Jenny Marx Correspondence 1866
Source: MECW, Volume 42, p. 574;
First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Moscow, 1963.
Dear Sir,
I presume that the registered letter that I received from Hanover late yesterday evening is from you. I cannot send it on to my husband in Margate until tomorrow unfortunately, as in pious England all communications halt on Sundays. Since the reply may be held up by this delay, I hasten to let you know immediately today that the letter has arrived safely; but, at the same time, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to you for my total silence. Just how indebted I am to you for the great sympathy and touching friendship you have shown my husband was really brought home to me when the young man from the City called to enquire on your behalf as to my husband’s condition. Immediately after my last letter to you, Karl really became gravely ill; a fresh carbuncle (not a furuncle) erupted, and was indeed so obstinate and so inflammatory that for almost 3 weeks my poor husband could scarcely move and was entirely confined to the sofa. Since we are all only too well aware how dangerous this complaint is, if it keeps recurring over a period of years, you can well imagine how melancholy the days and nights have been for us.
On the advice of Doctor Gumpert in Manchester, he decided to begin the arsenic cure, as well as to spend a few weeks at the seaside after the abscess had healed. He has now been in Margate, a coastal resort quite near here, for nearly 2 weeks, and it seems to us that his health has been greatly restored there. He will return next week to pick up with renewed energy the completion of that work of his [Capital] which has so often been interrupted.
Yesterday he sent me his photogram, and since you would perhaps appreciate a sunny picture of the man to whom you have shown so much friendship, although you do not know him personally, I am enclosing 1 copy with this note.
With all my respects, despite our not being acquainted
Yours truly
Jenny Marx
a the first volume of Capital