Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of April 4, 1870

Overview

Forges’s proposal to arrange discussions with Perfall over Die Walkuere alarms Wagner and Cosima, intensifying their uncertainty about Munich. Wagner’s declaration that Cosima is his only support gives the day a stark emotional axis. Reports from Berlin describe opposition to Beckmesser being defeated, while Nietzsche’s letter, Richter’s birthday telegram, Cosima’s rebuke to Forges, Plato, and a distasteful French periodical occupy the evening.

Content

Monday, April 4:

Bad start to the day with a letter from H. Forges, who actually wants to arrange discussions between R. and Herr von Perfall about Die Walküre. Sorrowful conversation with R. about this. How will it all end? Children in the garden, I embroider. After lunch R. takes my head in his hands and says, “You are my last support, my only support.”

Letter from Herr von Gersdorff in Berlin about Die Meistersinger; as in Vienna, Beckmesser’s serenade was the cue for the hissers, who were completely crushed, however. Letter from Prof. Nietzsche. We send Richter a telegram for his birthday; I write to Forges, rebuking him. In the evening Symposium. (Copy of a French periodical, Le Diable, with a nice essay by Cat. Mendès on Lohengrin. But the whole disgusts us irremediably.)