Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of November 8, 1870

Overview

The question of an armistice dominates political talk, and Wagner reads the French republic's fanaticism as the result of having no honorable terms to offer. A Germanic speech from Flanders and reflections on French cultural influence lead him to imagine a comic farce, Die Kapitulation, which Cosima welcomes because it revives his spirits despite interrupting the score. The day closes in domestic abundance: children, fairy tales, roses, the lost ring postponed, and Wagner's sense that they are living in paradise.

Content

Tuesday, November 8:

Armistice or not, that is now the question. R. says the republic has no alternative but to declare: Not a stone, not an inch farther; well and good, reply the people, if you can do it; but the moment they start making terms with the enemy, the reaction would be quite different; that is why the men in power are behaving like fanatics.

Yesterday a man from Flanders sent us a raging, Germanic speech which we much enjoyed. R. says Germany has escaped by a hair’s breadth from becoming, under French influence, a country like Belgium, all cultural activities French and only the humble people German in outlook. Just as in Spain the national theater disappeared immediately when the French influence made itself felt.

Fidi naughty to his papa! Around noon R. comes and calls to me that he wishes to read me something: it left him no peace, he had to sketch out a farce in the style of Aristophanes, Die Kapitulation; Richter can write the music for it, and then it can be played in the little theaters. His first thought was that I would be offended or worried because he had put aside his orchestration to do it, but I am content with anything that cheers and stimulates him. Anyway, he completed a page of the score in the evening.

We decide at lunch to drink to the venture, and R. says to Jakob, “The Baroness would like the Marcobrunner.” I laugh at R. for using my old title. “Well, I still cannot really believe that you are mine, I still feel you have only been lent to me, you are the visitor from the fairy world who will soon vanish.”

I intend to drive out to look for the lost ring, but sleep away the time in the afternoon; I send for the children, all five, and Willy Stocker as well; the four little ones leap about and crawl on the ground (the frog pond, says R.) and I read fairy tales to the two big ones; in the end I am left with Lusch alone, to whom I read Roman history. “We are truly in Paradise,” R. tells me.

The roses are still blooming in our garden; yesterday when I awoke I found three lovely roses with buds lying in my lap; R. had placed them there while I was sleeping.

In the evening the second part of El tejedor de Segovia.