I hasten to acknowledge receipt of your letter. I learn no more from it than I already knew in advance, namely that the whole thing was the most miserable piece of tattle. All I wanted was a few lines from you in order to show Engels in black and white the nature of German petty bourgeois gossip in Paris. I assure you that, since I moved from Paris, and despite all the precautions I have taken to make myself unfindable and inaccessible, these old women have continued to pursue me with