Jenny Marx Correspondence 1866
Source: MECW, Volume 42, p. 576;
First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Moscow, 1963.
My dear Mr Engels,
The hamper has just arrived, and the bottles have been put on parade, with the Rhenish to the fore! How can we thank you for all your friendship! The £10 which arrived on Saturday will avert the harshest storms of Christmastide and enable us to celebrate a Merry Christmas. The wine was particularly welcome this year, as with the young Frenchman [Paul Lafargue] in the house we like to keep up appearances.
If the publisher in Hamburg’ really can print the book [Capital] as fast as he says, it is certain to come out by Easter in any case. It is a pleasure to see the manuscript lying there copied out and stacked up so high. It is an enormous weight off my mind; we have enough troubles and worries left without that, especially when the girls fall in love and become engaged, and to Frenchmen and medical students to boot! I wish I could see everything couleur de rose as much as the others do, but the long years with their many anxieties have made me nervous, and the future often looks black to me when it all looks rosy to a more cheerful spirit. Cela entre nous.
Once more, a thousand thanks for the hock and all its train!
Yours
Jenny Marx