Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of November 6, 1870

Overview

Marie Muchanoff's letter widens Cosima's estrangement from her father, whose sympathy for France now appears irreparable. Cosima writes to Schure, reads fairy tales to the children, and receives from her mother a pro-French appeal intended for the Crown Prince of Prussia. Wagner turns the balloon-borne French government into a comic Aristophanic image, and the evening's Othello opens a more serious imaginative world.

Content

Sunday, November 6:

Letter from Marie M., my father is not going to Weimar, out of sympathy for the French—so the gap between us is now beyond repair. She speaks of Napoleon’s rehabilitation as probable!

I write to Frau Schuré. Read fairy tales to the children. R. brings home a letter from my mother, who encloses a letter addressed to the Crown Prince of Prussia, aimed at retaining Alsace for France!!!

R. says that the French government in balloons would be a subject for an Aristophanic comedy; a government like that, up in the air in both senses, would provide a writer of comedy with some splendid ideas.

In the evening Othello, every page an experience in itself.