree completely.
Do you? Well, perhaps one day man
will feel that their mothers
have born them once with the body
and again with the spirit.
Are you planning on having children?
It must be such a beautiful thing to
have a child,
more beautiful than writing a book.
Being a mother must be--
My mother.
I loved my mother.
But my father killed her.
He didn't actually kill her,
but he was never around,
so she started to drink.
I remember
all those evenings spent waiting
for him with my mother
and my little brother.
And she always had a bottle on the
table.
And the day she fell down the
stairs, we weren't home.
My little brother found her.
You should have told me.
He's so excited,
he's been waiting for you.
Tussy
he knows,
I told him.
How did he take it?
He'll be alright.
Look inside.
What is it?
Look inside and turn it.
Helene and I would love to keep you
with us,
but your father really wants you
back.
I know, he wrote to me.
If you really don't like being in
Argenteuil with all the others,
you can come and stay with me and
Edward whenever you want.
I like staying with you.
I don't like Edward.
Well, he's not very good with
children,
but when you're grow up, I'm sure
the two of you will become firm
friends.
Aunt Tussy.
I understand why you can't keep me
with you, it's fine.
We don't want to get cold, do we?
Freddy!
Oh, Eleanor.
It's so good to see you.
It has been so long.
And this is your son.
He is so lovely.
I finally get to meet him.
I've asked your mother so many
times.
His name is Henry.
Yes I know.
She talks about him always.
Well, we must be going.
Come along, Henry.
Goodbye Mama.
-Goodbye darling
Goodbye.
So Engels lets his own son in and
out through the back kitchen door?
He doesn't even come down to see
him.
Why do you let him do that?
It goes against everything
that we've fought for.
Don't say that.
Friedrich has done so much for us.
I worry about little Johnny.
I miss him.
Maybe we should have insisted more
with his father,
we could have kept him longer.
Your father.
My father wanted everything for me
but my own freedom.
Lenchen,
Johnny understood me perfectly.
He is just like his mother.
After Jenny gave birth to Mm, Papa
wanted to send me across
the Argenteuil to help with the
children,
she was already ill and she refused.
She said I had to concentrate on my
studying and writing,
she told me not to make the same
mistake she did with marriage
and children, but that I had to
concentrate on my work.
Yes, but Tussy
your father wanted Johnny to stay
with us in England.
I have spent my whole life caring
for other people:
my father, my mother, my sister's
children,
now it's my turn to live, do you
see?
Edward says that if his next play is
successful then we can get
a bigger house, and Johnny can come
visit anytime.
He says our house is too small for
the three of us.
Bourgeois writers usually assume
that there is no such thing
as class struggle,
and that the English working-classes
were never in
so flourishing condition as they are
today; and that there is
no general feeling of class hatred,
and what little there is
arises solely from the innate
wickedness of the workers
and the evil teachings of Socialism.
But the facts are that
this struggle exists,
that it has existed for centuries,
and that its existence is quite
independent of any doctrine,
socialistic or otherwise.
The factory reports
are but a record of another phase
of this same struggle.
Whatever the report,
whatever the year, it is the same
sad and hideous story.
Evasion of the acts, recklessness
as to the health
and life of the workers, diseases
and accidents due to the
labour conditions
and the greed of employers.
In no way have the technical
advances
of industrial manufacture improved
the working conditions:
the masters have benefited
but not the man.
Profits are always the result of
unpaid labour somewhere or another,
and no real national good can come
from a rise in profits unless
the entire system of production for
profit is done away with.
As was clearly stated by my father
in chapter 23, section 4,
of "Das Kapital":
"The law of capitalistic
accumulation is laid down,
and proved historically."
"The law is that with the largest
accumulation of capital,"
"pauperism in a country is at its
worst."
But they are making you pay
the cost of the recession
out of your own salaries.
We've to make them spare money
otherways,
not by taking it away from the
workers.
We still have to discuss the
accident.
Oh yes, the poor man.
He had four children, don't he?
-He did. Two girls and two boys.
The greatest number of accident
happen because the lack of
fencing around the machinery.
And also because of the anxiety,
the understandable anxiety, for the
workers to get the work done.
And when the work is piece work that
anxiety is all greater.
As I understand it, the lost of a
man is important to you, is it not?
If we are to maintain productivity,
then yes.
And it happened on Saturday?
He was leaving work about 4 pm.
Workers are allowed to leave early
on a Saturday,
if the machinery has been cleaned.
So it'd be interesting to compile
figures for
the numbers of accidents that
happen on a Saturday,
when the workers are most eager to
get home.
And we are very far from having
workers who delight in
their own labor
in this merciless age.
I've compiled a table of accidents
for the year ending 1883 and in
that year
fatal accidents numbered 403
and the amputations came to 1337.
It's like that everyday.
They hustle like beasts not men,
and all this to earn at best 3
pence, 4 pence an hour.
The strugglings got that serious
the authorithy have removed
the iron pilons. That way
the weaker men
won't get impaled and crushed.
Is that when they brought
the police in?
To form a line, make it a little bit
more safe.
In all these years,
from the very beginning of our
acquaintance,
you and I
have never exchanged a word on
any serious subject.
Was it likely that I would be
continually
and forever telling you about
worries you could not help me to
bear?
I am not speaking of business
matters.
I mean you and have never sat down
together, in earnest,
to try to get to the bottom of
anything.
But, my dearest, would it have been
any good to you?
That's what I mean.
You have never understood me.
I have been greatly wronged,
first
by Papa
and then by you.
Why by us two, who have loved you
better than anyone else
in the world?
You never loved me.
You only thought
it was pleasant to be
in love with me.
It's perfectly true.
When I was at home,
Papa told me his opinion about
everything,
and so I had the same opinions.
And if I differed from him,
I concealed the fact, because he
would not have liked it.
He called me his "doll-child",
and he played with me like I played
with my dolls.
And when I came to live with you.
What sort of expression is that to
use about our marriage?
I mean I was simply transferred
from his hands into yours.
You arranged everything according to
your own taste,
and so I had the same tastes
or I pretended to,
I am really not sure which.
Sometimes I think the one,
sometimes I think the other.
When I look back,
it's like I have been living here,
as a poor woman,
just from hand to mouth.
I have existed
merely to perform tricks for you,
But you would have it so.
You and Papa have committed a great
sin against me
and it is your fault that
I have made nothing of my life.
How unreasonable and ungrateful
you are.
Have you not been happy with me?
No,
I've never been happy.
I thought I was.
but it has never really so.
Bravo!
Here you are.
Are you alright?
Yes, of course,
it was wonderful.
The text is incredible,
and your translation.
just it made me think of me and
Havelock.
I've been having such a sad feeling
lately,
that he just doesn't like me.
That the one thing he wants from me
is
to be someone else and not Olive
Schreiner.
But that's nonsense.
He adores you he admires you!
And you do so many things,
and I haven't been able to finish a
book for years now.
If I could just find a quiet spot,
a place where I could write.
Eleanor, I was telling William about
your pamphlet on "A Doll's House".
It's a sort of satire, in which the
play ends the other way
around, where.
he leaves her.
Okay, funny.
The title is "A Doll's House
Repaired".
In the "repaired" version, the
roles are simply inverted,
and the bourgeois audience is
reassured.
Have you read it?
Not yet, no.
Well, you should, it's very good.
And this is Miss Olive Schreiner,
the famous South African
writer and activist.
-How do you do?
-Delighted.
Eleanor, I loved you're adaptation,
it was brilliant.
The British audience of course is
not ready for this,
like they weren't ready for your
translation of "Madame Bovary",
but then it did have its political
effect.
"A Doll's House Repaired" could have
ended
like Madame Bovary with Nora's
suicide.
You should have thought about that.
What do you mean?
Well, instead of leaving him, Nora
could have killed herself.
The romantic version everybody would
have preferred.
I don't think that's funny.
To Ibsen.
To Ibsen.
We have to reduce spending, Edward.
You need to learn to save your
money.
You know you really shouldn't smoke
so much, the doctors.
Engels said you've asked him
for a loan.
Please, don't borrow any more money.
Don't ask other people and most of
all don't ask him.
He helped my father his whole life.
I hate doing it,
but is a rich man after all.
I don't care.
I would prefer not to accept any
more money from him.
The one Engels should really help
is his son.
He has never lifted a finger for
Freddy.
But then, he was the maid's child,
nobody cared about him,
is not right?
But Freddy and Helene would never
have accepted his help.
They're much too proud.
They are much prouder than you.
I'm sorry,
I didn't know why I said that.
Of course my darling.
Don't worry.
I see you've ordered more flowers.
I never received them.
I Friedrich Engels, of 122 Regent's
Park Road, London.
Hereby declare that
Frederick Demuth, the only son of my
deceased friend Helena Demuth,
is not my son.
Tough in the past I have let others
to believe this,
I am not the above said Frederick's
father.
Signed and declared, in the
presence of witnesses,
on the day and year first above
written.
Thank you.
The doctor is visiting him, you'll
have to wait.
Why are you doing this?
Only because Helene is dead and
isn't here to contradict you,
but I would talk to him, and he will
tell me the truth.
Friedrich can't speak anymore,
and in any case, he has made the
statement in presence
of an attorney.
Why can't he speak?
The tumour has devoured his vocal
chords.
But he has a little blackboard,
he can communicate with that.
You may come in now.
Friedrich.
Is what they're saying true?
Is it what they're saying about
Freddy true?
Then who is his father,
if it isn't you?
Did she know? Did Mama know?
have heard a lot about you two
Eleanor, Laura,
your dear sister Jenny.
There are legends of
the three Marx's daughters
resisting to a long police
interrogation
in the time of the Commune.
Yes, but Eleanor was always the
bravest,
and she was barely seventeen.
We found a house in the country,
finally.
We looked for it, when we still had
Etienne.
We wanted him to have a garden
to play in, a dog, or some other
animal.
But Etienne died, so it didn't do
it.
But now we found it,
they are selling it in a public
auction.
With the money Engels left we
should be able to afford it.
It's in Draveil, Seine-et-Oise, I
t's in ruins and it needs a lot of
work but it has thirty rooms,
additional buildings,
an orange tree patch
and a garden that goes all the way
to the forest in Snart.
We should stop here.
You're early!
Would you like one?
-Yes.
-Come on.
Say thank you.
-Thanks.
He loves those.
Christmas is important even for us,
even for those who aren't religious.
It's an excuse to be together.
They are here.
Can you help me?
-Yes, of course.Come on.
Sit there.
Many years ago,
I had left home,
my father didn't approve of
a friend I had,
a man who was much older than me.
I went to Brighton, I taught
English in a boarding school.
But I
became ill,
my parents tought it was physical
fatigue.
On Christmas day, my father came to
Brighton,
he came to bring me home.
Christmas has been important to me
since then.
Is Edward here tonight?
No, he hates Christmas. He says
it's a ridiculous celebration.
And he was ill tonight.
Oh we bought a new house, you must
come and see it. It has
a lovely garden.
It's a mess now with the boxes,
but when we settled it, I'd love to
invite you to come.
I'd like that very much.
I've always wanted a brother,
it's so lovely to have you here.
You are such a good person.
Oh you're getting heavier every
year.
Oh that's the perfect place for.
Done.
Oh don't you like it.
Quite right too,
yes we don't want everything too
perfect.
We need to talk, Tussy.
What happened?
Nothing. Nothing serious, just.
I'm leaving.
I'm going home to Cape Town.
Doctors have ordered me home to my
own beautiful climate.
The London air is killing me.
and with Havelock it's really over,
you know that.
Yes
course, I had expected that.
You should visit me
in Africa.
I'll spend the first seven months
on a delightful promontory
at the very end of South Africa,
where there are only three cottages
a
nd the post only comes once a week
if you send for it!
After that I hope to carry out
my life's dream of going on into the
interior for a year or two.
Isn't the world beautiful?
We never get to the end of it.
Oh Tussy.
Tussy!
Nobody calls me Tussy anymore.
There's something else I have to
tell you before I leave.
Is about Edward.
What about him?
I can't bear leaving you with him.
He is so selfish
but it's not only that, is that he
makes you so unhappy.
I have to tell you, I have horror of
him, ever since I first met him.
I fought it down for your sake,
but
now I just want you to know.
I love him very much, Ollie.
I know you two never got along,
but I would ask you
to please respect that.
Are you Miss Eleanor Marx Aveling?
Wife of Doctor Aveling?
I use the double name to sign
my articles but.
technically no, I'm not his wife,
we never got married.
Of course,
you can't be,
because I am his wife.
Doctor Aveling's wife died last
year, and she was much
older than you.
I know.
We got married right after his
wife's death.
But why aren't you living together?
If you're husband and wife, why is
he still living with me?
We can't afford it.
He has no money and I have no work.
What do you want from me?
I want you to leave him.
So he will live with me and accept
his responsibilities.
This certifies that you're married
to Alec Nelson.
Alec Nelson is Edward's pen name.
is what he uses to signs his plays,
but you must know it's.
it's not legal.
He has played a trick on you.
Sorry.
Merry Christmas.
The truth,
not fully recognised even by those
anxious to do good to women,
is that she,
like the labour classes,
is in an oppressed position,
and that her condition, like
theirs, is one of merciless
degradation.
Women are the creatures
of an organised tyranny of men,
just as the workers
are the creatures
of an organised tyranny of idlers.
Women have been expropriated as to
their rights as human beings,
just as the labourers were
expropriated as to their
rights as producers.
The method in each case
is the only one that makes
expropriation at any time and under
any circumstances possible.
The method is force.
It is unnecessary
to point out how much better,
within the last few years,
women's rights have been managed in
England,
thanks to the action of women
themselves.
But it is necessary instead to
remind you that,
with all these added rights,
English women,
married and unmarried alike,
are still morally dependent on man,
and are still badly treated by him.
What is it that we as Socialists
desire for women?
What is it that we expect?
What is that of whose coming we
feel as assured as of the
rising of tomorrow's sun?
In the Socialistic Working Society,
as was predicted by my father,
clearly there will be equality for
all, without distinction of sex.
Thus, woman will be independent.
Her education and all other
opportunities will be
equal to that of a man.
Like him, she, if in sound mind and
body,
will have to give her one, two, or
three hours of social labour
to supply the wants of the
community, and therefore herself.
Thereafter she will be free for art,
science,
writing, teaching or amusements
in any form.
Whether monogamy or polygamy will
obtain
in a Socialistic State is a detail
on which we can only speak
as an individual. Personally I
believe that monogamy
will gain the day.
There are approximately equal
numbers of man and women.
And the highest ideal seems to be
the complete lasting
blending of two human lvfes.
This ideal, almost never attainable
today,
requires at least four things:
love,
respect,
intellectual likeness,
and a command for the necessities of
life.
In the Socialistic Working Society
prostitution will have vanished,
along with the economic conditions
that made it, and make it even at
this time, an economic necessity.
Women will be no longer men slave,
but his equal.
The contract between a man and a
women will be of a purely
private nature,
with no need for intervention from
any public functionary.
For divorce there will be no need;
nor will there be this hideous
disguise, this constant
lying that makes the domestic life
of almost all English homes
an organised hypocrisy.
Man and woman will find in the heart
of the other
that which is in the eyes:
their own image.
When I was in prison, I made friends
with a bird.
I named him Carnal.
Every morning,
he would come,
flying in between the bars,
to wake me.
They reminds me of him.
Arianne, Brunilde, Clotilde.
The goose is Carlos,
he is a rebel like you.
They are my babies.
I've been studying a lot of
mathematics lately
and I was wondering
if you still remember
your father was studying algebra,
to build new models for his economic
analysis.
Yes, but that was for practical use,
for the third book of the Capital.
It doesn't matter.
I don't understand why you've
completely abandoned
the practical aspects of our study.
'Cause it's over.
The time for political practice,
for us
is over.
Paul, what are you talking about,
there are still so many
battles to be fought.
Laura, Laura! You still have some
cake left for us?
Yes!
Let's go eat some cake.
And then he started talking about
the goose?
And how was lonely and needs a
friend?
Well it may be lonely, don't you
think?
Oh Paul.
What a boy he was.
A hero of the Commune.
What has become of him?
I'm so glad Papa can't see this,
he has given up on everything.
Laura and her cow.
The doctor told you to stop with the
cigars.
I seriously doubt he would approve
of you smoking opium.
Your sister has lost her mind,
completely.
All those children, they're
children of people she barely knows.
Why does she keep inviting them?
Just because you have a garden, it
doesn't mean you have to
fill it up with people's children.
My sister lost three children.
Two of them were only a few weeks
old, but Etienne was three.
I know she thinks about them all the
time.
I find her obsession for children
heartbreaking.
I was joking. I'm Sorry.
I was.
I saw so little of him this year.
He was always away;
he spent a long time in Torquay,
preparing two plays that got
cancelled in the end.
And he sees other women,
of course, as usual.
But we get on well together.
We have fun.
Working together is still very
exciting.
Laura, did Eddy ask you or Paul to
lend him money?
Not directly,
but a few creditors have written to
Paul.
It seems that Edward has put our
name forward for
a guarantee for a loan.
I don't understand, where are your
savings going?
He's hopeless with money.
And now we have all this medical
expenses
because of his lungs and all the
other problems
and with the new house and all the
rest,
we spent all the money I got from
Engels.
But he doesn't worry.
He never worries.
He doesn't know feelings like
pain or fear.
If he does worry,
if he gets out for an hour, he goes
around completely unconcerned.
He's like a child.
It's likely that because of the
drugs he takes for his lungs,
the infection will not subside.
We cannot give him medicines
that could impede the effect of the
other ones.
You're so pretty.
Can I have some whisky?
Do you still love me?
I was born to love you.
Why do you lie to me
all the time?
Lies don't matter.
You are the light and the blessing
of my life.
Do you love me?
You have to stop hurting me,
you promise?
Yes. I promise.
20 men will be too many in here.
That's 250 cubic feet of air per
person.
For soldiers in barracks the
standard amount is 600.
Yes, but soldiers in barracks
occupy the site for the
entire day and night,
whereas here the air is restored
during the night.
Of course, the necessary air is less
than 600 probably,
but 250 is less than a half.
The restoration of the air
during the night will only help for
the first hour or so.
Men want to keep the window closed
when they're working.
There is no way they will leave it
open.
My father used to say that the
English working class
is almost more antagonist
to fresh air than a German in a
railway- carriage.
They don't understand its value.
They over-enfatized the possibility
of harm.
Many men are afraid of the
consequences of a cold draught.
Is an oversusceptibility to chest
infections among them.
A thousand times more injury is
likely to come from a closed room
than one with a slide draught.
It's our job to explain that to
them.
And you have to remind to the
children are not allowed
to work unless they have completed
Standard III.
It was one of the main battles we
fought, and we won.
This means they will have to be at
least ten years old.
It's absurd! The men will never
have it!
Michael, please.
Why don't you tell her that we need
our children's salaries aye,
we are happy when they work?
Michael, this is unaccettable.
It won't happen it for me, enough.
I'm sorry about Michael.
He's under a lot of strain.
I'm only trying to help.
Has the post come?
No news yet, Miss.
Oh believe me, I'm used to it.
Doctor Aveling can disappear, but he
always reappears again.
If he were ill, I'd know.
It will be good to him to spend some
time on the coast,
breathing the London air is
definitely not good for his lungs.
You can go, Gerty.
You have to leave it on for at
least an hour.
Or I would see it wouldn't work.
I'll leave on all evening, I've got
work to do.
He's got white hair too.
I had no idea that happened to dogs.
Yes that's right.
Have a nice evening.
Six.
15 December 1863.
My dear love Jenny,
I've been here in Trier for eight
days now.
If I haven't written, it was not
out of forgetfulness,
quite the opposite:
I take daily pilgrimages to your old
house, in Roemerstrasse,
that interests me more than the
whole of Roman antiquity
because it reminds me of my happy
youth,
and because it once held my dearest
treasure.
I'm asked daily on all sides about
the former
"most beautiful girl in Trier" and
"Queen of the Ball".
It is damned pleasing
for a man
to find his wife lives on in
the imagination
of a whole city as a delightful
princess.
I love you so much.
This is what they wanted.
To be buried in the same tomb.
They lived the whole lifes together.
Was my mother not jealous?
How did they carry on after what
happened?
They had a great adventure.
I spoke to my solicitor, yesterday.
We have so many debts.
Edward spent so much money lately,
he keeps asking people and signing
papers.
I can't even scold him, cos he's
disappeared again.
What do you mean he is disappeared?
He went to the coast, to get some
fresh air about two months ago.
I haven't heard from him since.
Of course, I am used to it, but he's
never been gone this long before.
He did promised me.
but of course, I knew he would do it
again.
You shouldn't let him treat you this
way.
I think I know what his problem is.
He simply has no moral sense,
just
as some are deaf, or have bad
sight, or are unhealthy
and otherwise.
Cos I know deep down.
I can't blame him for.
Freddy,
I don't think you and I are such
wicked people.
And yet we seem to have got all the
punishment.
You lost your wife and I fell in
love with Edward.
Some have been unluckier.
Yes, of course.
Doctor Aveling is back.
ood.
-Goodnight.
-Night.
Hello my darling.
Could I get a kiss?
You don't ask me how I feel?
I thought you were dead.
Well I am pretty ill.
That's why I didn't write,
I didn't want to worry you.
You should go to bed and rest.
How is your wound?
Hurts like hell.
Let me look it for you.
Ready?
I'm hungry.
I'm enough
You want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
you want more, you want more,
you want more.
As if it were a choice
As if there were a place to run
As if they had your voice
As if there were a proper talk!
As if it were a job
As if it could be right to run
And so the days go by
Only one will remain.
Let it rip
Let it rip so easily
That first blow
To those who have everything
We'll get through
Yes, that's ours
Yes, that's ours
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
I'm not going to leave
An now our time has come and gone
And now we're here
Combine the words
Good morning, Gerty.
Edward was feeling much better this
morning,
he went to town, he had an
appointment.
May I ask you to rend an errand for
me?
What is this for?
It's for the dog,
he's old and very ill.
All right.
I need a signature of a doctor.
Doctor Aveling will have to sign
the book of poisons.
Thanks.
She said she'd come by later, to
pay.
Miss Marx?
Miss Marx?
You're favorite virtue?
Papa?
My favourite virtue is
straightforwardness.
Joylity.
Sincerity.
Humanity.
Mine is truth.
Your idea of happiness?
To fight.
Chateau Margaux 1848.
Knowing that you are loved.
I don't know!
Champagne!
Your idea of misery?
To submit.
Going to a dentist.
Self-contempt.
Mine is a toothache!
Your favourite maxime and motto?
Nothing human is alien to me.
Take it easy!
Know thyself.
All for one and one for all.
Mine is go head!
when he became engaged to Jenny.
For them the course of true love
was not a smooth one.
It is easy to understand
that Karl's parents opposed
the engagement
of a young man of his age.
The earnestness with which Karl
expressed his love explaines
the rather stormy scenes the
engagement caused within the home.
But soon the matter was settled and,
shortly before
or after his eighteenth birthday,
the betrothal was formally
recognized.
Seven years Karl waited for his
beautiful Jenny,
but it felt like seven days to him,
because he loved her so much.
On the 19th of June, 1843 the couple
were wedded.
Having played together as children
and become engaged as young man and
young woman,
they held hands
and went together through the
battle of life.
And what a battle it was!
Years of bitter pressing need and
still worse,
of brutal suspicion,
of infamous calumny and of icy
indifference.
But through all this unhappiness
and happiness,
the two lifelong friends and lovers
never doubted,
they never faltered
and they were faithful unto death.
And now that Papa has joined Mama,
they rest one next to the other.
After the death of his wife,
Papa undertook a long, sad journey
to recover his health,
for he always wanted to complete his
work.
He had with him
a photograph of my mother
on glass in a case.
And one of my sister Jenny.
After his death, we found them in
his breast pocket.
And along with Helene,
dearest Helene,
who cared for Papa until the end,
and Friedrich Engels, a friend of a
lifetime,
we have laid them in his coffin.
He died in harness,
his intellect untouched.
He has earned his rest.
We should be grateful for so much.
Doctor Aveling.
-Yes.
I saw your last play, and loved it.
Oh that's very kind of you.
Seems we have to celebrate your
recent inclusion into our movement.
There's not much to celebrate today,
especially for the movement.
No, not today.
But tomorrow there will be more to
celebrate.
The future is on our side.
Yes, of course.
We gonna have to go through all the
volumes, page by page.
Some of the papers,
speeches he gave at assemblies and
conferences, he simply left them
in the middle of whatever book
he happened to be reading
at the moment.
We never finished the game.
He was winning.
I'll finish it with you tonight.
And I'll let you win for once.
I did beat your father sometimes,
when he was tipsy.
All these algebraic equations.
I wonder what he was looking for.
the old fox!
These are all our letters.
And they're perfectly filed by date.
So he could be tidy when
he wanted to be.
Paul here are Laura's letters.
You should take them to her,
she might want to keep them.
Sure.
Tussy
she was really too upset to come,
mentally she couldn't endure a long
trip.
I understand.
What about Jenny's letters?
I would like to keep them.
I'd rather keep them, for Johnny.
I'm glad Friedrich took the chair.
I couldn't bear to see it empty.
Tussy.
It's late, Johnny, go to sleep.
Aunt Tussy.
Don't go.
What is it?
Are you sure there isn't another
life after this one?
Yes. I'm sure.
No, Johnny, you don't have to be
sad.
It makes the life we are living even
more special,
because it's unique.
Your mother.
Jenny had a wonderful life
cos' she had you
and that's what matters.
And grandpa?
Grandpa.
Think of it this way.
If there is another life after this
one,
if what they all say is true,
then your grandfather, my father,
is burning in hell right now.
So it is better this way, isn't it?
Speak gently. It's better far
to rule with love than with fear.
Speak gently. Let no harsh words
mar the good we can do here.
Eleanor Marx.
And for how many days will you be
away?
I told you, not more than a month,
but it's an important trip, I am so
proud they've chosen me.
It's normal.
They always choose you.
You'll have a nice time with
Friedrich, you'll have a big room
and you'll be nearer to school.
Helene will be with you.
What did you say the birthday boy's
name was?
Oliver
but I can't see him.
May I take your cape Miss?
Thank you.
Thank you.
If he announciated views such as
these, or even approximated to
these,
it is clear that we must admit
that Shelley was a teacher as well
as a poet.
For the large and interesting
question, whether a
poet has the right to be
didactic as well as merely...
-Excuse me.
descriptive, analytical, musical,
cannot be entered upon here.
But, in passing, we may note that
poets have a habit of doing things,
whether they have the right to or
not.
By instinct,
intuition, whatever we are to call
that fine faculty
that feels truths before they are
put into definite language.
Shelley was an Evolutionist.
He understood that men and peoples
are the result of their ancestry
and of their environment.
Therefore, Shelley recognized crime
as the natural result of social
conditions.
The criminal was to him as much a
creature of the society in which he
lived
as the capitalist.
or the monarch.
Shame! Shame on you!
"Society," he said,
"grinds down poor wretches
into the dust of abject poverty,"
"till they are scarcely
recognizable as human beings."
I will not tolerate any more of
this.
If Byron hadn't died at thirty-six,
he would have become a
reactionary bourgeois.
Should we walk?
On the other hand, if Shelley hadn't
died at twenty-nine,
he would have become part of the
advanced guard of Socialism.
You seem very certain.
It's what my father thought.
He said that, that Shelley was
essentially a revolutionary.
Papa said that Shelley was one of
the few
who really understood the meaning
of the word freedom.
The statement England
is a free country was to Shelley the
merest non sense.
He wrote "The white shores of
Albion are free no more".
Why do people call you Tussy?
I don't know. We all had a
nicknames, when we were little,
even my parents.
Do you mind if I call you Eleanor?
I wanted to tell you.
I am leaving for America.
The trip has been organized by the
German Socialist Party,
would you come with me?
You're such a good communicator.
And I love to travel.
We work untill twelve or one o'clock
sometimes,
sleep for a few hours,
and then start working again.
There are little children
working as tailors,
some are employed by the
week,
some work by the piece.
We work and sleep in these rooms
together with our own children.
They work on pulling threads out of
coats, at one or two cents per coat.
The owners are so hard on them, they
don't treat them like human beings,
they treat them like slaves.
The bells, the bells, the bells!
The bells.
And he dances and yells.
The working-class question is the
same in America as it is in Europe.
The question is always in essence
the same.
Why is it that the actual producers
and distributors of wealth own the
least wealth,
and those who are not actual
producers
and distributors own the most
wealth?
For some six to eight months of the
year,
that's the working time on the
plains,
we gotta be in the saddle from
morning until night,
often all through night as well.
I have been with a party,
when we were obliged to ride
200 miles before we got the cattle
under,
in all that time
not one of us took a moment to rest.
I can accept the restaurant costs,
we can still consider them the
price of hospitality,
but
I really don't understand all these
flower bouquets,
it's a huge amount of money.
How could you think it is proper
to charge them to the party?
Tussy?
Is this a way
to present your
expenditures to the arty?
Tussy.
Your pamphlet on the American
working- class marvellous.
I wish I could have come with you.
It's not only my pamphlet.
I wrote it with Eddy.
Of course.
Tussy,
you know that it's not
the first time
that Edward has had money trouble.
The incident with the Party during
your trip was
not the only one.
He also had problems when he was
part of the Secular Society.
I know,
he has absolutely
no sense of money.
But he is wonderful. Believe me.
Of course, I believe you, Tussy.
I always believe you.
There is something I want to
announce to you both.
I've decided to live with Edward
as his wife.
You know he was married before,
when he was very young,
his wife won't divorce him,
so I cannot be his wife legally,
but it will be a true marriage for
me.
I know what your thinking.
You're thinking I'll lose a lot of
friends,
but not the real friends.
For me this is a risk worth taking.
Friedrich, we have talked about it
so many times,
marriage is such an obsolete
institution.
We couldn't agree more,
could we Helena?
We won't be gone for long.
Yes.
We have meetings and assemblies to
attend on the coast,
but we'll be back right after
Christmas.
I think the only place
where this is expressed is
in "The Confessions"
of Saint Augustine,
where him and his mother stand at
the open window.
Isn't the relation between these two
beautiful?
The most beautiful relation that
ever existed between man and woman.
Sometimes I dream that such
relations
won't be as uncommon as they are
now, one day.
Will you have some Eleonor?
It's fun!
No, really.
I had a bad experience with opium,
in the past.
I have to be careful.
Well, they do say you risk getting
hooked then,
but not if you only try once.
I understand what you say, and I
agree completely.
Do you? Well, perhaps one day man
will feel that their mothers
have born them once with the body
and again with the spirit.
Are you planning on having children?
It must be such a beautiful thing to
have a child,
more beautiful than writing a book.
Being a mother must be--
My mother.
I loved my mother.
But my father killed her.
He didn't actually kill her,
but he was never around,
so she started to drink.
I remember
all those evenings spent waiting
for him with my mother
and my little brother.
And she always had a bottle on the
table.
And the day she fell down the
stairs, we weren't home.
My little brother found her.
You should have told me.
He's so excited,
he's been waiting for you.
Tussy
he knows,
I told him.
How did he take it?
He'll be alright.
Look inside.
What is it?
Look inside and turn it.
Helene and I would love to keep you
with us,
but your father really wants you
back.
I know, he wrote to me.
If you really don't like being in
Argenteuil with all the others,
you can come and stay with me and
Edward whenever you want.
I like staying with you.
I don't like Edward.
Well, he's not very good with
children,
but when you're grow up, I'm sure
the two of you will become firm
friends.
Aunt Tussy.
I understand why you can't keep me
with you, it's fine.
We don't want to get cold, do we?
Freddy!
Oh, Eleanor.
It's so good to see you.
It has been so long.
And this is your son.
He is so lovely.
I finally get to meet him.
I've asked your mother so many
times.
His name is Henry.
Yes I know.
She talks about him always.
Well, we must be going.
Come along, Henry.
Goodbye Mama.
-Goodbye darling
Goodbye.
So Engels lets his own son in and
out through the back kitchen door?
He doesn't even come down to see
him.
Why do you let him do that?
It goes against everything
that we've fought for.
Don't say that.
Friedrich has done so much for us.
I worry about little Johnny.
I miss him.
Maybe we should have insisted more
with his father,
we could have kept him longer.
Your father.
My father wanted everything for me
but my own freedom.
Lenchen,
Johnny understood me perfectly.
He is just like his mother.
After Jenny gave birth to Mm, Papa
wanted to send me across
the Argenteuil to help with the
children,
she was already ill and she refused.
She said I had to concentrate on my
studying and writing,
she told me not to make the same
mistake she did with marriage
and children, but that I had to
concentrate on my work.
Yes, but Tussy
your father wanted Johnny to stay
with us in England.
I have spent my whole life caring
for other people:
my father, my mother, my sister's
children,
now it's my turn to live, do you
see?
Edward says that if his next play is
successful then we can get
a bigger house, and Johnny can come
visit anytime.
He says our house is too small for
the three of us.
Bourgeois writers usually assume
that there is no such thing
as class struggle,
and that the English working-classes
were never in
so flourishing condition as they are
today; and that there is
no general feeling of class hatred,
and what little there is
arises solely from the innate
wickedness of the workers
and the evil teachings of Socialism.
But the facts are that
this struggle exists,
that it has existed for centuries,
and that its existence is quite
independent of any doctrine,
socialistic or otherwise.
The factory reports
are but a record of another phase
of this same struggle.
Whatever the report,
whatever the year, it is the same
sad and hideous story.
Evasion of the acts, recklessness
as to the health
and life of the workers, diseases
and accidents due to the
labour conditions
and the greed of employers.
In no way have the technical
advances
of industrial manufacture improved
the working conditions:
the masters have benefited
but not the man.
Profits are always the result of
unpaid labour somewhere or another,
and no real national good can come
from a rise in profits unless
the entire system of production for
profit is done away with.
As was clearly stated by my father
in chapter 23, section 4,
of "Das Kapital":
"The law of capitalistic
accumulation is laid down,
and proved historically."
"The law is that with the largest
accumulation of capital,"
"pauperism in a country is at its
worst."
But they are making you pay
the cost of the recession
out of your own salaries.
We've to make them spare money
otherways,
not by taking it away from the
workers.
We still have to discuss the
accident.
Oh yes, the poor man.
He had four children, don't he?
-He did. Two girls and two boys.
The greatest number of accident
happen because the lack of
fencing around the machinery.
And also because of the anxiety,
the understandable anxiety, for the
workers to get the work done.
And when the work is piece work that
anxiety is all greater.
As I understand it, the lost of a
man is important to you, is it not?
If we are to maintain productivity,
then yes.
And it happened on Saturday?
He was leaving work about 4 pm.
Workers are allowed to leave early
on a Saturday,
if the machinery has been cleaned.
So it'd be interesting to compile
figures for
the numbers of accidents that
happen on a Saturday,
when the workers are most eager to
get home.
And we are very far from having
workers who delight in
their own labor
in this merciless age.
I've compiled a table of accidents
for the year ending 1883 and in
that year
fatal accidents numbered 403
and the amputations came to 1337.
It's like that everyday.
They hustle like beasts not men,
and all this to earn at best 3
pence, 4 pence an hour.
The strugglings got that serious
the authorithy have removed
the iron pilons. That way
the weaker men
won't get impaled and crushed.
Is that when they brought
the police in?
To form a line, make it a little bit
more safe.
In all these years,
from the very beginning of our
acquaintance,
you and I
have never exchanged a word on
any serious subject.
Was it likely that I would be
continually
and forever telling you about
worries you could not help me to
bear?
I am not speaking of business
matters.
I mean you and have never sat down
together, in earnest,
to try to get to the bottom of
anything.
But, my dearest, would it have been
any good to you?
That's what I mean.
You have never understood me.
I have been greatly wronged,
first
by Papa
and then by you.
Why by us two, who have loved you
better than anyone else
in the world?
You never loved me.
You only thought
it was pleasant to be
in love with me.
It's perfectly true.
When I was at home,
Papa told me his opinion about
everything,
and so I had the same opinions.
And if I differed from him,
I concealed the fact, because he
would not have liked it.
He called me his "doll-child",
and he played with me like I played
with my dolls.
And when I came to live with you.
What sort of expression is that to
use about our marriage?
I mean I was simply transferred
from his hands into yours.
You arranged everything according to
your own taste,
and so I had the same tastes
or I pretended to,
I am really not sure which.
Sometimes I think the one,
sometimes I think the other.
When I look back,
it's like I have been living here,
as a poor woman,
just from hand to mouth.
I have existed
merely to perform tricks for you,
But you would have it so.
You and Papa have committed a great
sin against me
and it is your fault that
I have made nothing of my life.
How unreasonable and ungrateful
you are.
Have you not been happy with me?
No,
I've never been happy.
I thought I was.
but it has never really so.
Bravo!
Here you are.
Are you alright?
Yes, of course,
it was wonderful.
The text is incredible,
and your translation.
just it made me think of me and
Havelock.
I've been having such a sad feeling
lately,
that he just doesn't like me.
That the one thing he wants from me
is
to be someone else and not Olive
Schreiner.
But that's nonsense.
He adores you he admires you!
And you do so many things,
and I haven't been able to finish a
book for years now.
If I could just find a quiet spot,
a place where I could write.
Eleanor, I was telling William about
your pamphlet on "A Doll's House".
It's a sort of satire, in which the
play ends the other way
around, where.
he leaves her.
Okay, funny.
The title is "A Doll's House
Repaired".
In the "repaired" version, the
roles are simply inverted,
and the bourgeois audience is
reassured.
Have you read it?
Not yet, no.
Well, you should, it's very good.
And this is Miss Olive Schreiner,
the famous South African
writer and activist.
-How do you do?
-Delighted.
Eleanor, I loved you're adaptation,
it was brilliant.
The British audience of course is
not ready for this,
like they weren't ready for your
translation of "Madame Bovary",
but then it did have its political
effect.
"A Doll's House Repaired" could have
ended
like Madame Bovary with Nora's
suicide.
You should have thought about that.
What do you mean?
Well, instead of leaving him, Nora
could have killed herself.
The romantic version everybody would
have preferred.
I don't think that's funny.
To Ibsen.
To Ibsen.
We have to reduce spending, Edward.
You need to learn to save your
money.
You know you really shouldn't smoke
so much, the doctors.
Engels said you've asked him
for a loan.
Please, don't borrow any more money.
Don't ask other people and most of
all don't ask him.
He helped my father his whole life.
I hate doing it,
but is a rich man after all.
I don't care.
I would prefer not to accept any
more money from him.
The one Engels should really help
is his son.
He has never lifted a finger for
Freddy.
But then, he was the maid's child,
nobody cared about him,
is not right?
But Freddy and Helene would never
have accepted his help.
They're much too proud.
They are much prouder than you.
I'm sorry,
I didn't know why I said that.
Of course my darling.
Don't worry.
I see you've ordered more flowers.
I never received them.
I Friedrich Engels, of 122 Regent's
Park Road, London.
Hereby declare that
Frederick Demuth, the only son of my
deceased friend Helena Demuth,
is not my son.
Tough in the past I have let others
to believe this,
I am not the above said Frederick's
father.
Signed and declared, in the
presence of witnesses,
on the day and year first above
written.
Thank you.
The doctor is visiting him, you'll
have to wait.
Why are you doing this?
Only because Helene is dead and
isn't here to contradict you,
but I would talk to him, and he will
tell me the truth.
Friedrich can't speak anymore,
and in any case, he has made the
statement in presence
of an attorney.
Why can't he speak?
The tumour has devoured his vocal
chords.
But he has a little blackboard,
he can communicate with that.
You may come in now.
Friedrich.
Is what they're saying true?
Is it what they're saying about
Freddy true?
Then who is his father,
if it isn't you?
Did she know? Did Mama know?
have heard a lot about you two
Eleanor, Laura,
your dear sister Jenny.
There are legends of
the three Marx's daughters
resisting to a long police
interrogation
in the time of the Commune.
Yes, but Eleanor was always the
bravest,
and she was barely seventeen.
We found a house in the country,
finally.
We looked for it, when we still had
Etienne.
We wanted him to have a garden
to play in, a dog, or some other
animal.
But Etienne died, so it didn't do
it.
But now we found it,
they are selling it in a public
auction.
With the money Engels left we
should be able to afford it.
It's in Draveil, Seine-et-Oise, I
t's in ruins and it needs a lot of
work but it has thirty rooms,
additional buildings,
an orange tree patch
and a garden that goes all the way
to the forest in Snart.
We should stop here.
You're early!
Would you like one?
-Yes.
-Come on.
Say thank you.
-Thanks.
He loves those.
Christmas is important even for us,
even for those who aren't religious.
It's an excuse to be together.
They are here.
Can you help me?
-Yes, of course.Come on.
Sit there.
Many years ago,
I had left home,
my father didn't approve of
a friend I had,
a man who was much older than me.
I went to Brighton, I taught
English in a boarding school.
But I
became ill,
my parents tought it was physical
fatigue.
On Christmas day, my father came to
Brighton,
he came to bring me home.
Christmas has been important to me
since then.
Is Edward here tonight?
No, he hates Christmas. He says
it's a ridiculous celebration.
And he was ill tonight.
Oh we bought a new house, you must
come and see it. It has
a lovely garden.
It's a mess now with the boxes,
but when we settled it, I'd love to
invite you to come.
I'd like that very much.
I've always wanted a brother,
it's so lovely to have you here.
You are such a good person.
Oh you're getting heavier every
year.
Oh that's the perfect place for.
Done.
Oh don't you like it.
Quite right too,
yes we don't want everything too
perfect.
We need to talk, Tussy.
What happened?
Nothing. Nothing serious, just.
I'm leaving.
I'm going home to Cape Town.
Doctors have ordered me home to my
own beautiful climate.
The London air is killing me.
and with Havelock it's really over,
you know that.
Yes
course, I had expected that.
You should visit me
in Africa.
I'll spend the first seven months
on a delightful promontory
at the very end of South Africa,
where there are only three cottages
a
nd the post only comes once a week
if you send for it!
After that I hope to carry out
my life's dream of going on into the
interior for a year or two.
Isn't the world beautiful?
We never get to the end of it.
Oh Tussy.
Tussy!
Nobody calls me Tussy anymore.
There's something else I have to
tell you before I leave.
Is about Edward.
What about him?
I can't bear leaving you with him.
He is so selfish
but it's not only that, is that he
makes you so unhappy.
I have to tell you, I have horror of
him, ever since I first met him.
I fought it down for your sake,
but
now I just want you to know.
I love him very much, Ollie.
I know you two never got along,
but I would ask you
to please respect that.
Are you Miss Eleanor Marx Aveling?
Wife of Doctor Aveling?
I use the double name to sign
my articles but.
technically no, I'm not his wife,
we never got married.
Of course,
you can't be,
because I am his wife.
Doctor Aveling's wife died last
year, and she was much
older than you.
I know.
We got married right after his
wife's death.
But why aren't you living together?
If you're husband and wife, why is
he still living with me?
We can't afford it.
He has no money and I have no work.
What do you want from me?
I want you to leave him.
So he will live with me and accept
his responsibilities.
This certifies that you're married
to Alec Nelson.
Alec Nelson is Edward's pen name.
is what he uses to signs his plays,
but you must know it's.
it's not legal.
He has played a trick on you.
Sorry.
Merry Christmas.
The truth,
not fully recognised even by those
anxious to do good to women,
is that she,
like the labour classes,
is in an oppressed position,
and that her condition, like
theirs, is one of merciless
degradation.
Women are the creatures
of an organised tyranny of men,
just as the workers
are the creatures
of an organised tyranny of idlers.
Women have been expropriated as to
their rights as human beings,
just as the labourers were
expropriated as to their
rights as producers.
The method in each case
is the only one that makes
expropriation at any time and under
any circumstances possible.
The method is force.
It is unnecessary
to point out how much better,
within the last few years,
women's rights have been managed in
England,
thanks to the action of women
themselves.
But it is necessary instead to
remind you that,
with all these added rights,
English women,
married and unmarried alike,
are still morally dependent on man,
and are still badly treated by him.
What is it that we as Socialists
desire for women?
What is it that we expect?
What is that of whose coming we
feel as assured as of the
rising of tomorrow's sun?
In the Socialistic Working Society,
as was predicted by my father,
clearly there will be equality for
all, without distinction of sex.
Thus, woman will be independent.
Her education and all other
opportunities will be
equal to that of a man.
Like him, she, if in sound mind and
body,
will have to give her one, two, or
three hours of social labour
to supply the wants of the
community, and therefore herself.
Thereafter she will be free for art,
science,
writing, teaching or amusements
in any form.
Whether monogamy or polygamy will
obtain
in a Socialistic State is a detail
on which we can only speak
as an individual. Personally I
believe that monogamy
will gain the day.
There are approximately equal
numbers of man and women.
And the highest ideal seems to be
the complete lasting
blending of two human lvfes.
This ideal, almost never attainable
today,
requires at least four things:
love,
respect,
intellectual likeness,
and a command for the necessities of
life.
In the Socialistic Working Society
prostitution will have vanished,
along with the economic conditions
that made it, and make it even at
this time, an economic necessity.
Women will be no longer men slave,
but his equal.
The contract between a man and a
women will be of a purely
private nature,
with no need for intervention from
any public functionary.
For divorce there will be no need;
nor will there be this hideous
disguise, this constant
lying that makes the domestic life
of almost all English homes
an organised hypocrisy.
Man and woman will find in the heart
of the other
that which is in the eyes:
their own image.
When I was in prison, I made friends
with a bird.
I named him Carnal.
Every morning,
he would come,
flying in between the bars,
to wake me.
They reminds me of him.
Arianne, Brunilde, Clotilde.
The goose is Carlos,
he is a rebel like you.
They are my babies.
I've been studying a lot of
mathematics lately
and I was wondering
if you still remember
your father was studying algebra,
to build new models for his economic
analysis.
Yes, but that was for practical use,
for the third book of the Capital.
It doesn't matter.
I don't understand why you've
completely abandoned
the practical aspects of our study.
'Cause it's over.
The time for political practice,
for us
is over.
Paul, what are you talking about,
there are still so many
battles to be fought.
Laura, Laura! You still have some
cake left for us?
Yes!
Let's go eat some cake.
And then he started talking about
the goose?
And how was lonely and needs a
friend?
Well it may be lonely, don't you
think?
Oh Paul.
What a boy he was.
A hero of the Commune.
What has become of him?
I'm so glad Papa can't see this,
he has given up on everything.
Laura and her cow.
The doctor told you to stop with the
cigars.
I seriously doubt he would approve
of you smoking opium.
Your sister has lost her mind,
completely.
All those children, they're
children of people she barely knows.
Why does she keep inviting them?
Just because you have a garden, it
doesn't mean you have to
fill it up with people's children.
My sister lost three children.
Two of them were only a few weeks
old, but Etienne was three.
I know she thinks about them all the
time.
I find her obsession for children
heartbreaking.
I was joking. I'm Sorry.
I was.
I saw so little of him this year.
He was always away;
he spent a long time in Torquay,
preparing two plays that got
cancelled in the end.
And he sees other women,
of course, as usual.
But we get on well together.
We have fun.
Working together is still very
exciting.
Laura, did Eddy ask you or Paul to
lend him money?
Not directly,
but a few creditors have written to
Paul.
It seems that Edward has put our
name forward for
a guarantee for a loan.
I don't understand, where are your
savings going?
He's hopeless with money.
And now we have all this medical
expenses
because of his lungs and all the
other problems
and with the new house and all the
rest,
we spent all the money I got from
Engels.
But he doesn't worry.
He never worries.
He doesn't know feelings like
pain or fear.
If he does worry,
if he gets out for an hour, he goes
around completely unconcerned.
He's like a child.
It's likely that because of the
drugs he takes for his lungs,
the infection will not subside.
We cannot give him medicines
that could impede the effect of the
other ones.
You're so pretty.
Can I have some whisky?
Do you still love me?
I was born to love you.
Why do you lie to me
all the time?
Lies don't matter.
You are the light and the blessing
of my life.
Do you love me?
You have to stop hurting me,
you promise?
Yes. I promise.
20 men will be too many in here.
That's 250 cubic feet of air per
person.
For soldiers in barracks the
standard amount is 600.
Yes, but soldiers in barracks
occupy the site for the
entire day and night,
whereas here the air is restored
during the night.
Of course, the necessary air is less
than 600 probably,
but 250 is less than a half.
The restoration of the air
during the night will only help for
the first hour or so.
Men want to keep the window closed
when they're working.
There is no way they will leave it
open.
My father used to say that the
English working class
is almost more antagonist
to fresh air than a German in a
railway- carriage.
They don't understand its value.
They over-enfatized the possibility
of harm.
Many men are afraid of the
consequences of a cold draught.
Is an oversusceptibility to chest
infections among them.
A thousand times more injury is
likely to come from a closed room
than one with a slide draught.
It's our job to explain that to
them.
And you have to remind to the
children are not allowed
to work unless they have completed
Standard III.
It was one of the main battles we
fought, and we won.
This means they will have to be at
least ten years old.
It's absurd! The men will never
have it!
Michael, please.
Why don't you tell her that we need
our children's salaries aye,
we are happy when they work?
Michael, this is unaccettable.
It won't happen it for me, enough.
I'm sorry about Michael.
He's under a lot of strain.
I'm only trying to help.
Has the post come?
No news yet, Miss.
Oh believe me, I'm used to it.
Doctor Aveling can disappear, but he
always reappears again.
If he were ill, I'd know.
It will be good to him to spend some
time on the coast,
breathing the London air is
definitely not good for his lungs.
You can go, Gerty.
You have to leave it on for at
least an hour.
Or I would see it wouldn't work.
I'll leave on all evening, I've got
work to do.
He's got white hair too.
I had no idea that happened to dogs.
Yes that's right.
Have a nice evening.
Six.
15 December 1863.
My dear love Jenny,
I've been here in Trier for eight
days now.
If I haven't written, it was not
out of forgetfulness,
quite the opposite:
I take daily pilgrimages to your old
house, in Roemerstrasse,
that interests me more than the
whole of Roman antiquity
because it reminds me of my happy
youth,
and because it once held my dearest
treasure.
I'm asked daily on all sides about
the former
"most beautiful girl in Trier" and
"Queen of the Ball".
It is damned pleasing
for a man
to find his wife lives on in
the imagination
of a whole city as a delightful
princess.
I love you so much.
This is what they wanted.
To be buried in the same tomb.
They lived the whole lifes together.
Was my mother not jealous?
How did they carry on after what
happened?
They had a great adventure.
I spoke to my solicitor, yesterday.
We have so many debts.
Edward spent so much money lately,
he keeps asking people and signing
papers.
I can't even scold him, cos he's
disappeared again.
What do you mean he is disappeared?
He went to the coast, to get some
fresh air about two months ago.
I haven't heard from him since.
Of course, I am used to it, but he's
never been gone this long before.
He did promised me.
but of course, I knew he would do it
again.
You shouldn't let him treat you this
way.
I think I know what his problem is.
He simply has no moral sense,
just
as some are deaf, or have bad
sight, or are unhealthy
and otherwise.
Cos I know deep down.
I can't blame him for.
Freddy,
I don't think you and I are such
wicked people.
And yet we seem to have got all the
punishment.
You lost your wife and I fell in
love with Edward.
Some have been unluckier.
Yes, of course.
Doctor Aveling is back.
ood.
-Goodnight.
-Night.
Hello my darling.
Could I get a kiss?
You don't ask me how I feel?
I thought you were dead.
Well I am pretty ill.
That's why I didn't write,
I didn't want to worry you.
You should go to bed and rest.
How is your wound?
Hurts like hell.
Let me look it for you.
Ready?
I'm hungry.
I'm enough
You want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
I want more, you want more,
you want more.
I'm enough,
you want more, you want more,
you want more.
As if it were a choice
As if there were a place to run
As if they had your voice
As if there were a proper talk!
As if it were a job
As if it could be right to run
And so the days go by
Only one will remain.
Let it rip
Let it rip so easily
That first blow
To those who have everything
We'll get through
Yes, that's ours
Yes, that's ours
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
I'm not going to leave
An now our time has come and gone
And now we're here
Combine the words
Good morning, Gerty.
Edward was feeling much better this
morning,
he went to town, he had an
appointment.
May I ask you to rend an errand for
me?
What is this for?
It's for the dog,
he's old and very ill.
All right.
I need a signature of a doctor.
Doctor Aveling will have to sign
the book of poisons.
Thanks.
She said she'd come by later, to
pay.
Miss Marx?
Miss Marx?
You're favorite virtue?
Papa?
My favourite virtue is
straightforwardness.
Joylity.
Sincerity.
Humanity.
Mine is truth.
Your idea of happiness?
To fight.
Chateau Margaux 1848.
Knowing that you are loved.
I don't know!
Champagne!
Your idea of misery?
To submit.
Going to a dentist.
Self-contempt.
Mine is a toothache!
Your favourite maxime and motto?
Nothing human is alien to me.
Take it easy!
Know thyself.
All for one and one for all.
Mine is go head!