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 December 1869 (24 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
December 1, 1869	99	Richard tries to work but illness and the piano tuner prevent it, while Cosima spends the day with the children. In the afternoon he plays through Siegfried's third act with Pohl and later returns to the biography. At good night, Cosima admits that any visitor connected to the outside world disturbs Tribschen's rhythm and makes her sad.	Wednesday, December 1: R. tries to force himself into working, but it cannot be done; he is unwell, and on top of that we have to suffer the piano tuner. I with the children as usual. In the afternoon R. goes through the third act of Siegfried with Pohl. In the evening the biography. Saying good night, I confess to R. that the presence of any other person makes me sad; everyone who is in touch with the world and brings news of it disturbs the quiet rhythm of our life here, or, rather, evokes a mood of melancholy in me.
December 2, 1869	91	Dr. Pohl departs, and Richard writes letters despite poor health, including a reply to Kohler saying that the wish for life's greatest happiness has been fulfilled. Family lunch, Claire's advice to write Count Flavigny about money, and Cosima's letters to Flavigny and Judith occupy the day. Cratylus is read with Richard in the evening.	Thursday, December 2: Departure of Dr. Pohl. R. not very well, writes letters. A Herr Köhler has written to him in connection with Die Meistersinger in Königsberg and concludes his letter with the wish that R. be granted the greatest happiness in life. Because of this conclusion, R. replies and tells him his wish has been literally fulfilled. Family lunch; in the evening a letter from Claire, saying I should write to Count Flavigny concerning my money; I begin the letter at once. Wrote to Judith. In the evening read Cratylus with R.
December 3, 1869	272	Richard works while Cosima has the children write to their father, and lunch talk turns to German artistic convictions as embodied by Pohl's refusal of an Athenaeum post. Richard argues that Fidi cannot be protected merely by avoidance but must be given ideals strong enough to resist vulgarity. A Jena student tribute after Meistersinger, a dream of pale Hans, and a not very satisfying Cratylus close the day.	Friday, December 3: R. at his work, I in the study: get the children to write something for their father. At lunch we talk about the peculiarities of the Germans, like R. Pohl, for example, who, with his miserable job (subeditor with the Baden-Badener Journal), and in spite of keeping such terrible company, nevertheless remains so much of a German that, for the sake of his artistic convictions, he has turned down a position as correspondent with the English Athenaeum. Only a German has convictions in matters of art; all the rest consider such things puerile. At the mention of bad company I said, “I shall save Fidi from that.” “Then he really will be vulnerable to it. Things cannot be done negatively, only positively. The only way is to arouse in him a feeling for ideals, so that he can offer a manly resistance. If he can look on things in a thoughtful way, sensuousness and vulgarity will have no power over him. I know that my father and my mother encouraged this sense of the ideal in me, however unsettled and frugal our circumstances. Once that is done, disgust with all the baseness will appear at the proper time. I have experienced all the bad things it is possible to know.” After lunch R. goes to town and brings back a letter from the students at Jena; after the performance of Die Meistersinger in Weimar they drank a Salamander to R.’s health. (Last night I dreamed about Hans, that he walked through the living room, pale and agitated.) In the evening Cratylus without much pleasure, since R. finds the philological treatment somewhat childish.
December 4, 1869	75	Richard works and emerges excited, while Cosima spends the day with the children and later shops for Christmas in town. The errand leaves Richard chilled and ill, making him fear he cannot work the next day. Cosima ends by reviewing her life and praying for forgiveness and the grace to do good.	Saturday, December 4: R. at work; afterward very excited. I with the children. After lunch to town to do some Christmas shopping. R. catches cold in the process and returns home very indisposed. He fears he will be unable to work tomorrow. In the evening I consider my life and end with the prayer, “Forgive me the evil I have done in my life and on this day, and grant me the grace of still doing good.”
December 5, 1869	92	Richard dreams Cosima must go to Munich looking worn out, and his concern for her eclipses his own illness. Pusinelli's mistaken congratulations on an engagement to Doris Brockhaus add comic absurdity, while family lunch, puppets, magic lantern, dominoes, lotto, and the arrival of Kant for Christmas fill the day. Cratylus is attempted again, and Cosima writes to her mother.	Sunday, December 5: R. dreamed that I had to go to Munich and I looked so worn out. His concern about this dream, he says, took his mind entirely off his own condition. Yesterday his old friend Pusinelli wrote to him from Dresden, congratulating him on his engagement to Doris Brockhaus. R. works, I play puppets with the children. Large and merry family lunch. Arrival of Kant’s works for R. at Christmas. Toward evening magic lantern, dominoes, lotto with the children. In the evening a further attempt to finish Cratylus. (Wrote to my mother.)
December 6, 1869	75	Marie Muchanoff writes, and Cosima answers after a miserable night in which melancholy thoughts turn to tears and dreams. Christmas preparations revive sorrow for Hans, who disliked the holiday and may spend it alone. Richard remains unwell, though the children are lively.	Monday, December 6: Letter from Marie Muchanoff, which I answer at once; a wretched night. At nights my melancholy thoughts flood over me; I never go to sleep without tears, which then turn into dreams. Curious: Hans was in fact ill-disposed toward Christmas, and now when I think of him having to spend these days alone, I am overcome, as I prepare for them, by indescribable melancholy. R. still unwell; the children, on the other hand, lively.
December 7, 1869	149	Cosima works with the children while Richard sketches and continues to feel unwell, and Nietzsche writes that he will come for Christmas. Tristram Shandy's mockery of solemnity amuses her, and conversation turns to Mendelssohn as crystalline, clear, talented, and cold. Richard's reproach that she did not come to him while he worked worries her, even as he jokes over her interest in Semper's textile art.	Tuesday, December 7: Work with the children. R. at his sketches; he complains of feeling constantly unwell. Letter from Prof. Nietzsche: he is coming to us at Christmas. In the evening R. reads me Tristram Shandy, in which the diatribes against solemnity give me much enjoyment, reminding me of those bigots, the Schumannians. Spoke with R. about Mendelssohn. Comparison to a crystal: the Hebrides Overture, so clear, so smooth, so melodious, as definite in form as a crystal, but also just as cold. Such an enormous talent as Mendelssohn's is frightening; it has no place in the development of our music. A landscape painter, incapable of depicting a human being. I am occupying myself with Semper's textile art, which makes R. laugh and call me "you aesthetic soul." In the morning R. reproached me for not going to him when he was at work; it had ruined his mood. Concern about this.
December 8, 1869	125	The Vatican Council opens on a day of household confusion because the men are at church and Richard's work is spoiled. Cosima takes Lusch to Countess Bassenheim, receives an inadequate Berlin medallion and Cornelius's Parnasso italiano, finishes her chair, and reads Tristram Shandy. At parting tears bring Richard to a new Siegfried-Briinnhilde theme and talk of Parzival, love's first kiss, and death's premonition.	Wednesday, December 8: Opening of the Vatican Council, Immaculate Conception. At Tribschen nothing but confusion, all the men gone to church, hence no servants and R. annoyed. His morning's work spoiled; I take Lusch to Countess B.'s, where she has been invited. At midday arrival of a medallion of R. prepared in Berlin, very inadequate and unpleasing. The Parnasso italiano also arrived; Cornelius sends it to me. In the evening finished my chair. Read Tristram Shandy. On parting, R. looked long at me, and tears began to flow down my cheeks. "Do not weep," he said, "for Siegfried's words to Brünnhilde have just come into my mind"; and he fetched his pencil and wrote the theme down. Talked about Parsifal, the first kiss of love, premonition of death.
December 9, 1869	103	Sunshine and blue sky accompany Richard's work and Cosima's Christmas shopping, followed by family lunch and Count Flavigny's evasive letter about her money. Tristram Shandy continues in the evening. Richard's remarks on Schroder-Devrient connect formidable talent, lost respectability, and sensuousness as compensation for artistic burden.	Thursday, December 9: Glorious day, blue sky and sunshine; R. works. I drive into town to do some Christmas shopping. Family lunch. Afterward a letter from Count Flavigny: he calls himself my uncle, but does not send me my money. In the evening Tristram Shandy. Talking of the bust of [Wilhelmine] Schröder-Devrient, which always moves R., he tells me: "She was no longer very respectable when I came into contact with her, but for such a person, with that formidable talent, there was only one possible compensation, and that was sensuousness; without this she would have been unable to bear it." Wrote to Prof. Nietzsche.
December 10, 1869	37	Fog prevents Richard from working, while Cosima again drives out for Christmas errands. Business letters to Flavigny, Rothschild, and others occupy the evening. Tristram Shandy follows, but Richard remains agitated and calls the musician a veritable ox.	Friday, December 10: Fog again. R. cannot work; I drive once more to Father Christmas. In the evening business letters: Count Flav., Rothschild, etc. Later Tristram Shandy. R. very agitated. "A musician is a veritable ox," he says.
December 11, 1869	193	A warm letter from Nietzsche and Richard's playful dependence on Cosima's wellbeing open a productive day in which they plan Knecht Ruprecht and the Christkind for Christmas. Richard explains why Brunnhilde's later scene evolves from a different mood rather than repeating Siegfried's love themes, and Vatican Council confusion amuses them. The children's noise inspires gratitude, while Cosima's joy remains pierced by suffering for Hans.	Saturday, December 11: Very nice letter to R. from Prof. N. R. comes to my bed early in the morning to receive the orders of the day. If I am well, he says, he will dress luxuriantly. We decide on Knecht Ruprecht and the Christkind for Christmas. He works and is satisfied; in Brünnhilde's scene with Siegfried in Götterdämmerung none of the themes from the love scene reappear, because everything evolves out of the mood, not the underlying thought, and the mood here is different from that of the heroic idyll of Siegfried. At lunch, amusement over the Vatican Council, where they are said to have been unable to understand one another because of the differing Latin. Joy in the children; their jubilant hubbub on the stairs interrupts our table talk. I constantly thank the gods that they are well. R. tells me he cannot pray, but his feelings of gratitude take shape in him as an ardent desire for the destruction of the individual self. How constantly I suffer about Hans! I should like to die before him, so that he might realize how every hour I suffered with him, through all happiness and all blessings.
December 12, 1869	110	Cosima remains preoccupied with Daniel's death and grave, urging her children to hold fast to sibling love. Richard completes the pencil sketch of the Götterdämmerung Prelude, Uncle Adolph's picture arrives, and Mariechen Bassenheim visits for a meal and magic lantern. Tristram Shandy and Richard's conducting essay return in the evening, with vexation over German musical conditions.	Sunday, December 12: Through all these days I was preoccupied with Daniel, who died on December 4, 1859. I am worried about his grave. Children, my children, hold firm to one another: brotherly love, sisterly love, nothing else can make up for it! R. completes the pencil sketch of the Prelude to Götterdämmerung. The picture of Uncle A[dolph] W[agner] arrives. I for a walk with the children to meet Mariechen B[assenheim], who is eating with us. In the evening magic lantern, then took the little girl back to her mother. After tea continued Tristram Shandy. R. does more work on his essay, with increasing vexation as he thinks of musical conditions in Germany.
December 13, 1869	101	Christmas preparations absorb Cosima so completely that Richard laughs, while he continues working on Siegfried, Brunnhilde, and his essay. Geography with the student fills the afternoon. In the evening, Heine's posthumous writings strike them as both repulsive and brilliantly revealing, the bad conscience of the age.	Monday, December 13: Christmas bits and pieces and work. R. laughs at my being so exclusively occupied with all this. He constantly working, on Siegfried and Brünnhilde as well as his essay. In the afternoon geography with the student. In the evening R. reads to me out of a volume of Heine, posthumous things. As always things of incomparable genius, but also very repulsive pieces. "He is the bad conscience of our whole era," R. says, "the most unedifying and demoralizing matters one can possibly imagine, and yet one feels closer to him than to the whole clique he is so naively exposing."
December 14, 1869	105	Sleeplessness and thoughts of death lead Cosima to consider Schiller as a bridge toward musical drama. She works with the children, shops for Christmas, and gilds nuts while Richard reads Tristram Shandy. Loulou's stubbornness worries her, but she bears earthly censure by trusting that higher beings love her.	Tuesday, December 14: Constant wretched nights, thoughts of my death. Then considered Schiller, how after his works there could only be musical drama, to which he, as it were, forms the bridge. Worked with the children. After lunch made Christmas purchases. In the evening gilded nuts while R. read out Tristram Shandy. Loulou causes me concern with her very stubborn behavior. Curious: when I think of this world and its people, I feel there could not be too much censure and ill usage for me, but when I think of higher worlds and higher beings, there I know I am loved. The malice here below I gladly bear.
December 15, 1869	124	Vreneli's remark that Richard now knows he works for Cosima and Fidi gives Cosima pleasure, while the poor Bamberg girl chosen as Christkind becomes part of their Christmas plan. Richard works, Cosima remains weak and tries to hide it from him, and Lusch's lesson takes her to Countess Bassenheim. Claire's letter about doubts over Cosima's capital adds another financial irritation.	Wednesday, December 15: Vreneli gave me great pleasure today when she said, "Now the master knows what he is working for," meaning me and Fidi. The Christkind came, a very poor girl from Bamberg; we intend to dress her nicely, so that she can summon the children after Knecht Ruprecht, and then give her presents too. R. works. I still very weak; it looks as if my strength will never return. I must just take care that R. never notices how weak I feel. In the afternoon to Countess B. with Lusch. In the evening, Christmas bits and pieces. Letter from Claire, saying my new marriage raises doubts about paying me my capital, whereas my proposal is that it should be invested for me there! Very pretty!
December 16, 1869	222	Richard works on the intermezzo sketch, and Cosima, fearing happiness may make her forget Hans, deliberately recalls his suffering. Tristram Shandy prompts discussion of birth, procreation, confused expression, and mother wit as genius. While gilding nuts at sunset, Cosima reviews her life and concludes she could not reject her love for Richard, yet must atone for the suffering obedience to that love caused.	Thursday, December 16: R. works on the sketch of the intermezzo; when feeling so blissful about the flourishing state of his mind and heart, I fear always that I might forget Hans's suffering. I then invariably remind myself of it. With the children at lunch. R. and I start talking about Tristram Shandy. R. remarks on the curiousness of this disquieting book, in which everything is attributed to procreation and birth, and in turn birth becomes the reason why Tristram Shandy cannot express himself except in this confused manner. The fact that Shandy's father refers constantly to mother wit, or the wit one derives from oneself, suggests that by this he means genius. After lunch R. goes into town. I stay in the downstairs salon and gild nuts. Colorful sunset, the last glimmers of the open fire, the dark gleam on the Goethe frame, the nuts glittering in the dusk; my "better soul" awakens, and in my thoughts I look back on my life. Could I have done otherwise? Am I to reject my love for R.? Never, and since not, that means I had no right to act differently. But since on account of it someone had to suffer, I acknowledge deep inside myself the sinfulness of this obedience, and I shall atone and do penance for it in all the ways I can.
December 17, 1869	192	Foehn weather, Richard's illness, Loldi's indisposition, and concern over investing the children's savings make December 17 heavy despite Christmas name-painting. The original row then moves into December 18, with Christmas shopping, the ridiculous Iftekhar order from Tunis repurposed for the puppet theater, another misunderstanding with Richard, and Cosima's view that newspapers are an unhealthy meddling in unreliable reports. Both days are marked by illness, bad weather, and Christmas labor under strain.	Friday, December 17: Föhn weather. R. still not well, does no work on his sketch, and is despondent. Visit from Colonel Am Rhyn; discussion about the investment of savings for the children. Horrible weather, Loldi unwell, R. indisposed. In the evening painted Christmas names. Saturday, December 18: To town in the morning to make purchases for Christmas. Both R. and I had a very wretched night, R. ill, I immersed in gloomy thoughts. In the morning a letter from Prince Hohenlohe; arrival of the Order of Iftekhar from the Bey of Tunis, a large silver brooch, which R. immediately puts to use on the roof of the puppet theater. He does not intend to acknowledge its receipt, since it is too ridiculous to be refused. R. still unwell. In the evening, when I intervene in a conversation with the children, he thinks I am worried that a quarrel might ensue, and in his misunderstanding he becomes heated about this supposed worry. A despondent evening in consequence. Reading newspapers, I told R. today, was for me the same as meddling in things with which one has nothing to do, relying on the reports of people who do not know.
December 19, 1869	62	Richter writes that Lohengrin will be performed in Brussels in January, while Cosima spends Sunday with the children at lunch and games. She reads Lusch scenes from Goethe's Iphigenie because the child is learning the legends, and Eva's lively intelligence delights her. Tristram Shandy returns in the evening.	Sunday, December 19: Letter from Richter to R.; Lohengrin is to be performed in Brussels in the middle of January. Lunch and games with the children; in the evening read to Lusch some scenes from Goethe’s Iphigenie (prose), because she is just learning this group of legends. Joy in Eva, who is incredibly lively and intelligent. In the evening took up Tristram Shandy again.
December 20, 1869	507	Persistent bad nights mix foehn discomfort with grief over Hans's lonely Christmas, and Cosima wishes she could teach the children renunciation without making them learn through pain. Richard works on his essay, reflects on musicians as heart-seers, and considers revisions to Götterdämmerung's ending while they discuss gifts, Knecht Ruprecht, and Fidi's Walsung eyes. The combined entry then turns to December 21, with Christmas gift troubles, Cosima's comedy idea, Judith's report of Wagner enthusiasm after hostility in Paris, and more Tristram Shandy.	Monday, December 20: Wretched nights still, because of either the Föhn or melancholy feelings. I should never have regained my sleep if I had left R. to his dreary and disconsolate fate, that is certain; and now it is the thought of Hans’s lonely existence which robs me of my rest. But I do not complain, for I feel this is as it should be. If only, my children, I could instill my knowledge into your souls, enabling you to renounce all happiness here below without personal experience, consequently cheerfully and sinlessly! “Let him who calls no soul his own steal away from our bond” came into my mind while I was thinking of R. Loulou, my child, assume the task of living for your father, to compensate him for all he has lost! I felt peculiarly sad when I heard Loulou reflecting in the evening that she would like to marry and have children. The Illustrirte Zeitung publishes a portrait of Beethoven in the year 1805; it is very unattractive, bloated, almost devoid of intellectual expression. “Well, musicians must be ugly in appearance; in them the heart is everything. As a woman becomes clairvoyant through her nervous system, so a musician does through his heart, which does indeed have a mind of its own. The musician does not see people, their movements, and their actions; for him everything is tempo, structure, etc.” He continues writing his essay and reads me what he has written. Afterward we discuss how Knecht Ruprecht should look. Then with him into town. Sent the student home; news that Eduard Devrient has been suddenly dismissed. For what reason? Have R.’s words perhaps had an indirect influence on the Grand Duke? In the evening, looking at Fidi, R. says he has the glittering eyes of the Wälsungen; that brings us on to the Edda, then to Götterdämmerung. He shows me some lines in his composition notebook which Brünnhilde should sing in place of “Selig in Leid und Lust” and in which the chorus should join; the burning of Siegfried’s body to be done as a sort of ritual. But he has abandoned it, rightly, as not being stylistically in keeping with the whole. “Such things as final choruses have no place in this work.” In the evening much enjoyment with Tristram Shandy. Tuesday, December 21: Gift troubles; can giving pleasure to others make up for the distress of having been the cause of suffering? Certainly it does not, yet the pleasure remains great and pure. In the night I thought of an idea for a comedy, of which I worked out the whole first act. Afternoon outing with R. In the evening a letter from Judith, reporting that after a bad first performance of Die Meistersinger there was a great demonstration of hostility, whereupon a young man in great excitement pressed into her hand some pretty verses about R. Pasdeloup proudly and boldly repeated the Overture on the following Sunday, and a veritable storm of enthusiasm (vive Wagner) is said to have broken out. R. works on his essay. In the evening Tristram Shandy.
December 22, 1869	75	Cosima cannot sleep after hearing Hans has been ill but enjoying himself in Florence, and she spends the night shaping a Christmas prayer and a comedy. The day is consumed by town errands, furnishing the dollhouse, and Christmas preparations. Pohl writes to Richard, who remains indisposed.	Wednesday, December 22: Did not sleep; the cook in Munich writes to Hermine that Hans has been enjoying himself in Florence, but has been ill. During the night, when thinking of the children’s delight, I consider ideas for a prayer for Christmas Eve. Then in my head I work out my comedy. In the morning to town again; furnish the dollhouse. Christmas activities all day long. In the morning a letter to R. from Pohl. R. indisposed.
December 23, 1869	147	While gilding apples, Cosima receives a friendly birthday letter from Bucher and is relieved that a respected former friend has not accepted malicious rumors about her. She decorates the tree as finely as possible while Richard is cheerful. A careless, ungenerous letter from Richard's sister Cacilie hurts her because she had hoped for fellow feeling from his family.	Thursday, December 23: While gilding my apples I am given a letter from Counselor Bucher. It gave me much joy; I thought he belonged among that group of former friends who paid attention to the malicious things said about me. Now he has written in a friendly tone and with no other motive than to greet me on my birthday; since I think highly of him, I found this sign of life from him extremely welcome. In the evening I decorated the tree just as finely as I could. R. in cheerful mood as I did so. During the day I had a moment of distress. R.’s sister Cäcilie sent him the papers for which I had asked; she sends no greeting to me and writes in an obtuse and ugly manner. That hurt me; it would have been so much better if R.’s sister had felt for me.
December 24, 1869	241	Christmas Eve is carefully staged without present tables, with painted household names, Nietzsche helping assemble the puppet theater, and Richard rehearsing Knecht Ruprecht and the Christkind. Loulou's recitation is interrupted by Knecht Ruprecht's roaring entrance, followed by nuts, delight, and the luminous Christkind leading the household to the tree and gifts. Cosima prays with the children for unhappy, poor, lonely, and motherless people, receives Nietzsche's Homer dedication, and ends with a Christmas reading.	Friday, December 24: Busy with arrangements. I have painted all the names (of the complete household) and distributed them around the living room. The aim is to give out the presents without the use of tables. Professor Nietzsche comes in the morning and helps me set up the puppet theater with Iftekhar on it. In the afternoon I still have a few things to take care of, and in the meantime R. rehearses Knecht Ruprecht and the Christkindchen. I return home, and we begin. I, with the professor in the nursery, invite Loulou to recite “The Fight with the Dragon,” in order to exercise her mental powers; she says it up to “Thou, lord, must know the chapel well,” then Hermine comes in and says she can hear such roaring! Suddenly our Knecht Ruprecht appears and roars; terrible alarm among the children. R. gradually pacifies him, he scatters his nuts, cries of delight from the children. While they are picking them up, the Christkindchen appears, brilliantly illumined. In silence the whole household follows, I with the children in front; the Christkindchen beckons with the tree and wanders slowly down the stairs, disappearing through the gallery. The children, dazzled by the gleaming of the tree and the presents, do not notice the disappearance. After the present-giving I pray with the children in front of the extinguished tree. Professor Nietzsche’s gift to me is the dedication of his lecture on Homer. In the evening Der bethlehemische Kindermord.
December 25, 1869	135	On Christmas morning, Cosima receives from Richard manuscripts and printed biography pages, a gift that moves her to tears because of the trouble he took. Schure's parcel delights the children, and Cosima attributes the favorite dolls to their father before family lunch and Parzival with Nietzsche. Richard speaks sublimely about the philosophy of music, letters and biography passages follow, and fatigue closes the day.	Saturday, December 25: In the morning I sketched out the little poems. Then Loldi came to me; R. had sent her in with a little volume of manuscripts and 32 pages of the printed biography. Very moved, particularly by the former, for R. certainly must have gone to much trouble in acquiring them. Tears. A very nice parcel for the children from Frau Schuré (all sorts of toys). I tell the children that the dolls which gave them the most pleasure came from their father. Family lunch; afterward read Parzival with Prof. Nietzsche, renewed feelings of awe. Then some sublime words from R. on the philosophy of music, which, it is to be hoped, he will write down. Letter from Lenbach. In the evening, passages from the biography. R. still occupied with his essay on conducting. Great tiredness.
December 26, 1869	54	The children go to church, then gather for lunch and Cosima's comedy. A letter to Lusch from her aunt seems almost to demand the child's return, throwing Cosima into an inner struggle over whether to send her. With Boni unwell, Cosima writes near the nursery and commits the Christkind poem to paper.	Sunday, December 26: Children to church, then lunch together; later played my comedy for them. Letter to Lusch from her aunt, who virtually demands that I send her. Shall I? Great inner struggle. Boni unwell in the evening. I am writing this in the salon next to the nursery, and committing the Christkindchen poem to paper.
No diary entries found.