Cosima's Diaries

Recordings by Cosima Wagner between 1869 and 1883

Cosima Wagner’s diaries are one of the most extraordinary inner records of nineteenth-century artistic life: part household chronicle, part spiritual notebook, part Bayreuth archive, and part psychological portrait of Wagner’s final years. Across thousands of entries, we see the daily world behind the myth: children, servants, illness, money, visitors, letters, rehearsals, readings, quarrels, weather, politics, music, and moments of almost mystical illumination. The diaries follow Wagner from the intimate Tribschen years through the creation of Bayreuth, the triumph and crisis of the 1876 Ring Festival, the making of Parsifal, the rise and collapse of the Nietzsche relationship, and the darker ideological currents that increasingly gathered around Wahnfried, including Wagner and Cosima’s antisemitism. They are not a neutral record, nor always a comfortable one, but they are indispensable: a vast, intimate, often beautiful, often disturbing window into the household where Wagner’s final works, his self-mythology, and the Bayreuth idea took shape.

The diary entries gathered here cover the years from January 1869 to February 1883, carrying the reader from the last Tribschen years to Wagner’s final days in Venice. Their breadth is astonishing. They are at once a household record, an artistic logbook, a spiritual notebook, a political barometer, and the intimate chronicle of a private circle attempting to become a public institution. Cosima records children’s illnesses, lessons, servants, meals, letters, debts, travel, weather, music-making, rehearsals, guests, books, dreams, religious reflections, and Wagner’s daily moods. The sublime and the administrative are never far apart. A passage on Schopenhauer, Shakespeare, Calderón, Beethoven, or Christ may sit beside anxieties about singers, money, doctors, railway journeys, or household arrangements.

The early years, especially 1869 to 1871, still belong largely to the private world of Tribschen. They are filled with the pressures surrounding Cosima’s separation from Hans von Bülow, her union with Richard Wagner, the birth and childhood of Siegfried, and the intense domestic enclosure in which Wagner’s later work was nurtured. Yet the outside world continually enters: King Ludwig, Munich theatrical politics, the Franco-Prussian War, German nationalism, and the first sustained appearances of Friedrich Nietzsche. Wagner’s work on Siegfried and the wider Ring is recorded not as a distant masterpiece but as something happening in rooms, at the piano, amid children, letters, exhaustion, and sudden exaltation.

From 1871 onward, the diaries begin to turn toward Bayreuth. At first it appears as an idea, almost a visionary solution to the failures of ordinary theatres. Soon it becomes practical reality: sites, architects, patrons, Wagner societies, subscriptions, guarantees, construction, copyists, singers, scenery, and the immense labour of creating a theatre for one artistic purpose. The move to Bayreuth and the building of Wahnfried do not simplify life. They intensify it. The diaries show Bayreuth not merely as a shrine, but as a project beset by money, politics, vanity, devotion, incompetence, faith, and fatigue.

The approach to the 1876 Ring cycle dominates the middle years. The Festival is presented as the culmination of decades of artistic striving, but Cosima’s record makes clear how fragile the whole enterprise was. Every singer, rehearsal, costume, curtain, orchestral problem, and financial arrangement seems capable of threatening the ideal. After the Festival, the tone shifts sharply. The achievement has happened, but its aftermath is troubled by deficit, press hostility, uncertainty about future performances, the proposed Society of Patrons, the founding of the Bayreuther Blätter, and the London concerts undertaken to repair the damage. Bayreuth has succeeded as revelation, but it has also become a burden that must somehow survive in the world.

After 1876, Parsifal gradually becomes the spiritual centre of the diaries. The entries from 1877 to 1882 increasingly revolve around its poem, score, staging, rehearsals, religious atmosphere, and practical realization. The world of the Grail enters the daily life of Wahnfried: Gurnemanz, Kundry, Amfortas, Klingsor, the Flower Maidens, the Temple, the Communion imagery, the question of sacred drama, and the problem of presenting a work that seems to demand reverence from a public theatre. At the same time, Wagner’s health, his travels, his growing weariness, and the family’s movements through Italy and Venice give the later diaries a more autumnal character.

The diaries must also be read with full awareness of their antisemitism. This is not a marginal feature. In the early years, anti-Jewish remarks often cluster around the controversy of Wagner’s Judaism in Music, hostile critics, the press, Meyerbeer, musicians, theatre politics, and questions of assimilation. By the later 1870s and early 1880s, the tone changes. Antisemitism becomes more sweeping, more political, and more programmatic. The entries increasingly connect Jews with finance, journalism, liberalism, modernity, social decay, and Germany’s loss of spiritual identity. The diaries also record Wagner and Cosima reading or discussing figures such as Disraeli, Stoecker, Gobineau, and writings on the so-called Jewish question. By 1881, this hostility has hardened into open sympathy for anti-Jewish agitation and fantasies of expulsion, separation, or emigration. The development is ugly, historically important, and inseparable from the world these diaries disclose.

That ugliness is made more complex, not less, by the fact that Jewish individuals remain present in Wagner’s life and work: friends, patrons, musicians, correspondents, and, most famously in the late Bayreuth circle, Hermann Levi. The diaries therefore reveal not a simple contradiction but a deeper moral failure: Wagner and Cosima could depend on, admire, or work intimately with individual Jews while still interpreting Jewishness itself through hostile and dehumanizing abstractions. Any serious encounter with these diaries must resist both sanitizing this material and reducing the whole archive to it.

The Nietzsche story forms another major arc. In 1869, Nietzsche enters as a brilliant young philologist and soon becomes a cherished visitor, correspondent, and intellectual ally. The early diaries record excitement over his writings, especially the work that would become central to the Wagnerian cause, The Birth of Tragedy. During the Bayreuth years he appears as part of the wider hope for a new German culture, one that might unite art, philosophy, and spiritual renewal. Yet the relationship gradually frays. His ill health, his independence, the influence of Paul Rée, his rejection of Schopenhauer, and the publication of Human, All Too Human transform him in the Wagners’ eyes from disciple into apostate. By the later entries, Nietzsche is remembered with bitterness, as a figure of disappointment, ingratitude, and betrayal.

What makes these diaries invaluable is precisely their mixture of greatness and blindness. They reveal the daily climate in which Wagner’s late works were conceived, defended, mythologized, and institutionalized. They show Bayreuth being born out of metaphysical ambition and practical desperation. They show Parsifal emerging from religious longing, theatrical calculation, bodily decline, and cultural polemic. They show friendship turning into estrangement, devotion turning into dogma, and spiritual aspiration entangled with prejudice. To read Cosima’s diaries is to enter the workshop, chapel, battlefield, and household of Wagner’s final years.

Year

Month

1869• 1870• 1871• 1872• 1873• 1874• 1875• 1876• 1877• 1878• 1879• 1880• 1881• 1882• 1883

Jan• Feb• Mar• Apr• May• Jun• Jul• Aug• Sep• Oct• Nov• Dec

Showing entries for January 1869 (31 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
January 1, 1869	1,107	Cosima begins the notebook as an intimate testament for her children, explaining her separation from them as the consequence of a love she views as a spiritual rebirth and sacred duty. She recounts New Year's Day with Richard, the younger children, music, gifts, dictation, and thoughts of the absent children mingled with tears. The entry consecrates Wagner's golden pen to her maternal confession and frames the diary as both justification and blessing.	Friday, January 1: On Christmas Day, my 31st birthday, this notebook was to have started; I could not get it in Lucerne. And so the first day of the year will also contain the beginning of my reports to you, my children. You shall know every hour of my life, so that one day you will come to see me as I am; for, if I die young, others will be able to tell you very little about me, and if I live long, I shall probably only wish to remain silent. In this way you will help me do my duty, yes, children, my duty. What I mean by that you will find out later. Your mother intends to tell you everything about her present life, and she believes she can do so. The year 1868 marks the outward turning-point of my life: in this year it was granted to me to put into action what for the past five years had filled my thoughts. It is an occupation I have not sought after or brought about myself: Fate laid it on me. In order that you may understand, I must confess to you that up to the hour in which I recognized my true inner calling, my life had been a dreary, unbeautiful dream, of which I have no desire to tell you anything, for I do not understand it myself and reject it with the whole of my now purified soul. The outward appearance was and remained calm, but inside all was bleak and dreary, when there came into my life that being who swiftly led me to realize that up to now I had never lived. My love became for me a rebirth, a deliverance, a fading away of all that was trivial and bad in me, and I swore to seal it through death, through pious renunciation or complete devotion. What love has done for me I shall never be able to repay. When the stars decreed that events, about which you will find out elsewhere, should banish into isolation my only friend, the guardian spirit and savior of my soul, the revealer of all that is noble and true, that he should be left solitary, abandoned, joyless, and unfriended, I cried out to him: I shall come to you and seek my greatest and highest happiness in sharing the burdens of life with you. It was then that I left you, my two precious eldest children. I did it and would do it again at any moment, and yet I miss you both and think of you day and night. For I love you all, each with an equal love; in your hearts I seek the refuge for my earthly memory when my time is past, and I would sacrifice everything to you, everything but the life of this one person. Our separation will be temporary, and you are still so small that you will not feel it as your mother does. This is my hope. Early in the morning the Friend came to greet me and wish me a happy New Year. I am always so overcome by his kindness toward me, in my ever deeper awareness of his greatness, that in his presence I always feel I must dissolve into tears. Afterward I dressed Loldchen and Evchen prettily, in white satin frocks and garlands of roses, and we went to give him our good wishes. Then we had breakfast, after which he went to work as usual, making a fair copy of the second act of Siegfried and completing his essay on the Jews. I took Evchen and Loldchen into the garden. Before lunch, at one o’clock, my beloved read me what he had written. At table he told me more of the range of his essay, and we discussed his position, that is to say, the position of art as laid down by the Jews, which made me see Mendelssohn for the first time as a tragic figure. After the meal he went for his usual walk, after receiving a telegram from the King and another from you. The latter affected him as it did me; my heart was heavy and full to bursting, because you were not here with me, but a glance at him consoled me and gave me courage. I was looking into a happy future. Then I arranged the Christmas tree, which was lit today for the second time. At about five o’clock Evchen and Loldchen, dressed again as angels, came down and found the Christmas gifts which had been kept back. Richard played for them, they danced, and I thought of you, my absent ones, so far away, and once again I watched the merry scene through a veil of tears, yet here, too, these tears were without bitterness. Then Richard started up a jumping jack, to Loldi’s great joy. While the little ones were enjoying their supper, he played me the “Spring Song” from Die Walküre. When you one day hear these sounds, my children, you will understand me. I cannot hear them without being transported right away. We had tea upstairs in my room; I asked my beloved to dictate something to me today, biography, for superstitious reasons. They say that whatever one does on the first day of the year one continues. Although it was an exertion for him, he wanted in his indescribable goodness toward me to do it, and so there emerged two pages about Schopenhauer which for me are beyond all price. At eleven we parted, after once more reviewing the day together and finding it harmonious and good. When he had gone, I sat down at my writing desk to talk to you. The Friend has given me the golden pen with which he wrote Tristan and Siegfried, and this I consecrate to these communications of mine to you. Thus I signify to you how sacredly I regard this work of a mother’s confidences and anxieties; the pen which has traced the sublimest things ever created by a noble spirit shall now be dedicated solely to the depths of a woman’s heart. So God bless you, my children, you who are far away, you who are close by, and you lying still unknown within my womb. May your mother’s love be a friendly light to you in your path through life! Do not mistake your mother, though you yourselves will never be able to do what she has done, since what Fate has here decreed is something that will not recur. All whom I love are now at rest, and so I, too, will go to my bed. For you and for him my last and friendliest thoughts!
January 2, 1869	257	A brilliant morning is shadowed by Eva's illness, though the child soon improves and Richard remains cheerful despite slight indisposition. Cosima takes comfort in Richard's work on his essay, their conversation, and his guidance that philosophy should reach her through poetry and a beloved man. The evening turns serene with the children restored and Homer read aloud, leaving her with a feeling of intimate happiness.	Saturday, January 2: Cheered on opening my eyes by the sight of a rosy sky; the foehn had conjured up its most brilliant colors for the morning display of light. Soon afterward I was told that Evchen was ill; she had had a bad night. Concern, but no anxiety, for she was cheerful. Richard slightly indisposed but in good spirits. We visit the child; I stay upstairs while he goes to his work, the essay on the Jews. At eleven I go to say goodbye before my walk with Loldi and can report that Evchen is well, if still a bit run down. Before lunch he reads me the continuation. Great delight in its terseness and pithiness. Our conversation at table arises from this. After the meal a feeling of intense happiness at having found each other. Later, in connection with the biography, I ask him whether I should read Schopenhauer. He advises me against it: a woman should approach philosophy through a man, a poet. I am in complete agreement. He goes for his walk, I to sleep with Musäus in my hand. In the evening to the children, Eva very lively, a great load off my mind. The children to bed, 7 o’clock, then supper. Richard has no inclination to dictate; we decide to read a book. Plato? Not yet bound. Wallenstein? Read it again only a short time ago. Calderón? Too emotional. So Shakespeare’s histories or the Odyssey. We decide on the last. Most wonderful impression, a sublimely intimate evening, indelible images stamped on my mind. Untroubled sleep.
January 3, 1869	401	With Eva recovered and the Sunday landscape calm, Cosima feels a harmony between nature, household life, and Richard's completed essay. Their conversations range from Homer to German military songs and Protestant history, deepening her sense of Richard as the embodiment of true German spirit. Yet the absence of letters from Munich and a small hurt over not being asked for a service leave faint shadows amid affection for all her children.	Sunday, January 3: Bright Sunday sky. Eva healthy again. Richard well after a good night. Hoping for a letter from the children in Munich. First subject of conversation at breakfast: Homer! His influence on the artistic and earlier living ideals of my beloved. Daily visit to the children together. Richard to his work, I into the garden with Loldi. The frost pearls seen yesterday in the moss no longer to be found, but pleasure in the glistening, colorful scene. The soul at peace. Nature at peace, a lovely harmony. By one o’clock the Friend’s essay finished; he reads me the ending, Schumann. The unexpectedly happy and mild mood of this ending. As usual at midday, the Friend takes a walk and I rest, reading Musäus’s “Rothmantel” on my couch. In the evening to the children; Loldi has hit Evchen, but is good and repentant when I reproach her. A cheerful “Good night.” Supper in my room; conversation about the cavalrymen’s songs of the Thirty Years’ War and the Seven Years’ War; Richard sings me two of them, “Prinz Eugen” and “Die Prager Schlacht.” Then he talks about Bernhard von Weimar and King Gustavus Adolphus; his indignation over present-day attempts to stamp the latter as a Jesuit. A typical feature, which Richard points out to me regarding the Battle of Lützen: Gustavus Adolphus’s troops were not discouraged by his death, as happened with Pappenheim’s death on the imperial side; proof that morality was on the side of the Protestants. Richard’s delight in Bernhard von Weimar, pleasure in a German revealing himself thus. Magnificent demonstration of the whole Germanic character. He, Richard, seems to me to be the last true German. The evening crowned with four cantos from the Odyssey, Calypso, Nausicaa, Leucothea. Only distraction during the reading in watching R.’s fine, radiant countenance and delighting in the sound of his voice. Only shadows over the day: receiving no letter from Munich, the post office was closed in the afternoon, and the fact that the Friend entrusted some little service not to me, but to a servant. He does not yet realize how willingly I would do anything for him, the smallest things as well as the largest. Tears came into my eyes once, when Loldi quite unexpectedly sang the songs she had learned from Loulou and Boni. Good night, my dear children, soon I shall have you all with me, as I keep you all together in my heart.
January 4, 1869	356	Cosima's habitual Monday gloom is intensified by renewed concern for Eva and frustration over careless household management. Richard's reading of his essay temporarily dispels her anxiety, while letters from Munich bring both comfort and longing for the absent children. The day closes with Tristan, Homer, and the realization that art comes alive for her above all through Richard's presence and voice.	Monday, January 4: Monday has always been my bad day. Evchen ill again, servants’ carelessness! My great concern about this coupled with some indecision, for it is not easy to make changes in the household. Patience and increased care on my part are called for. A letter from Hermine: the children there are well, they had a merry Christmas; melancholy pleasure in that. Spent the morning in the children’s room, except for the hour in which R. read me his essay as a connected whole. This pleasure banished my worried mood at once. In the afternoon with the children; again much bother, for Evchen had inadvertently been given some milk, which again brought on tummy ache. However, she does not look too bad and has no temperature; she is also cheerful. I write to Hermine and Mathilde Maier so as not to give way to depression. A great longing for Loulou, who is perhaps missing me. Took up again the cantos of Homer which we read yesterday; a feeling that the book refuses to come to life when the Friend is not reading it out loud to me. To me the whole world is recognizable only in him and through him. At R.’s wish the children are being given a second room; the move unsettles me, as does any outward change, however small. After tea Richard plays for me the Prelude to Tristan und Isolde, which the Signale once described as “crudely sensual”! Deeply moved by it, indeed hardly in control of myself. At such moments I can think of nothing else but Elsa’s words, Dich möchte ich zum Tode gehen [“For you I would willingly lay down my life”], and even these I am unable to utter. Afterward two cantos from the Odyssey, Polyphemus and Circe; great delight in the former. Circe, however, whom we accompanied with punch, sent us to sleep. Genelli’s Homer designs now no longer attract me; they are totally lacking in naïveté, even if the conception is frequently brilliant. Completely different pictures arise in our minds when we read this magnificent poem. At eleven Richard goes to his apartment; I go to bed, blessing the children.
January 5, 1869	464	Cosima begins the day in melancholy, but a sunlit walk and the sight of mountains over the lake restore her sense of inner strength. Household negligence around the children's diet renews her distress, while news of difficulty publishing Richard's Rossini essay reveals their distance from the world's literary and political bustle. The evening's Odyssey reading becomes a meditation on durable happiness hidden beneath suffering.	Tuesday, January 5: Morning. Evchen somewhat better, woke up only once during the night. From the moment of rising I was filled with great melancholy; harsh is the dream of life, my children, and in it I seem to myself a stranger. I fight against my depression. Evchen does not look well, but the sun is shining, and the day must certainly still hold some good and beautiful things in its lap. Evening. A walk in the bright sunshine was a great help to me; from the top of the hill I was enraptured by the ring of snow-capped mountains, which suggested to me a mysterious, unmoving dance. Absorbed long in watching the picture, my spirit heard the music which higher beings reproduce for us in sounds. The transience of all individual existence, the eternity of the whole, was reflected to me in the blue mirror of the lake. My deep inner strength restored, I summoned the Friend from his work and together we wandered up the hill; the magnificent Mount Pilatus looked like a spectral shadow. Upstairs with the children I discovered there had been negligence again regarding their diet, and it worried me greatly; not for fear of the consequences, but because of the servants’ indifference. The depression I had overcome returned and held sway over the whole day. From town Richard brought a toy for the children, a nutcracker, which gave them much joy. He also brought a letter informing him that no one was willing to publish the translation of his essay on Rossini. This letter gave me a new insight into conditions as they are in Paris. We could see very clearly how far removed we are from all these bustling activities, and how little we now really know of what is going on in the world, what is now the prevailing atmosphere there. Put the children to bed; Evchen lively, if not yet entirely recovered. Three cantos from the Odyssey to finish the evening. The splendid happenings seem like a dream picture to me, so vital and distinct, when the Friend reads them out to me; when I read them for myself, it is as if they were real, but thus everything is experienced at a remove. His voice and his manner encompass the immortal work like music. “There is happiness, but we do not recognize it; if we do recognize it, we are unable to appreciate it,” says the Princess in Goethe’s Tasso. I both recognize and appreciate it. Not all the sufferings and miseries of this earth can affect that happiness which lies concealed deep within the heart like a pearl in an oyster, and even in my heaviest hours I have known this blissful pearl in my soul. Sleep well, my children, how your mother longs to see you all united!
January 6, 1869	251	Eva remains somewhat unwell, so Cosima spends much of the day with the children while Richard copies his essay. A visit connected with Munich stirs fears that her whereabouts may be discovered, forcing her to imagine openly defending her choices to her children. The children's liveliness and the evening's Homer reading steady her, though thoughts of Munich leave her suspended between longing and impossibility.	Wednesday, January 6: Evchen still somewhat indisposed. Spent the morning with the children. Both good and in high spirits. Richard is copying out his essay. Apprehensive afternoon caused by a visit of the Bassenheims’ servants to our servants. Since the former are in contact with Munich, and I can expect nothing but evil from there, I have the feeling that malicious curiosity has driven them here in the worst of weathers to find out whether I and the children are here. My imaginings upset Richard, since there is nothing he can do to help, but he is soon back in good spirits, and I console myself with the thought that in concealing my whereabouts I intended no harm to the world and acted only out of consideration for others. And if the trials I am expecting are to begin here and in this way, then in God’s name I shall tell you, my children, how it all came about and how I am bearing it. Evening with the children; both full of fun. God give Eva a good night. In the evening two cantos from the Odyssey, Odysseus and the Swineherd, Telemachus’s Return; the former splendid in every detail, the second rather wearisome. Richard has finished copying his essay and is satisfied with it. Today I imagined myself in the children’s room in Munich, unrecognized, but I did not wish to remain unrecognized; yet, recognized, I could not go. And so it is best as it is. May the gods but give us friendly guidance!
January 7, 1869	427	The day opens with Eva's recovery and Richard's tender dream, but anonymous newspaper attacks on Wagner's work plunge Cosima into revulsion and grief. Richard first treats the article as useful material, yet the pair are drawn into a broader sadness over public misunderstanding and hostile criticism. The children remain well, and the Odyssey's episode of Argos offers Cosima a moving image of faithful recognition amid disguise and decay.	Thursday, January 7: The day began well; Evchen slept peacefully through the night, and Richard told me of the cheerful dream he had had, in which we were walking and talking intimately together. Even when Fate has hurled us beyond all revelations of this sort, such as premonitions, visions, dreams, so that we can scarcely continue to pay attention to them, all the same a pleasant image is of great value. It seems like a greeting from friendly gods to whom we no longer belong, and I am thankful for it as for a moment of happiness. Unfortunately this ray of sunshine vanished all too soon. Richard brought up to me two issues of the Süddeutsche Presse, which some impudent person had sent him anonymously; they contained a lengthy article by Fröbel about Opera and Drama. I cannot describe the feelings of revulsion that filled me as I read it. May God preserve you, my children, from ever being obliged to see the things you love, honor, and believe in being dragged through the mud. Here there is no question of a contest, in which one courageously faces up to the opponent, not even of a martyrdom joyfully endured in order to bear witness to one’s beliefs. This is nothing but a besmirching, which cannot be fought against, and the endurance of which does no good for one’s cause. Richard saw my deep dejection and read the article for himself. At first he took it calmly, for it gave him additional material for his Judaism in Music essay. At lunch, however, we sought in vain to dispel the grief which had taken hold of us; all our experiences rose up before us like the ghosts in Shakespeare’s plays, and we wondered glumly why every word brought forth only dirt or met with apathetic non-recognition. The whole day remained under a cloud. From town someone brought my Friend the expected letter from Boni. Also two friendly greetings from afar, M. Muchanoff and Elisabeth Krockow, but I really do not know what to do with these friendships. No one will follow me when he knows whither I have come, and it is only by you that I still want to be loved and understood. The children in good health; Loldi talks about Reynard the Fox. In the evening the Odyssey, the finest thing in it the dog Argos, the profound mystery of Nature seemingly brought nearer and to some extent unveiled. The sick dog is the only living thing to recognize Odysseus through his change and disguise, then dies after awaiting him twenty years!
January 8, 1869	431	On Hans's birthday, Cosima addresses her older children with a grave account of her marriage, insisting that sympathy and respect were never enough to overcome a fateful mismatch. She portrays her life with Richard as an unavoidable calling that cost her separation from the children and left her dependent on divine help. Domestic correspondence, music, fatigue, and Homer fill the day, which is marked privately by the first felt movement of her unborn child.	Friday, January 8: Dear Loulou and dear Boni, today is your father’s birthday; I wish that he may spend it in a mood of peaceful reconciliation, though there is nothing I can contribute toward it. It was a great misunderstanding that bound us together in marriage; my feelings toward him are today still the same as twelve years ago: great sympathy with his destiny, pleasure in his qualities of mind and heart, genuine respect for his character, however completely different our temperaments. In the very first year of our marriage I was already in such despair over this confusion that I wished for death; many errors arose out of my distress, but I was always able to get a grip on myself again, and your father knew nothing of my sufferings. I do not think he will withhold his testimony that I always stood by him, in suffering as in joy, and that I helped him to the best of my powers. Never would he have lost me if Fate had not brought me together with the man for whom I had to recognize it as my task in life to live or die. I have not a single reproach to make to your father, even if our last years together were hard for me beyond all imagining. I wanted to try combining my former existence with my new life, I believed in the possibility of fusing together all the diverging feelings. Abuse and insults proved to me that I was being a fool, and all that remained was for me to make the choice that was no choice. Thus I am now deprived of you, my children, and it worries me greatly, but there is a God who helps. In the morning I wrote to Boni and Marie Muchanoff. I go around all day feeling rather wretched, for the weather is unfavorable. Richard and I recalled the previous year, in which we celebrated Hans’s birthday all together and were still full of hopes and much good will. In the afternoon the Italian score of Rienzi arrived, as well as the Cinque Canti, which gave us less delight. Then with the children, until they were in bed. After a conversation on table-turning, about which we are not of the same mind, Richard thinks it is the result of some mechanical law, I that it is fraud, we decided on three cantos from the Odyssey, only I am so tired that I can scarcely listen, and lose much of what is read. Today I felt in my womb the first stirrings of the unknown being within me.
January 9, 1869	279	After a night of headaches, nightmares, and fears for her family, Cosima longs for the secure trust she imagines only sisterly love can provide. With the maid away, she stays in the children's room and finds them well enough to let her read and write nearby. Richard discusses the uncertain consequences of publishing his Jewish essay, while Cosima, physically unwell and emotionally exhausted, ends the Odyssey after a restorative walk.	Saturday, January 9: A bad night; violent headaches combined with nightmares, worry about the children, dismal thoughts about my mother and father, painful memories of the past, and apprehensions about the children’s future. My state of mind reaches the stage of blazing fear. “Oh, if only I had a sister!” I cry out in the silent darkness. Oh, my children, keep the ring of hearts intact! Only when joy and sorrow are sucked through the same root can trust and love emerge; the friendships which life brings in its course are all beset by humiliating doubts and misunderstandings. Unshakable, rewarding faith lies only in the love between sisters. I rose, having slept little. The maid has gone for two days to visit her parents, and so I am now spending all my time in the children’s room. The children are good and well behaved; I can write and read in their presence; and Eva is now well again. At midday Richard discussed with me the prospects for the immediate publication of the essay on the Jews; I told him I was incapable of saying anything at all about it, for, were one to tell me that it will cause him the greatest unpleasantness, or that it will be completely ignored or make a good impression, I should believe it all. In connection with Fröbel’s article, Richard tells me he feels as if he had knocked with friendly intentions on the door of a house in which everything was as still as death, and all he heard in reply was the grunt of a pig. I feel very unwell, violent headache, but a walk in the fresh air does me good. Finished the Odyssey.
January 10, 1869	289	Cosima is troubled by the failure of a pen she had sent Richard and takes it as a sign that even small fortunes have turned against her. Worries about the children's future, hostile criticism, the King's silence, and Richard's despair over the Nibelungen weigh heavily on the household. Dictation resumes in the evening, but the day ends with fantasies of a reduced future in Paris and uncertainty about what fate will allow.	Sunday, January 10: Slight disappointment that the pen I had sent from New York for R. does not write well. I note this down because it bothered me during the night, and I had the feeling that my earlier luck has deserted me in the little as in the big things. Sleepless night with much worry about the children’s future. Melancholy thoughts about my own upbringing, fears that I would not be able to bring up my children in accordance with my own ideas. Richard also none too well, but cheerful. Went for a walk with the two children, both well. Ate with them afterward. Later with Richard at table, arrival of the next installment of Fröbel’s article on Opera and Drama. Though R. burned it without reading it, the mere thought of the unworthiness of people is upsetting. The King’s silence is also curious and unkind. R.’s great depression in connection with his work, he really feels like abandoning the musical completion of his Nibelungen entirely. My objections only serve to increase his mood of dejection. I go sadly to lie down, R. goes off to town. Then with the children. In the evening, to my great joy, resumption of the dictation. Before going off to bed I say to R., “If only I could bring you real joy!” Deep melancholy grips me at the thought of his mood during the day, when he went through all his relationships and found not one of them serious and deep. Worst of all, his experiences with the King. We spoke of the possibility of spending our future life in a garret in Paris. A living room and two little bedrooms for ourselves and the children. God knows what Fate has in store for us.
January 11, 1869	291	Eva's renewed illness, household interference, and sleeplessness leave Cosima irritable and fearful as Richard sends off his essay on the Jews. News of Meistersinger productions and Richard's work briefly steady the day, but his comments on poverty, marriage, and their vulnerable happiness deepen her anxiety. She misses the older children intensely and feels that only Richard's presence can quiet her dread of abandonment and public scorn.	Monday, January 11: Eva unwell again; irritation over the way the whole house meddles. I am unjust enough to show R. my irritation. Prolonged sleeplessness is my only excuse for this injustice. He has sent off the essay on the Jews, which makes me apprehensive, yet I did not try to prevent it. Many thoughts about Boni and Loulou. A walk with the two children. Richard at work; Die Meistersinger is at last to be staged in Karlsruhe and Dresden. He tells me after lunch that he was in a state of alarm because he did not hear me come home, and he quotes Calderon: the most terrible thing of all is happy love, for then there is fear in everything. At lunch he said the curse of his life had been poverty and marriage. After the meal I again feel very unwell and go to lie down. Richard is finishing a page of his score; I am glad to see him restored in mood and appearance. It is only when he is out that I am beset by worry and anxiety that we shall not be left in peace; I see us abandoned to misery and malicious scorn. But once he is with me again, my evil thoughts vanish. It is for me downright agony to be separated from him, even for a single instant. No letter from the children. Hans keeps silent, my father must now be in Germany; how alien everything to do with the world has now become to me! And I know that nobody in it has ever loved me. Eva somewhat better but still looking pale. Good evening, my Lusch, good evening, my Boni, I miss you even in moments of the greatest happiness. Never could I do without you entirely.
January 12, 1869	666	A sleepless night under the stars gives way to a day spent with the children, whose memories of Loulou stir both joy and sorrow. Richard's thoughts turn again toward the Nibelungen, Beethoven, Homer, and political pessimism, while Cosima meditates in the frozen garden on whether her children may one day misunderstand her. Evening dictation restores closeness after a small strain between them and ends with reflections on exile, independence, and the world's compromised nature.	Tuesday, January 12: A sleepless night was made bearable for me by the sight of the starlit sky. At dawn I fell asleep and then woke up. Richard is well. Last night we had a moment of strain, because he did not want to dictate to me out of concern for my condition, and I urgently begged him to. But I gave in when I saw his great reluctance and his anxiety, and yesterday evening ended with the first canto of the Iliad. After such a moment of discord, however trivial, it is true happiness to exchange kind looks again. Eva still looking rather pale; I spend all morning with the children. Loldi often speaks of Loulou, which makes me glad and sad at the same time. She remembers the children’s room in Munich in detail, and Eva cries out “Loulou, Loulou,” as if trying to recall a dream. At lunch Richard tells me that he has been thinking a lot about his Nibelungen, and, he adds jokingly, it has made him feel very puffed up. It makes me happy to see him thinking of his divine work without repugnance. Apart from that, the Odyssey still forms the main topic of our conversation. Also Beethoven’s symphonies: yesterday it was the A Major, with reference to the trio of the Presto, which German conductors always turn into a “Grandfather’s Dance,” whereas the tempo should quite unnoticeably become slower and the manner of playing should mark the great difference; today the F Major, in the first movement not a single repetition, yet everything seems the same. Richard has often pointed out to me with what sure instinct Beethoven in the symphonies, except for the Ninth, in which he uses words as a reconciling element, avoids touching on the regions in which he lets himself go in the more intimate forms of quartet and sonata. He knew that he was speaking to the people, and that here certain accents are out of place unless accompanied and softened by words. After lunch a short sleep and a walk by myself in the garden. The cold has arrived; grass and trees are covered with frost. In this solitary hour I thought only of you, my children. I thought with apprehension of the future: if it should really be my lot to be separated from you, and if you should then find your mother’s actions incomprehensible, may the heavens be merciful and grant me death! I have not selfishly pursued happiness; I have done only what could not have been done in any other way, and my only, yet heartfelt, pride is that I have helped and still help as far as I am able. Always remember, my children, that true peace will come to you only from complete dedication; the sufferings which flow from this source are unceasing, too, but gentle. From the garden to the children. There Richard found me; when he came in he was cheerful, indeed boisterous. My long meditation has tired me; also, I had been expecting him to bring me a letter from Munich, and since that was not the case, I felt sad. But I soon overcame it. In the evening, dictation; R. started off with great reluctance, but soon began to remember. We parted at about eleven, after having completed four pages. A sentence concerning a remark by Isolde omitted as untranslatable. Talking of the world situation and a possible major upset this year, Richard said: “Even when one’s expectations are blackly pessimistic, one is still being too optimistic, for things always come about by halves and loaded with so many compromises that only the baser elements gain anything. The only consolation is that the unworthy things are also incapable of starting anything.” He added that twice in his life he had felt good and worthy: at the beginning of his exile, when, relieved of everything, he possessed and desired nothing; and in Vienna, after the Tannhäuser fiasco in Paris, when he had severed all ties and was not indebted to a single mortal soul.
January 13, 1869	398	Cosima wakes from a dream of her dead sister into a day colored by Richard's alternating music, gloom, and industrious work. Their conversations move from Lola Montez and moral pity to Lessing, folk tales, Paris theater troubles, and Wagner's fear that his works may vanish after his death. Dictation and humorous memories of London bring the evening into a lighter mood, though the silence from Munich continues to hurt her.	Wednesday, January 13: Dreamed of Blandine, my sister. When I woke up, I looked for her: “Of course she is dead, alas.” Richard well, the children lively, but the weather dull. Before going into the garden with the children I say adieu to Richard; he tells me his spirit is engulfed in heavy clouds, “the sort of thing one does not talk about.” Oh, how well I understand him! Yet in the early morning, when he wakened me with “Freude, schöner Götterfunken” on the piano, I had hoped his mood would remain cheerful. When I return and go once more to greet him, he says, “Poor woman, all you have is me!” “Then I am not poor,” I observe. However, he is working hard on his score. At table the conversation turns to Lola Montez. Describing her wretched ending, I say, “The poor creature!” Richard admonishes me severely, saying that such heartless, daemonic beings should not be grieved over, one should reserve one’s pity for others. He is certainly right, yet badness seems to me always pitiable and nothing more worthy of our compassion than a wretched ending. We are delighted with the books he has bought, a new Lessing and the Simrock set of folk tales. The latter in particular delights me. While with the children in the evening he reads me two letters from Paris; the Rienzi venture there is being wretchedly handled. I continue to hope that it will not reach the stage. The Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin with the “Bridal Song” is reported to have been a tremendous success. But no news of the children in Munich. I am not worried, just sorrowful. My worries concern the future, and it is for that reason that my nights are always bad and uneasy. In the evening R. again spoke somberly; he believes that after his death they will drop his works entirely, and he will live on in human memory only as a phantom. However bad things look among the public, the theaters, and the press, I still cannot believe that he will disappear in this way. He maintains that not a soul studies his scores, and that seems to me, however widespread the stupidity and indifference, scarcely possible. In the evening he dictated to me again, and the day ended very merrily with his reminiscences of his second visit to London. I looked in once more on the sleeping children.
January 14, 1869	377	Cosima records a day overshadowed by fragility, as small domestic losses, worries over the children’s health, and silence from Munich all deepen her unease. A solitary walk steadies her, leading her toward a hard-won inward acceptance of suffering and the sense that endurance itself is a form of grace. At table, she and Richard revisit bitter personal and intellectual betrayals, while new artistic concerns arise over the coming Dresden performance of Die Meistersinger. Yet even amid foreboding and sadness, shared work on the biography briefly lifts their spirits, and the entry closes with her thoughts turning tenderly back to her distant children.	Thursday, January 14: Restless night, but good morning hours. Richard wakes me with the Lohengrin “Battle Song.” But then he tells me a bullfinch has dashed itself to death on the sides of the bird cage in fright. He bought the little creatures only a few weeks ago; one of them fretted itself to death and would not eat, wasted right away. How sad it is! Kos is also always ill, and does not improve in spite of all our attention. After taking the children into the garden I go for a little walk on my own, thinking of the little ones in Munich. Involuntarily the restless spirit, in its anxiety, implores its unmoving surroundings for help and protection. They remain rigid and silent, but deep inside the words resound: “Reconcile yourself with your heart and your fate, control the former and bear the latter. In the end you will not be given a burden greater than you can carry.” I returned home in peace. At lunch R. and I discuss once more the horrible episode with Fröbel; that this man who is now foaming with rage is the same man whom R. himself brought to Munich in order to help him propagate his ideas! R. tells me finally that Hebbel had once said to him about Nestroy, “He is such a vile person that a rose he has sniffed must itself begin to stink.” His theories on love, as conveyed by Fröbel’s pen, seem to him, he says, rather like the rose beneath Nestroy’s nose. A letter from his niece Ottilie in Dresden invites Richard to the first performance there of Die Meistersinger. R. is undecided whether to go; he would like to do something to prevent too poor a performance, but he dreads the thought of what he might experience there. He goes into town and brings back a good letter from Milan, his publisher, but nothing from my children. Much sorrow, but I manage to control it. Richard is in a gloomy mood; the general silence in Munich he finds very depressing. My father left Rome on the 7th; R. thinks that an evil brew is being prepared for us on all sides. The biography restores our spirits. Good night, my children. Your mother’s heart is concerned for you.
January 15, 1869	444	Cosima’s entry moves between maternal longing and her deepening sense that her life has become bound to Richard’s solitude, leaving her torn between devotion to him and fear of estrangement from her older children. The day is marked by quiet apprehension, with Richard’s gloom, talk of possible war, and the surrounding political silence making even domestic peace at Tribschen feel fragile and temporary. A walk through the frost-lit landscape opens into metaphysical reflection, as nature’s beauty turns her thoughts toward transience, eternity, and the possibility that earthly sorrow may still conceal a higher meaning. The day closes in a gentler register: pain at the continued absence of letters gives way to shared work, family calm, and renewed happiness in Richard’s spoken assurance of love.	Friday, January 15: Little sleep during the night; long hours of quiet wakefulness in the dark. Thoughts of the children: are they missing me? Few worries, perhaps all too few, about Hans; his artistic activities are a source of pleasure to him, my sorrowful detachment from it after the failure of our great undertaking interrupted the flow of this source. How different is R., how utterly he has only me to understand him and to share his isolation from the world! I cannot believe that I shall have to pay for my dedication to him through the alienation of my elder children. Richard is not looking well: is it his inner anxiety or the overcast weather which weighs so heavily on him? The world around us remains silent. He asks me whether I am worrying about the children, and he believes that my father has been a bad influence in that matter. Unfortunately I believe so, too. However, Loldi and Eva are well; the latter very wild. Today R. woke me up with “Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott.” Then he declared there would certainly be a war this year. How long will we be granted our Tribschen tranquillity? Read some of Schiller’s letters while the children are out walking. Fall asleep from weariness. R. is working on his score. Loldi very good, Eva so violent that she hits me. Solitary walk after lunch; the play of sun and mist gives the farther banks of the lake the appearance of a dream vision, the trees, covered with frost, greet me like gentle, friendly ghosts; Mount Pilatus, its peak surrounded by golden clouds, seems like the noble monarch of this dream world. “Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis” [“All transient things are but an image”], I find myself thinking as I reach the top of the hill and look around me. No happiness on earth, but in our hearts Eternity, that which echoes inside us with every noble sound, every profound poem, every picture in art or Nature, every great deed of the heart. R. again brought me no letter; real pain. I know that I could pass on to my children teachings of imperishable, everlasting worth. Is this to be denied me? When will the change in my destiny come, so that I may live for my children and for him? Loldchen and Evchen in good health and well behaved. In the evening, dictation: the return to Zurich and the busy year 1856. R. told me during the evening that he loved me above all else in the world, and these words made me immeasurably happy, even if I know it already within my heart without his having to tell me.
January 16, 1869	455	Two months after parting from her older children, Cosima is weighed down by silence from Munich and prays only to help Richard, raise the children, and endure disgrace if necessary. Richard receives reassuring Dresden news, refuses the invitation there, and speaks with amusement and gratitude about Schopenhauer, household order, and the arrival of treasured objects. The day mixes good humor, Schiller's poetry, children's dancing, publication annoyances, and renewed sadness at the lack of letters.	Saturday, January 16: Two months ago today I said goodbye to you, children; my heart is heavy when I think of it, and I am without any news of you! In order to get a little sleep I had a warm drink late last night; I went to sleep at once, but soon woke up again and thought of you. I desire nothing in this world but to be allowed to help my beloved, to give him some tranquil years of life, and to bring you up. Gladly will I sacrifice everything, everything, my contacts with the world, all music; will bear all disgrace, if only this is granted me! R. wished me good morning with the Meistersinger theme. He is well and has had a reassuring letter from Dresden, Mitterwurzer; he is glad that he does not need to go. The newspapers report that the King is giving many audiences; with a smile we observe that he is at last doing what we long in vain asked him to do! I am apprehensive about Munich, all this silence; even the painter Lenbach, who was always good and loyal to me and promised to write, is silent. I stay with the children and write to Claire, asking her to find out news about Loulou and Boni. R. writes letters and turns down the invitation to Dresden. But he is not well; I am quite prepared to attribute it to the bad weather and the overcast sky, but all the same it worries me. We start talking about Schopenhauer, and he tells me Schopenhauer once said to Karl Ritter, “I admire Wagner as a poet, but he is no musician.” [Added in the margin: “Schopenhauer said: I admire how Wagner in his Nibelungen brings the dark, legendary figures humanly near to us. Then: He is a poet, but no musician.”] R. is amused by Schopenhauer’s use of the old-fashioned word “admirieren” but says it is at any rate better than if he had acknowledged him to be a musician and not a poet. After lunch the little Buddha, an earlier present of my mother’s to Wagner, arrived, as well as the letters to his wife. Much good humor at their safe arrival. Richard says I have brought sense into his life and awakened in him a pleasure in good order. How glad he makes me with such statements! He plays the piano, the children come down and dance with me. Then he has more Rienzi trouble, the French. He goes for a walk and I stay with Schiller. Much delight and uplift from some of the poems, The Words of Error and Fortune. No letter from the children. Richard and I in low spirits because of it. A quiet evening, no dictation.
January 17, 1869	414	Cosima tries to act cheerfully for the children and Richard, but her writing is dominated by worry, loneliness, and the absence of news from the older children. A remark from Richard about the biography wounds her deeply, even as he remains anxious over her condition. Their intellectual companionship continues through discussion of drama, Schiller, and stage structure, while she ends the day praying for protection over her children and strength for her duty to Richard.	Sunday, January 17: (Morning) Slept only a little, but woke up quite fresh. Kept thinking about the possibility of a reunion with the children very soon. Great weakness and inner misery, but fought against both, for the little ones’ and R.’s sake. (Evening) My head feels heavy. How I should like to write to you cheerfully, so that you would read some of these pages with a smile; but cheerfulness I can only put into my actions. I do so with Loldchen and Evchen and shall do so with you when you are here. But writing down one’s thoughts conjures up all the seriousness of life. And also I am still without letters, without news of you. I can look at your portrait, which is standing on the writing desk in front of me. My good Lulu, may Heaven bless you! This evening Richard hurt me; he, who is always such balm to my soul! When I begged him to continue with the biography, he observed that “this innocent life” could surely hold no attractions for me. Why did he say that? I do not know, for he certainly does not really think it. Alone, by myself, I have wept unceasingly today, though I have tried to keep myself in check through attending to the little ones and constant reading. On my own I am weak. At times I feel that death cannot be far away, but I chase the thought from my mind, for I want still to live, for him and for you. You look at me with your good and trusting eyes; surely you cannot be ill, my Luschchen? At table we talked a lot again about the drama. R. explained to me various verse meters, particularly in regard to Schiller, whose Wallenstein I am now rereading. He also feels that Wallenstein’s Lager and Die Piccolomini should be divided into three big acts, the Lager, with the arrival of the princess, of Max, and of Thekla accompanied by the dragoons, with marchlike music, at the end, forming the first act. And the banquet at Terzky’s, with the conversation between father and son at the conclusion of it, should end the whole play. Richard is so worried about me that I do not know how to set about comforting him. It is after all my duty to keep him in good cheer. Good night, my children, it is now nearly midnight, the sacred hour. May all good angels accompany and protect you! Daniel and Blandine, bless my children!
January 18, 1869	928	After finding refuge in sleep from overwhelming worry, Cosima finishes Wallenstein and reflects at length on Schiller's humane power and the meaning of suffering in tragedy. Richard's renewed doubts about completing the Nibelungen distress her because she sees his work as inseparable from the moral legitimacy of their bond. A long walk through gray Tribschen turns into inner reassurance just before Richard returns with the longed-for letter from the children, transforming the evening into gratitude, dictation, and maternal blessing despite Loldi's troubling behavior.	Monday, January 18: A better night, which I owe to the great extent of my worries; there comes a moment when the mind can no longer bear the load of all one’s thoughts and takes refuge in sleep. Finished Wallenstein in the morning. How can we ever praise a poet enough who can take us right out of ourselves? I have always been especially affected by this particular work, in which a great spirit shows us the petty activities of the world in their largest dimensions, entertains us with the events, and uplifts us with his own feelings. Shakespeare’s dramas are more powerful, more daemonic, more shattering; Goethe’s style more tender perhaps, more intimate, more subtle; Calderon’s fantasies more singular, more passionate and melancholy, but for me Schiller’s creations remain the most affecting. For me it is as if he has found the right way of showing mankind its own image so as to give it courage. He is a benefactor of mankind, and the scope of his genius is not lessened by the fact that he avoids certain regions. In Gordon’s words [in Wallenstein]—misfortune has hope, fortune fear as its companion—lies for me the whole enigma of life: thus it is on earth, my children, that is how the poets see it and that is how we experience it. Many newspapers came today, much news of musical activities. It all seems a grand muddle. Toward noon R. came up to see me, looking very gloomy; he feels set against completing his work. He began it, he says, at a time when life was to him a fantastic image, and now, when it has been given a basis through me and the children, he feels he could make better use of his powers than writing scores which will never be produced and will mean nothing to anybody. When I replied that times would change, he answered: “At best they will be terrible, at best they will become puritanical, and my work has no place there. But it would still be a thousand times better than the present situation.” I find this a terrible statement; I feel that there can be no blessing on our bond if the Nibelungen remains unfinished. That R.’s state of health is just as much to blame for his lack of sympathy with his true calling as a passing glance at the world outside is no consolation for the pain I feel over his words; but I continue to hope that his God, the one that dwells in his own breast, will not forsake him. The children are playing beside me and keeping me from giving way to miserable thoughts. After lunch R. to town and I into the garden; I am still occupied with Wallenstein. In this rereading, it has struck me above all that one is downright glad to see the hero suffering, Max’s death, Buttler’s treachery, and, however much one is affected by his fate, one has absolutely no desire to rescue him from it, for his downfall and the treachery alone constitute his greatness; completely different from Götz or Egmont, for whom one feels as do Georg and Klärchen. Very characteristically, Schiller has not given this ambitious, coolly calculating, yet rashly fanciful being a companion spirit true unto death, except for the sister, who, however, does not die with him, but falls with him. Wonderful is the absence of pathos in W.’s last appearance. It is as if, though not knowing he is to die, he is nevertheless aware of finality; calm and manly, he awaits his end. From reflecting on this work just read, my thoughts soon transferred themselves to you, my children, and I sent you peaceful, loving greetings from afar. Five times I walked through the entire grounds of Tribschen; dusk fell, sky, mountains, lake stood gray and stiff before me like an impenetrable, threefold wall, and then there rose a sun in my soul. I felt inside me, deep and true, that you would remain by me, my children, whatever the world might do with me. Hardly had this light flared up in me in the enveloping darkness when I heard my name being called; R. had returned home, joyfully bringing me a letter from you. You are well and good and cheerful; your mother in her longing, melancholy happiness blesses you. In his unutterable kindness toward me R. was visibly full of cheer after handing me the letter. We went up to the children; Eva well and unruly, Loldi very peculiar. She had dropped a piece of wood. Eva picked it up and held it out to her, but she did not take it. “Take it and thank Eva,” I said. At last, after long hesitation, she took it, but then went to the stove, picked up, without my seeing it, a large piece of wood, came back with it to me on the couch, and threw it at Eva, so close that it missed the little one by only a hair. To my astonished question why she had picked up the wood and thrown it, she replied, “Because I don’t like the wood.” I punished her, showed her what she might have done, she showed regret, but the whole thing remains a puzzle to me. In the evening dictation, four large pages. How dearly I should like to stay up and write to you, children, but I promised R. to go to bed soon. So good night, my dear creatures, your mother is with you all. (This evening R. pointed out to me that all the great poets, with the exception of Homer and Dante, were dramatists.)
January 19, 1869	467	A midnight impulse to leave Richard for the children's sake collapses when Cosima imagines the damage such a sacrifice would do to him. The day is marked by illness, an effortful letter to Lenbach, Richard's proposed appeal to Countess Bismarck, and discussions of Loewe, German music, Jews, and death. Her thoughts circle the terrible dependence between her fate and Richard's, ending in headache as he reads Henry VI aloud.	Tuesday, January 19: I intended last night to go to bed, but did not do so; as I closed the book I was overcome by such sad longing, the children’s future seemed to me so dismal, I was so deeply aware that with the growing constriction of my soul I could be of no more help to Richard, that I resolved to go to him in this same midnight hour and tell him that I would go away, that henceforth I would and could live only for you, my children. But I did not do it; to sacrifice my own life and happiness, how happily I should do that; but then I visualized his life, his fate, and collapsed in a faint. When I came to myself I got into bed, and in the morning I could tell R. that I had slept well and had dreamed of Bismarck. He smiled and told me that he had been thinking, since yesterday, of writing to Countess Bismarck and sending her a copy of German Art and German Politics. Perhaps she can influence her husband to take an interest in German art. I advise him against it, because I anticipate only misunderstanding from such a step. Feeling unwell, I sat down at my writing desk and wrote with great effort to Lenbach concerning my portrait. Yesterday I had a letter from him, asking me to decide what to do about it. I went to lunch feeling very wretched; R. is also very unwell. But he has made a draft of the letter to Countess Bismarck. After lunch we played some of Loewe’s ballades, which I found quite pleasing, particularly “Elvershöh.” He continues to insist that the emancipation of the Jews has stifled all German impulses. Then we discuss the difference between the former rough and robust German musicians and the present Jewish, elegant, educated ones. Into the garden then, R. to town. I go over and over again the way things stand, and was truly shocked when Richard told me at table, after I had asked him if he had ever really wished for death, that he had indeed longed for it, but had never really felt it as imminent: only at times when he had believed we would have to part had he felt that his life was at an end, that there was nothing more he could do. I trembled at this declaration’s coming so close on the footsteps of my thoughts in the night. After long musings my mind gave up, I walked unthinking out into the night and heard only the breaking of waves, stirred up by the wind, and the barking of dogs. Then to the children, where R. told me that I lived only for bringing up my children. In the evening a severe headache; R. reads me Henry VI.
January 20, 1869	797	Cosima and Richard laugh over a misunderstanding about her supposedly calling him 'my dear Wagner,' but the day soon returns to weakness, tears, and letters to Loulou and Hermine. News from Vienna about delaying and restricting Die Meistersinger convinces them that bureaucratic and theatrical forces are trying to suppress Richard's work. Children, Schiller, Shakespeare, and strategic discussion of how to expose the situation provide some relief, though Richard closes with Schopenhauerian bitterness about belief and silence.	Wednesday, January 20: Off to sleep late, but slept well; sad thoughts, however, in the morning. R. once again mentions the letter to Countess Bismarck, I again try to dissuade him, and he gives in. But I do not know if I have done right. He is unutterably good to me. Yesterday evening we had to laugh heartily; he demanded something, I was at first against it, then I came round to it and explained to him how it was that I now wanted to follow his bidding, whereas I had not before; during this explanation he heard me use the words, “But, my dear Wagner.” He mentioned it at first jokingly, and I did not properly understand him, so let it go, but he became increasingly vehement and said it had never happened before that I called him “my dear Wagner.” At last I understood him, and when I explained that it would never have occurred to me to call him that and he must have heard me wrong, we laughed heartily and long. I have not gone to the children, because I want to write to Loulou and Hermine. That takes me the whole morning. In the meantime Richard comes up and shows me page 200, which he is now writing out. Feeling very unwell, weeping out of weakness, I have to pull myself together by force even just to bring myself to the table. We discuss Preller’s illustrations to the Odyssey; Richard laughs and says that with my feelings for art I should have married a very rich man. After lunch a letter arrives from Esser, the musical director in Vienna, saying that the management there intends to stage Die Meistersinger in October of next year, that is to say, in two years’ time! Yet Dingelstedt had been in a great hurry with his contract, in which R. was to undertake not to let any fragments from his work be played in Vienna and also to give no other theater besides the Court theater the right to produce the opera. So the intention was to suppress Die Meistersinger entirely. Luckily R. was suspicious and did not accept the clause. We are quite appalled at this new example of unworthiness. Here probably everything is working hand in hand: bureaucracy, Judaism, theater management, Dingelstedt, and perhaps even the Court. Through such experiences I realize very clearly how isolated he is and how he has utterly no one at his side but me. He goes into town, I take up the Schiller correspondence, read, and brood. Our recuperation and distraction are always the children, who are well and cheerful. Before tea I finish the correspondence. R. comes up, very despondent; he had now reached the stage where he could only keep silent. “Then let us be silent,” I told him, smiling. But with me, he said, it was always all right, he wanted to talk with me, but with nobody else; silence was the only thing that remained for him after all his experiences. He is not well. We started to talk again about the theater, and he observed that, if one wanted to present Goethe’s Faust, it should be done without intermissions, played through without a break, as he had once seen done in London with a pantomime, which lasted three hours without an intermission and proved very gripping. Henry VI, Part I completed, having given us much enjoyment. I had read it years ago, but was quite incapable then of appreciating the remarkable nature of its fleeting portrayal or noting the wonderful characterization beneath the loose jumble. It had passed me by like a mirage, but now I saw every figure and felt every situation. At parting Richard said that Schopenhauer was quite right: the sum total of wisdom would be to believe nothing and to say nothing. If he had not believed the King, for example, how much trouble would he have saved himself! We come back to the Viennese newspaper, and I advise Richard to use the announcement as a means of showing his acquaintances in Vienna and Berlin why his works are not being performed. Animatedly we discuss the situation; at times I, too, realize disconsolately how black things look. But he surely cannot have lived completely in vain; however hard they try, these people will not in the end be able to destroy him entirely. I am so upset that I cannot get to sleep, and take up Schiller’s poems, “The Fight with the Dragon”; it would really be enough for a lifetime to immerse oneself in such a poet, to understand and appreciate him thoroughly. How can people even begin to do so when they read all sorts of things at once, including mediocre stuff? Good night, my children, I feel you close to me; you are both my sorrow and my hope.
January 21, 1869	317	On the day of the Dresden Meistersinger performance, Richard wakes Cosima with themes from the work while both continue to brood over their precarious future. Lessing's biography and a Faust puppet play bring unexpected gaiety and admiration for the German folk spirit, though Cosima mourns that such vitality may already be extinct. News that the essay on the Jews will be printed, concern for the ill dog Kos, healthy children, and shared moonlight complete a day of mixed laughter and foreboding.	Thursday, January 21: Today is Meistersinger day; it is being produced in Dresden, and Richard wakes me with themes from the heavenly work. At breakfast we speak again about what happened yesterday. I am very tired, for I had a bad night, and dawn brought back to me my worries about the children. Richard told me at breakfast that, if we had to live in a garret, he would publish a newspaper in which he would mercilessly expose everything. While the children are out walking I begin on the Lessing biography. Much enjoyment from it. After lunch R. reads to me from the book of folk tales, an act of the Faust comedy for puppets, which gives rise to great delight, indeed to a mood of unbelievable gaiety. But afterward I find myself reflecting sorrowfully that this splendid folk spirit must now, at a time when its manifestations are being carefully collected, have died out, much in the way that art galleries and museums coincide with a period of unproductivity in painting. R. returns from his walk with the news that the article on the Jews is going to be printed. So be it! Then he goes to the children, telling me that he did not ask me to go with him since he had the feeling that this always cost me an effort. And so it is: where I was once used to finding four, I find it painful to see only two. However, the two here are flourishing. Kos, on the other hand, is ill, very ill; how sorry one feels for such a poor creature! In the evening we read the Faust puppet play to the end, amid hearty laughter, but with genuine interest. Kasperl is so entirely different in kind from the Spanish Grazioso or the Italian Harlequin, and what a striking testimony he is to the dramatic talents of the Germans! Glorious moonlight, enjoyed by us both.
January 22, 1869	195	Cosima's sleepless anxiety reaches a near-breaking point as she wonders how she can regain the children without leaving Richard. A telegram announcing the great Dresden success of Die Meistersinger brings sunlight and joy, suggesting wider recognition may follow. Letters about Paris rehearsals and Italian scores renew artistic vexations, and Richard ends the day dissatisfied with his artistic life while Shakespeare leaves a frightening impression.	Friday, January 22: Sleepless night; if only I did not have these heavy thoughts! At times I feel that I shall go mad. How to get possession of the children without leaving R.? This I cannot, must not do. In the morning R. sees in my face how I am suffering and suggests we go to the South. But I fear any disturbance in his situation and still hope that I shall recover. Our discussion about this is interrupted by a telegram from Mitterwurzer reporting that Die Meistersinger was a huge success in Dresden yesterday. Our nephew Clemens also telegraphed. It brought us great joy; perhaps Berlin will now have to do it. The sun is shining, for the first time in many days; if my children were with me I should be accounted happy, indeed overhappy, such as one has no right to expect here below, even when one renounces the world entirely. After lunch, letters. Pasdeloup reports that the rehearsals for Rienzi have started after all; and arrival of the Italian Holländer score, which again brings much vexation. In the evening R.’s deep dissatisfaction with his artistic life. To conclude, Henry VI, Part II—fearful impression, impossible to describe.
January 23, 1869	347	After a night of anxiety and physical weakness, Cosima remains in bed while Richard receives encouraging news about publishing Judaism in Music. Reports of Lohengrin controversy, Hans's hurt over a biographical notice, and the need for a correction draw the day into disputes over reputation and loyalty. Games with the children, help from Mme Laussot, Shakespeare, and Richard's resolve to complete Siegfried lift her spirits.	Saturday, January 23: Very bad night; no sleep at all and anxiety over the children. I do not get up. R. comes, tells me about a letter from Weber (the publisher), who feels that the time is now right for the appearance of Judaism in Music. In good spirits about that. Then a letter from a Germano-Frenchman saying that there is talk in Paris of R.’s imminent arrival for Rienzi. I stay lying in bed the whole of the morning, very weak and with constant feelings of constriction in my heart. An Italian newspaper reports on the fight over the Lohengrin Prelude during Pasdeloup’s concert. The Jews again. By lunch I am well once more; our conversation concerns yesterday’s reading. Comparison with Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, in which, as R. says, the choruses soften everything and give it a musical transfiguration, as it were, whereas in Shakespeare everything is spread before us and stays naked and terrifying. Beside it all other poetic works seem like divine lullabies; here it is as if Fate itself had removed its veil to appear before our mortal eyes. After lunch a communication from Hans; the Signale has printed a biography of him in which it is stated that when Hans was a young man Wagner had befriended him and cared for him like a father, while his own family left him penniless. This seems to have hurt Hans. How petty! I ask R. to write a correction at once in a proper tone of calm, which he then does, sending the draft to Hans. The weather is cold but fine; it does R. good, as one can see. I play games in the Froebel manner with the children, and Eva shows much intelligence. In the evening R. brings a letter from Mme Laussot to him: she will procure for him the manuscripts he needs for the edition of his works. After tea, conclusion of Henry VI, Part II and beginning of Part III. Today R. gave me great joy when he told me that he was now so unwilling to write letters because he had resolved to complete his Siegfried.
January 24, 1869	551	A better night lets Cosima plan for a possible reunion with her children, bringing rare comfort. Reports of the extraordinary Dresden Meistersinger success delight Richard, though a small domestic remark causes tension and correspondence over manuscripts revives old grievances. Tristan at the piano overwhelms Cosima with the terrifying intimacy of genius, and Henry VI leaves her meditating on the disrespect later ages show to great works.	Sunday, January 24: A good night and in consequence a harmonious morning; at the same time thinking out a plan by which I might soon bring the other children to my side, and how I will arrange things generally in the uncertainties and difficulties of the situation. This gives me comfort. From Dresden R. has received a letter from Dr. Lang, who remains loyal in spite of our constant rebuffs, written at midnight after the Meistersinger performance. The success, it seems, was quite extraordinary. Happy mood embracing both report and reporter. Unfortunately R.’s passion for silk materials brought forth a remark from me which I should have done better to leave unsaid, for it produced a bit of ill feeling. Yesterday a carpenter, a plumber, a veterinary surgeon in the house—a singular stirring in my enchanted life; I had to laugh over my own impression and was unable at all to imagine that I would ever again want to visit a theater or even watch a large number of people moving about. I miss nothing in my seclusion—except the children. In the morning arranged books. In the afternoon a letter from Mitterwurzer, who reports that the King of Saxony attended the performance and at the end was still applauding vigorously even after the singers’ third curtain call, which is said never to have happened before. R. is replying to Mme Laussot and demanding through her the manuscript of Jesus von Nazareth from Princess Wittgenstein, who, although she was only lent it, does not want to give it back. Greed of possession or religious caution? Whichever it is, her cynical effrontery is the same. After lunch, in the children’s presence, R. plays parts of the second act of Tristan. Whether I am becoming increasingly vulnerable or morbidly sensitive I do not know, but there are certain powerful impressions which I can hardly bear any longer. I literally shudder at the power of genius which suddenly lays bare before us the unfathomable secrets of existence, even when there is nothing I cherish and esteem more than this divinely daemonic power. I find myself thinking of R.’s words (on the death of Schnorr [von Carolsfeld]), “Art is perhaps a great crime”; and certainly those can be accounted happy who, like animals, know nothing of it, though this sort of happiness seems to me like eternal darkness. I watch till I am blind, hear till I am deaf, feel to the point of oblivion all its splendor; I am drawn to the shining, star-filled abyss, look irresistibly down, and sink senseless into it. We poor women who can only love, well may we be pitied when we divine the genius’s secret! And yet what are we without this complicity in genius? Very exhausted, I lie down and pass from a sort of coma into sleep; afterward the children and the Lessing biography. In the evening Richard rather worn out, but we undertake the end of Henry VI. In the face of that, mortals can only be silent. But when one thinks that people stage Richard III separately—or, even worse, that some buffoon dares to turn the three parts of Henry VI into two and put these on the stage—then one asks oneself what is the point of genius, when after centuries it can command no respect, and its manifestations become the prey of charlatans.
January 25, 1869	197	Cosima rests on her plans for the children while letters from Richard's family confirm the Dresden triumph of Die Meistersinger. Cold weather affects the children, Richard worries over her sadness, and talk of Fröbel and Lessing feeds her sense that Germany consumes its great men. Dictation resumes with pleasure, but a story of cruelty to a dog drives Richard into moral horror at the ugliness of the world.	Monday, January 25: A good night preceded by consideration of my plan. Letters from Richard’s family giving their impressions of Die Meistersinger. Severe cold, the children affected by it. Move them into another room. R. miserable because he thinks I am sad. Comforting him and raising his spirits. He is pleased with his score. At table he tells me he was once warned against Froebel by Alexander Müller, who told him Froebel turned the evil conduct of his first wife to his own advantage. He had taken no notice. In the afternoon with the children, finished the Lessing biography. Germany treats its great men as Nature treats the individual, sacrificing them as if there were enough to spare. In the evening R. speaks with great indignation about the gambling lust. Some more dictation at last, giving me much pleasure. Punch and good night. Vreneli told Richard about a poor dog she had seen half shot; its master had not wanted to buy the prescribed muzzle, and clumsily he tortured the poor creature. R. quite beside himself about it; we should bring our children up to be nuns or sisters of mercy; how can one even think of beauty in such a world?
January 26, 1869	400	Brilliant sunshine and Richard's renewed work on Siegfried begin the day happily, until a disturbing letter from Hans throws him into fury and exhaustion. Cosima reads the letter as an indirect signal about what Hans has told his family, and Richard later regrets not choosing a different course in Genoa. Under a luminous night sky, the movement of her unborn child prompts a blessing that joins maternal hope with the grandeur of mountains, stars, and water.	Tuesday, January 26: Glorious sunshine, the whole countryside dripping with light. Loldi four hours out in the garden today. I am well again. R. is working on his score and says he could not get through a morning without doing something on it. Cheerful spirits at lunchtime, the sunshine brings smiles to the whole house. Unfortunately, however, as R. is about to go out, a letter comes from Hans which is difficult to understand. He demands from R. the withdrawal of his correction for the Signale and reports the visit of his wife to Versailles. R.’s whole appearance alters; he is in an utter frenzy. I understand at once that with the last sentence Hans intends just to let me know what he has told his family. In the afternoon with the children. Returning home very unwell, R. goes to lie down. At seven o’clock, when the children are sleeping, I go outside. The loveliest view of the countryside I have ever seen. Everything blue and silvery, the moon and the stars shining, the mountains glowing, the water glittering, all of it bright, yet veiled. Mood of elevation inside and around me; the unborn child moves in my womb, and I bless it. May its spirit be as clear and mild as this glowing night sky, as calm and noble as the mountain wrapped in its mantle of snow, may its disposition be as deep and gentle as this lightly ruffled water, may it regard the dark shadows around its feet as unmovingly as the dark wood at the foot of the mountain, while its head is bathed in light, may it illumine and raise up all wretched creatures as tenderly as the starlight transfigures the dry meadow and the withered trees! May it eternally think lovingly of the mother who bore it in love! R. made even more weary by his afternoon sleep and in despondent mood. He bemoans the fact that I did not agree on that former occasion to stay in Genoa, to send for the children and then leave things to Fate. There is not much I can reply, for all the things which decided me then I explained to him at the time, and my inner voice tells me that I did right. Also, he is unwell, and it is only his sufferings speaking. In the morning he received a very nice letter from his nephew Pastor Brockhaus about Die Meistersinger.
January 27, 1869	235	Clear weather, good health, and more news of repeated Meistersinger performances in Dresden give the day outward brightness. Richard remains shaken by Hans's letter and fears he has tormented Cosima, leaving her to sustain cheerfulness without denying his distress. A long walk among ominous birds, moonlight, Devrient's book on Mendelssohn, and evening dictation shape a day of foreboding and recovery.	Wednesday, January 27: R. is better, his night was good, it seems. Mine, too. Glorious weather. More news from Dresden. Die Meistersinger is being performed there four or five times in a row. The children are able to spend nearly the whole day in the garden. R. is unsettled in his work and even at lunch, because he thinks he tormented me yesterday evening. There is not much I can reply to him, for how could I tell him that his despondent mood had not upset me? And if I reassure him that I bear the distress willingly, I do not thus help him over his concern. All that remains for me is to be cheerful and unaffected. He does not look well, the letter from Hans yesterday has really shattered him. He says he feels as if he were living only by magic, and he can hardly bear anything more. A two-hour walk, sun setting, moon rising. Sudden fright in the “Robbers’ Park,” first a raven croaking near me, then a number of crows—their flight, together with their hoarse cries, filled me with alarm—were they prophesying some approaching evil? The golden brightness of the moon and its reflection on the water gradually calmed me. R. has ordered Devrient’s book about Mendelssohn—it looks somewhat comical, and the fact that Devrient is an uneducated play-actor and Mendelssohn a Jew emerges clearly. I read some of it to R. After that, dictation.
January 28, 1869	443	Cosima reads Devrient with impatience but finds it confirms Richard's view of Mendelssohn, while the children remain lively and well. Feeling weak, she takes a dusk walk that turns the landscape into a vision of the Greek underworld before a star and then Richard's sudden appearance transform it into a sign of mercy. The entry closes with dictation, affection, and a philosophical reflection on nature's power to humble the self.	Thursday, January 28: Tolerable night, not much sleep, but no worrying thoughts, either. Read Devrient’s book while with the children. Much impatience with it, but much enlightenment; this account is like a confirmation of what R. wrote about Mendelssohn in his essay. Spoke about it to R. at table. He goes out, I am feeling weak again and have to lie down. Then with the children, who are lively and well behaved. Since R. reproaches me for not having been out of doors, I go out when it is already dark; the countryside is wrapped in gray dusk, I feel that the Greek underworld must have looked like this, and I could literally see the forms of its heroes as they wander across the calm gray water and vanish into the mists of the mountains and the clouds. Gradually the sky cleared, a pale star twinkled silently, the first I had seen this evening; “Greetings, gentle star, guide my fate kindly, shine benevolently on my children.” As I spoke these words the star suddenly disappeared—was it because a tear dimmed my eye or because the emerging moon obscured its little light? “Very well, you are as unyielding as all the rest, like them you teach me submissiveness.” Then it came back into sight. “Are you now appeased? Give me a friendly sign that you will be merciful to my children”—and suddenly I saw Richard standing in front of me: he had been looking for me everywhere, calling out Siegfried’s melody to me in all directions! Joyfully I acknowledged the sign; the whole countryside was gleaming, the clouds vanquished by the moon, the underworld atmosphere dispelled; I no longer looked for my little friend, having the large one at my side as pledge of the gentle direction of my fate. R. said if only I knew all the things he called out to me when I was not there. Alas, I know that he loves me. In the evening he dictates to me again, and we part affectionately. The reason Nature exercises so beneficent an effect on us lies surely in the fact that it makes us so closely aware of how insignificant the individual is. Thousands of years have passed in which the mountains have stood unconcerned in the face of human suffering, the stars shone down indifferently on earthly woe. In the city, however, the individual thinks of himself as something special and important; the razing of houses, the erection of buildings, all the unrest he unceasingly causes, gives him a deceptive sense of his significance, and it is in this deception that his agitation lies; for is not Death telling him every hour that in fact he is nothing?
January 29, 1869	351	Letters from Mathilde and a well household do not quiet Cosima's longing for the absent children. Richard and Cosima reflect on shared tears over noble history and poetry, then on Devrient's conduct, press trivialities, and the willful suppression or distortion of Meistersinger's success. Richard is deeply absorbed in Siegfried, while the evening is spent gathering examples of Devrient's prose under the sound of a strong gale.	Friday, January 29: In the night, read Devrient’s book to the end. In the morning, good, friendly letters from Mathilde [Maier]. Richard well, the children lively—I think of you, my absent ones, may you not miss your mother as much as she misses you! At lunch R. reminds me that yesterday during our conversation about the Battle of Marathon and the sudden noble assistance of the Plataeans tears came into our eyes, while during the reading of “The Fight with the Dragon” we actually wept. He thought we should not tell others what we were weeping about! Then he told me he had the feeling that he really had always been surrounded by rogues. From this book he saw with utter disgust how Eduard Devrient, when he got to know of R.’s activities in Dresden and saw all that was being done, arranged for Mendelssohn to be offered a position there. Not a word of that had he heard at the time. Mendelssohn was of course wise enough not to respond to the proposals. Amusing, too, to see the scene in which Sachs tries the shoe on Eva described in the press as “embarrassing”! R. says I should keep a list of all the nice things said about him; in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, for instance, all that was said about the Meistersinger in Dresden was that servants stood in the cold outside the box office to secure tickets. A report on its success obviously omitted. And after the second performance it is “added” that Rietz, the conductor, was called to take a bow, and that in Dresden they had needed fewer rehearsals than in Munich. The work itself is passed by, simply the opportunity seized with delight to stir up vexation in Munich! R. is very much occupied with his Siegfried and absorbed by it. The children are good—if I only knew how the little ones there are getting on! No report would be enough, but I have again had no letter for a long time. No dictation in the evening, but compiling an anthology of the “correct, counter-jumping German” of E. Devrient. Strong gale blowing.
January 30, 1869	256	A mild, sunny day brings a peaceful morning, garden time with the children, and happiness at Richard's wellbeing. Richard confesses that their only danger is loving each other too much, since even work on the score makes him want to return to her. During dictation Cosima is overcome by an inexpressible sorrow, then laughs and weeps at Richard's comic family memory before falling asleep in moonlight.	Saturday, January 30: Lovely sunshine. Mild weather; peaceful morning after a good night, in which as usual I dreamed about Blandine. Little to report on this day. In glorious spring weather spent a large part of the afternoon with the children in the garden. Richard well and I happy on that account. In the evening he tells me that between us there is only one danger: that we love each other too much; every morning when he goes to his score and writes the first line he would like to run upstairs again at once and see what I am doing. Dictation. In the course of it I am overcome by a heavy, heavy feeling, I cannot describe it, hardly know in fact what it consists of. Suffering, eternal, inscrutable suffering, may you be borne in silence! This last lesson I leave to my children: that the drink contained in the fairest chalice of unearthly happiness is a tear! Richard notices my mood and, to raise my spirits, tells me how his father Geyer, to give his mother a surprise on her birthday, staged a charade in which a councilor, Jeorgie, a gigantically huge man, laid himself in Mama’s bed, dressed in her nightcap and bed jacket; he was given her big coffee cup, and the children summoned in their nightcaps and nightgowns to their mother’s bedside, as usually happened in the morning; the mother was then called in, to their great delight. I had to laugh a lot. Then, once again, weep. At last, in lovely moonlight, I fell asleep.
January 31, 1869	197	Richard's illness and a useless letter from Mme Laussot cast the entire day into gloom, making Cosima feel spiritually emptied by his weakness. He tells her that his life has depended on her from the first and would not have been redeemed even by artistic or royal success. Reading Goethe to him offers some comfort, but her own illness alarms him until the thought of Siegfried restores her inwardly.	Sunday, January 31: R. very unwell, I despondent because of it; on top of that a stupid letter from Mme Laussot, who wishes to give him explanations from twenty years ago! That annoys him, because it is so utterly useless. The whole day passes gloomily. R. is weak and very limp, he cannot eat a thing. I in consequence feel deprived of my soul. At midday he says he cannot visualize what would have become of his life if I had not entered it. And if one were to say to him: But if your artistic plans had been carried through, if the King had proved steadfast, then you would not have been so utterly dependent on me? Nonsense! says R., he lives only through me, that had been his feeling from the very first hour. He drags himself feebly through the whole day; in the evening I read to him Goethe’s correspondence with Knebel, but I suddenly begin to feel unwell and cause him anxiety. He fears that I am undermining my health through my seclusion here. Oh, indeed, my woe is great, but when I think of the possibility of Siegfried I am cured as if by magic!
No diary entries found.