Letter from Karl Marx to Paul Lafargue and his daughter Laura, in Paris, written in London on 18 October 1869. The manuscript is preserved (RGASPI, Moscow). Text from the manuscript, MEGAdigital (MEGA² III/16, letter no. 301), Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, CC BY-SA 4.0, without the editors’ apparatus. Letters in square brackets complete abbreviations (MEGA editors). Traducción al español
London 18 Oct. ’69.
My dear Paul and Laura,
I send you to-day the manuscript of Mr. Keller. I cannot find his address. So you must through the aid of Schily get it out from M. Hess.
Tell Mr. Keller that he shall go on. On the whole, I am satisfied with his translation, although it lacks elegance and is done in too negligent a way.
He will do best to send me every chapter through you. As to chapter IV I shall subdivide it.
The changes I have made in his chapter II need not be maintained, but they show the direction in which I want the corrections to be made.
As to the word “Verwerthung” see my note p. 12 of his man[u]scpt. He must make a note on it for the French reader.
I doubt whether the frequent large printing of words will do for French printers.
In German we use the word “process” (procès) for economical movements, as you say chemical procès, si je ne me trompe pas. He translates by phenomena which is nonsense. If he can find no other word, he must always translate by “mouvement” or something analogous.
Kiss dear Schnappy on my behalf.
Yours
Old Nick.
I have received a letter from St. Petersbourg. A Russian sends me his work (in German) on the situation of the peasantry and the working class generally in that benighted country.