Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of September 8, 1870

Overview

Cosima improves enough to see the children again, while Wagner reads Richard II and the household hears of patriotic demonstrations after the French capitulation. Muchanoff's account of King Ludwig's absence and Liszt's isolation prompts Cosima to criticize lives oriented toward outward display and empty belief. Wagner reads her the conclusion of Beethoven, linking her convalescence with the essay's completion.

Content

Thursday, September 8:

I feel better, all that remains is a bad cough. I see the children again, and in the evening R. continues with the reading of Richard II. (Loulou and Boni at Countess B.’s, where they are to help work out a tableau vivant. This little bit of nonsense is to take place in Lucerne for the benefit of the wounded.) Letter from Marie Muchanoff; she says that at the patriotic demonstration which followed the tremendous news of the capitulation of the French army the King did not make an appearance, so that the Prussian ambassador was the center of the delirious ovations. How very foolish of the King!!

She also says my father has written very sadly, he had wanted to visit the wounded, but worldly considerations had restrained him, something he now deeply regrets. She says he is more isolated than he himself realizes. A person who always looks to and acts for the outside world will soon develop an inner emptiness, and I do not think a belief in infallibility can ever fill this emptiness. (R. reads me the conclusion of his Beethoven.)