The Marx He Knew | Page 9

for Karl, but he was nowhere to be seen. He was a very busy man, you see, and had to write a great deal for his paper at night.
"It was getting on for ten o'clock when Karl appeared in the hall and made his way in silence to the platform. Some of the comrades applauded him, but he raised his hand to silence them. We saw then that he held a telegram in his hand, and that his face was as pale as death itself. We knew that something terrible had happened, and a great hush fell over the meeting. Not a sound could be heard until Karl began to read.
"The telegram was very brief and very terrible. Robert Blum had been shot to death in Vienna, according to martial law, it said. Karl read it with solemn voice, and I thought that I could see the murder taking place right there in the hall before my eyes. I suppose everybody felt just like that, for there was perfect silence--the kind of silence that is painful--for a few seconds. Then we all broke out in a perfect roar of fury and cheers for the Revolution.
"I tried to speak to Karl after the meeting, but he brushed me aside and hurried away. His face was terrible to behold. He was the Revolution itself in human shape. As I looked at him I knew that he would live to avenge poor Blum.
"Blum's death was followed by the coup de' etat. The King appointed a new ministry and the National Assembly was dissolved. The Neue Rhenische Zeitung came out then with a notice calling upon all citizens to forcibly resist all attempts to collect taxes from them. That meant war, of course, war to the knife, and we all knew it.
"Karl was arrested upon a charge of treason, inciting people to armed resistance to the King's authority. We all feared that it would go badly with him. There was another trial, too, Karl and Engels and a comrade named Korff, manager of the paper, were placed on trial for criminal libel. I went to this trial and heard Karl make the speech for the defence. The galleries were crowded and when he got through they applauded till the rafters shook. 'If Marx can make a speech like that at the 'treason' trial, no jury will convict,' was what everybody in the galleries said.
"When we got outside--oh, I forgot to say that the three defendants were acquitted, didn't I? Well, when we got outside, I told Karl what all the comrades, and many who were not comrades at all, were saying about his defence. He was pleased to hear it, I believe, but all that he would say was, 'I shall do much better than that, Hans, much better than that. Unless I'm mistaken, I can make the public prosecutor look like an idiot, Hans.'
"You can bet that I was at the 'treason' trial two days later. I pressed Karl's hand as he went in, and he looked back and winked at me as mischievously as possible, but said not a word. The lawyers for the government bitterly attacked Karl and the two other members of the executive of the Democratic Club who were arrested with him. But their abuse was mostly for Karl. He was the one they were trying to strike down, any fool could see that.
"Well, when the case for the prosecution was all in, Karl began to talk to the jury. He didn't make a speech exactly, but just talked as he always did when he sat with a few friends over a glass of lager. In a chatty sort of way, he explained the law to the jury, showed where the clever lawyers for the government had made big mistakes, and proved that he knew the law better than they did. After that he gave them a little political lecture, you might say. He explained to them just how he looked at the political questions--always from the standpoint of the working people.
"Sitting beside me was an old man, a Professor of Law they told me he was. He sat there with his eyes fastened upon Karl, listening with all his ears to every word. 'Splendid! Splendid! Wonderful logic,' I heard him say to himself. 'What a lawyer that man would make!' I watched the faces of the jury and it was plain to see that Karl was making a deep impression upon them, though they were all middle class men. Even the old judge forgot himself and nodded and smiled when Karl's logic made the prosecution look foolish. You could see that the old judge was admiring the wonderful mind of the man before him.
"Well, the three prisoners were acquitted by the jury and Karl was greatly pleased when