KARL MARX
39
PROUDHON
(with a lewd French leer).
And how is the
petite
mademoiselle?
MARY BURNS. Faith, Misther Proudhon, us Irish may have been
the bribed tools of British imperialism once, but today we're in the
vanguard of the proletariat, an' I'll thank ye to keep a
civil
tongue
in
yer head an' not be callin' me anny of those filthy French names!
ENGELS. You must be careful, Comrade Marx: remember that
the mad dogs of reaction are trailing you.
MARY BURNS. Jesus, Mary and Joseph! There's that spalpeen
Lassalle again!
ENGELS. How many times must I tell you, Mary, that religion
is the opium of the people?
MARX. No, Friedrich: that's what I said when I was young, but
today we must not exclude the possibility of a broad popular front
with the Vatican.
LASSALLE
(to Bakunin).
Why don't you throw the bomb?
BAKUNIN. That will always be unexplained.
ENGELS
(addressing the audience).
Our beloved leader, Com–
rade Marx, will announce a new directive.
Prolonged applause. Marx appears on the platform. Prolonged
applause and cheering.
MARX. Comrades, we must combat the menace of Bourbonism,
which is threatening Europe today. We must support the people of.
France under the progressive leadership of Napoleon III in their
struggle against monarchism in Italy.
ENGELS. Long live the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bona–
parte!
Prolonged applause and tumultuous cheering.
MARX. We must stamp out the gangsters of Bourbonism!-and
for this we have our weapon ever-ready, the spearhead of the prole–
tariat : the Marxist-Hegelist Dialectic!
(He opens the leather case
and takes out the Dialectic, which is in the form of a gleaming
revolver. He points it at Bruno Bauer.)
Have you, Bruno Bauer, been
in contact with Bourbon agents?
BRUNO BAUER. I stewed in my own juice and took orders from
the Duc de Guise
in
the Hotel Adlon in Paris.
MARX
(shoots him with the Dialectic, then turns it on Proud–
han).
And you, M. Proudhon?
PROUDHON. I conspired to give Alsace-Lorraine to the Italians
in return for aid against Louis Bonaparte and our leader, Comrade
Marx.
Marx shoots him.
MARX
(to Bakunin).
Arid you!
