Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Gabriel Mary

Author:Gabriel, Mary [Gabriel, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9780316191371
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2011-09-13T16:00:00+00:00

Marx appeared to be in the mood for full disclosure, because in the same letter he told Engels the true status of Capital. “There are three more chapters to be written to complete the theoretical part (the first three books). Then there is still the fourth book, the historical-literary one, to be written.” But yet again, postponement: “I cannot bring myself to send anything off until I have the whole thing in front of me. WHATEVER SHORTCOMINGS THEY MAY HAVE, the advantage of my writings is that they are an artistic whole, and this can only be achieved through my practice of never having things printed until I have them in front of me in their entirety.”98

In order to be left alone to work on his book, Marx said he lied to IWMA members and told them he was leaving London. That summer the city was beastly hot; Marx told Engels he had been vomiting nearly every day for three months, and because of the heat he had worked by an open window and now had rheumatism in his right arm and shoulder blade.99 Still, he promised to spare no effort to complete Capital: “The thing is a nightmarish burden to me.”100

Engels agreed. “The day that manuscript is sent off, I shall drink myself to kingdom come.”101 But the book had already missed its deadline, and the prospects for its completion looked dim with each passing month. In August, Marx’s “bilious” troubles and the heat made him incapable of thinking.102 A week later he announced he had the flu and was forced to dabble “in irrelevancies, including astronomy.”103 Meanwhile, Laura became ill, Tussy had measles, Jenny lost two front lower teeth and ultimately had to have four replaced, Jennychen contracted diphtheria, and Edgar had begun to recover and was eating them out of house and home. Marx complained that all Edgar thought about was the needs of his stomach and his clothes—even his sex drive had gone to his belly.104 On top of this, IWMA colleagues had discovered that Marx had not left London but was trying to avoid them. The organization once again insisted on his attention.105

By mid-January 1866 Marx had twelve hundred pages, and he said he was working twelve hours a day writing a fair copy of the book because Meissner was grumbling about the delay; Marx now hoped he could get it to him by March.106 London was covered in an ankle-deep blanket of snow107 as Marx sat at his desk near the fireplace copying the book and polishing the style—or, as he said, “licking the infant clean after long birth pangs.”108 But then a carbuncle appeared, followed by “all kinds of little progeny.” Because of their location, he could not sit to write, and because of the pain and medication, he could not think to theorize. Doctors blamed the outbreak on excessive night work, which Marx said was unavoidable given the demands he faced during the day.109

By mid-February Marx felt he had lost so much ground that the book was no longer ready for publication.

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