Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of January 10, 1874

Overview

The conservatory offers a rare sanctuary, and the writer takes deep comfort in the living green while the house itself remains cold and difficult. R.’s tenderness toward the children and his talk of Nordic life and nature soften the day, but the evening reading returns them to the sorrow of mortality and family loss.

Content

Saturday, January 10:

Wrote in the conservatory, in brilliant sunshine, an indescribably comforting spot - no book in the world could, I think, have such a good effect as these green leaves stretching out soothingly and caressingly toward me.

Today R. cut Loldi’s toenails! And says: “I so much enjoy doing such things for a child.” Yesterday he took Fidi for a walk, then to Angermann’s for beer and pretzels. One day the children will doubtless remember his heavenly kindness and love, which they will not encounter again in life.

When I tell him about my delight in the conservatory, he says: “Yes, that is our joy in Nature - we Nordic people live as if in a prison; one has the whole of Nature on a free person.” The house is very cold. The three elder children do a lot of skating. In the evening Luther - the death of his little daughter, at which the heart rejoices, but the flesh grieves.