Marx-Engels Correspondence 1871
Source: MECW Volume 44, p. 174;
First published: in Russian, in Minuvshiye gody, St Petersburg, 1908.
Dear Friend,
Excuse me for answering with such a delay. I have been so much overworked during this latter time that I got hardly to bed.
Hence I could not think of doing anything concerning The Capital. Next week, however, I shall commence and make the whole thing ready for you.
I had a packet ready for Berlin, but, unfortunately, it has, by some mistake, not been sent off. It is still here. So please send me a new address for Berlin, and I shall dispatch the packet at once.
As to our mutual friend [Hermann Lopatin] the most alarming news has arrived here, but, I hope, it is false, or at all events exaggerated.
If you were able to find me a correspondent in Berlin who might serve as an intermediary for some of the commercial business I have to transact with Petersburg, it would be a useful thing, and for some articles that circuitous way might prove shorter than the direct way. The straight line is not in all cases, as the mathematicians fancy, the shortest one.
Yours most faithfully,
A. Williams