Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of January 14, 1869

Overview

Cosima records a day overshadowed by fragility, as small domestic losses, worries over the children’s health, and silence from Munich all deepen her unease. A solitary walk steadies her, leading her toward a hard-won inward acceptance of suffering and the sense that endurance itself is a form of grace. At table, she and Richard revisit bitter personal and intellectual betrayals, while new artistic concerns arise over the coming Dresden performance of Die Meistersinger. Yet even amid foreboding and sadness, shared work on the biography briefly lifts their spirits, and the entry closes with her thoughts turning tenderly back to her distant children.

Content

Thursday, January 14:

Restless night, but good morning hours. Richard wakes me with the Lohengrin “Battle Song.” But then he tells me a bullfinch has dashed itself to death on the sides of the bird cage in fright. He bought the little creatures only a few weeks ago; one of them fretted itself to death and would not eat, wasted right away. How sad it is! Kos is also always ill, and does not improve in spite of all our attention.

After taking the children into the garden I go for a little walk on my own, thinking of the little ones in Munich. Involuntarily the restless spirit, in its anxiety, implores its unmoving surroundings for help and protection. They remain rigid and silent, but deep inside the words resound: “Reconcile yourself with your heart and your fate, control the former and bear the latter. In the end you will not be given a burden greater than you can carry.” I returned home in peace.

At lunch R. and I discuss once more the horrible episode with Fröbel; that this man who is now foaming with rage is the same man whom R. himself brought to Munich in order to help him propagate his ideas! R. tells me finally that Hebbel had once said to him about Nestroy, “He is such a vile person that a rose he has sniffed must itself begin to stink.” His theories on love, as conveyed by Fröbel’s pen, seem to him, he says, rather like the rose beneath Nestroy’s nose.

A letter from his niece Ottilie in Dresden invites Richard to the first performance there of Die Meistersinger. R. is undecided whether to go; he would like to do something to prevent too poor a performance, but he dreads the thought of what he might experience there. He goes into town and brings back a good letter from Milan, his publisher, but nothing from my children.

Much sorrow, but I manage to control it. Richard is in a gloomy mood; the general silence in Munich he finds very depressing. My father left Rome on the 7th; R. thinks that an evil brew is being prepared for us on all sides. The biography restores our spirits. Good night, my children. Your mother’s heart is concerned for you.