She was noble, the daughter of one high official and the sister of another.  Those whom she knew were persons of rank and station.  On the other hand, young Marx, though he had accepted Christianity, was the son of a provincial Jewish lawyer, with no fortune, and with a bad record at the university.  When she thought of all these things, she may well have hesitated; but the earnest pleading and intense ardor of Karl Marx broke down all barriers between them, and they became engaged, without informing Jenny’s father of their compact.  Then they parted for a while, and Karl returned to his home, filled with romantic thoughts.

He was also full of ambition and of desire for achievement.  He had won the loveliest girl in Treves, and now he must go forth into the world and conquer it for her sake.  He begged his father to send him to Berlin, and showed how much more advantageous was that new and splendid university, where Hegel’s fame was still in the ascendent.

In answer to his father’s questions, the younger Marx replied: 

“I have something to tell you that will explain all; but first you must give me your word that you will tell no one.”

“I trust you wholly,” said the father.  “I will not reveal what you may say to me.”

“Well,” returned the son, “I am engaged to marry Jenny von Westphalen.  She wishes it kept a secret from her father, but I am at liberty to tell you of it.”

The elder Marx was at once shocked and seriously disturbed.  Baron von Westphalen was his old and intimate friend.  No thought of romance between their children had ever come into his mind.  It seemed disloyal to keep the verlobung of Karl and Jenny a secret; for should it be revealed, what would the baron think of Marx?  Their disparity of rank and fortune would make the whole affair stand out as something wrong and underhand.

The father endeavored to make his son see all this.  He begged him to go and tell the baron, but young Marx was not to be persuaded.

“Send me to Berlin,” he said, “and we shall again be separated; but I shall work and make a name for myself, so that when I return neither Jenny nor her father will have occasion to be disturbed by our engagement.”

With these words he half satisfied his father, and before long he was sent to Berlin, where he fell manfully upon his studies.  His father had insisted that he should study law; but his own tastes were for philosophy and history.  He attended lectures in jurisprudence “as a necessary evil,” but he read omnivorously in subjects that were nearer to his heart.  The result was that his official record was not much better than it had been at Bonn.

The same sort of restlessness, too, took possession of him when he found that Jenny would not answer his letters.  No matter how eagerly and tenderly he wrote to her, there came no reply.  Even the most passionate pleadings left her silent and unresponsive.  Karl could not complain, for she had warned him that she would not write to him.  She felt that their engagement, being secret, was anomalous, and that until her family knew of it she was not free to act as she might wish.