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 1870 (29 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
January 3, 1870	160	Cosima resumes the diary after a festive but tiring New Year period marked by visits, gifts, correspondence, and Nietzsche’s departure. She notes her mother’s improved health and small signs of encouragement from friends and admirers. The household remains socially active while Richard is absorbed in his essay, and the wider political world presses in through reports from Rome and Paris.	Monday, January 3: Have not written in this book for a whole week. Spent most of the time with Prof. Nietzsche, who left us yesterday. Today a letter from my mother, whose health is improving. Otherwise, several signs of friendliness from the outside world, among them a parcel today from Judith M., with pictures of R.'s works painted by her. On New Year's Eve our tree was lit again, and I received from R. such presents that I was quite amazed. He sent Marie Muchanoff a telegram in verse; I write letters in all directions. On January 1 I received some money, which I took as a good omen. R. still very much occupied with his essay. We are now both tired. From Paris I received anonymously a nice bonbonniere, which I took to Countess B. Exchange of visits with the Am Rhyns and the whole B. family during this time. Many curious reports of the Vatican Council and from Paris, Ollivier's government.
January 4, 1870	30	Cosima is physically unwell, yet she pushes through a day of letter writing while the children write to their aunt. Her own discomfort is compounded by concern for the children, who are also ill. The entry presents domestic duty continuing under a cloud of fragile health.	Tuesday, January 4: Very unwell again, but wrote letters while the children were writing to their aunt; I to Mama, Judith, Lenbach, etc. The children also unwell, which causes me worry.
January 5, 1870	80	The day combines children’s lessons, literary reading, and Richard’s philosophical reflections on life as a perilous field only the rare person can master. Cosima also records frustration over the stalled divorce proceedings. Richard frames the contrast between living love and slow-moving law with bitter wit, turning a practical anxiety into a larger meditation.	Wednesday, January 5: Worked with the children. At lunch R. speaks about life, which is like the flickering flames eternally raging around Brünnhilde's rock. Now and again someone breaks through these flames and tames them, but most come to grief in them. In the evening Tristram Shandy. Letter from both the Schurés, very nice. With regard to my divorce, which is making no progress, R. says, "Laws are transmitted," etc. "Nature and love are prompt, but laws, they creep on all fours!"
January 6, 1870	53	Cosima spends the day nursing Loulou through a chill, setting aside other activities to keep the child company. The children’s speech and play give the household warmth despite illness. Richard’s playing from Siegfried transforms the day for her, making music feel like the sustaining center of her life.	Thursday, January 6: Loulou ill, a chill; I stay beside her and play with her all day. Lunch with the other children. Loldi now says, "I greet you a greeting for Uncle Richard." R. plays passages from the third act of Siegfried; the sounds he creates are the sun of my life! Letter from Rothschild.
January 7, 1870	81	Cosima remains elated by Richard’s music from the previous day, even as anxiety over the children’s health persists. She handles practical money matters and social calls, receiving Countess B.’s optimistic reading of the year ahead. The evening’s reading of Tristram Shandy leaves her divided, admiring its talent but withholding deeper praise.	Friday, January 7: Because of R.'s playing yesterday I have been walking on clouds, though always with an anxious heart, since Lusch is still in bed and Boni unwell. To town for my money, then to Countess B., who tells me she knows the year will turn out well, since Richard visited her on the first day. An inquiry from Mathilde Maier about R.'s illness! Replied to her at once. In the evening Tristram Shandy, pleasure alternating with dissatisfaction. Talent, but no genius.
January 8, 1870	228	On Hans’s birthday, Cosima wakes into a painful moral reflection on her former marriage and the course of her life. She believes her path with Richard is bound to a higher calling, while hoping her daughter will preserve devotion to her father. The day is also filled with illness, oppressive weather, theatrical play for the children, political news from France, and a poem that turns suffering toward cosmic resignation.	Saturday, January 8: Woke up in the night, remembered Hans's birthday; if I had thought solely of him, lived only for him, would this have been better in a moral sense? I believe it would, but I also firmly believe that it was not my mission in life. My hopes are founded on Loulou's cherishing her father above all others for my sake and devoting her life to him. R. worried over the lack of progress in our affairs, also worried on Fidi's account. Lusch still in bed, but the doctor unconcerned. Foehn, very oppressive weather. In Munich they have engaged Lucile Grahn, and work is continuing on Die Walküre, according to the Musikalische Zeitung. Played a comedy for the children at Lusch's bedside. Nice letter from Claire; the French are satisfied with the Ollivier government. In the evening, looking at the stars, I thought out the following poem: Zum 8ten Januar Ihr ruhigen Sterne grüsst aus der Ferne des Armen Nacht! Entsendet euer Licht, dass nicht mehr er ficht gen Schicksals Macht! Enthüllt end'gen Tanz, dass er genese ganz von jeder Erdentaumelqual, und sich ergebe fromm dem Leiden, wie es komm', erblickend das Sternental. ["You peaceful stars, greet from afar the poor one's night! Send your light, that he may no longer fight against the power of Fate! Display eternal dance, that he recover quite from the frenzies of this mortal life and piously accept suffering as it comes, gazing on the starry vale."]
January 9, 1870	301	Richard returns to composition and begins sketching material for Götterdämmerung, while Cosima tends sick children and reads fairy tales. A lawyer’s reassurance about marriage and Fidi’s christening greatly relieves Richard, lifting a practical and emotional burden. The evening moves through memories of Richard’s childhood, anxious letters about his health, and a shift from Sterne to Dante, whose vision of Beatrice leads Cosima back to Tristan with renewed intensity.	Sunday, January 9: In the morning R. gets down again to his composing and sketches the opening to the prologue of Götterdämmerung. I read Grimm's fairy tales to Loulou and feel pleased that she much prefers these to the Andersen ones. Lunch with the children, without Lusch, who is still in bed; the others have colds, too. After lunch Bayer, the lawyer, who gladdens R. greatly by telling him that once we are married the christening of Fidi will cause no difficulties at all. R. very happy, as if a burden had been lifted from him! At supper he spoke about his godfather, Träger, in Leipzig, whose bluestocking of a wife was his first encounter with an intellectual woman, Aspasia type! From her he first heard the words "architectonic relationships"; she used them to Rosalie in connection with the stage decorations at the Leipzig theater, which Rosalie thought bad. At the age of twelve R. had read Die Jungfrau von Orleans to her; she had asked him to do so. His godfather gave him a blue-gray dress coat and a red Turkish waistcoat from his own wardrobe; this caused his mother great amusement, but R. was impervious to her gibes, for his rich godfather's dress coat, altered to fit him, had a silk lining. Letter to me from Krausse, the painter, about R.'s supposed illness, and from an unknown young man in Vienna came a very touching and anxious inquiry as to whether he really was ill. In the evening finally laid Tristram Shandy aside with a feeling of aversion, and began on the Vita nuova, pedantically mystical, says R. Profoundly moved by the canzona in which Dante sees Beatrice lying dead! "This is the genesis of all poetry," R. says. It leads me to the second act of Tristan, which I read again with delight.
January 10, 1870	161	Richard announces the idea for a new work and discusses how to respond to the King’s letter about Wagner productions. Cosima’s inability to attend becomes decisive for him, showing how inseparable artistic presentation is from her presence. The rest of the day is spent among ailing children, Richard’s work and poor reaction to a walk, and the completion of Vita nuova.	Monday, January 10: "I am going to write a new work," R. exclaims to me. "It begins with the second act of Tristan and ends with Hans Sachs's wedding." Letter from the King, still in the same old style. R. thinks he can use it as a pretext to beg him on no account to produce Die Walküre without R.'s aid, and he will suggest producing this as well as Das Rheingold for him. When I tell him I would not be able to attend the performances, he says: Then on no account. I then go to the children, all four of whom are unwell! I read to them and play with them. R. works and is in cheerful mood, then ruins both his mood and his state of health with a walk. He says it feels quite stuffy out of doors, like a peasant's living room, the air is so thick. In the evening finished the Vita nuova. Sketched poem for the 7th.
January 11, 1870	171	The household is still sick, and Richard works despite feeling unwell himself. His insistence that a work cannot be produced without Cosima moves her deeply, though he treats the sentiment as natural. The day ranges from amusement over church politics and aesthetic judgments about the violin to emotionally charged reading of Geyer’s letters and memories of Richard’s childhood sensitivity.	Tuesday, January 11: All five unwell today, coughs, colds, etc., great concern. R. also unwell, forces himself to work. When he again says that he finds it unthinkable to produce a work without my being there, I kiss his hand in deep emotion, upon which he laughs and says, "Now one gets praised for a law of Nature." Bishop Strossmayer's opposition to the Jesuits at the fifth meeting of the Council causes us much amusement. After lunch discussed the violin as a solo instrument, unmanly, ridiculous. I write to Claire and to Krausse, the painter. Some words concerning a Calderon quotation omitted. In the evening read with R. the letters of his stepfather, Geyer, very moved by them. R. says, "He sacrificed himself for us." Early today, when Loldi went to R., he asked her why she was crying. "I'm not crying, tears are just coming!" R. tells me that as a child he was nicknamed Amtmann Böhrei, because he was so sensitive. R. has written to the King and made suggestions to him.
January 12, 1870	54	Cosima passes another restless night amid continuing concern for the sick children and teething Fidi. News that the King has ordered Die Walküre shocks her and extinguishes her desire to work. The oppressive atmosphere and emotional blow leave the evening empty of reading or consolation.	Wednesday, January 12: Again very restless in the night; the children also still unwell, concern, too, about Fidi, who is teething. Read in the newspaper that the King has commanded Die Walküre. A great shock, the urge to resume work utterly killed. On top of that the air very unpleasant. Read nothing in the evening.
January 13, 1870	109	Cosima is confined by illness, but Fidi’s visit and Richard’s affectionate wish to paint mother and child brighten the day. Richard works only lightly and writes to Pusinelli about the birth of his son. News from Paris about Victor Noir’s killing contrasts sharply with the private household scene, while Plato’s Theaetetus brings Cosima a powerful evening pleasure.	Thursday, January 13: Unwell, chest pains; delight in Fidi, who visits me in the morning. R. is having breakfast beside my bed and says he would like to be a painter, to paint me with the child. Amusement over the doctor's reply when R. shows him a tumor growing on a finger. "Good Heavens," he says, "how productive you are!" R. works a little; in the afternoon he writes to his friend Pusinelli, announcing the birth of his son. Letter from Frau Schuré; Paris is literally in an uproar over the murder of Victor Noir by Prince Pierre Napoleon. In the evening began on Plato's Theaetetus, great and heavenly delight in it.
January 14, 1870	136	Health improves enough for Cosima to go into town, make purchases, and visit Countess Bassenheim. Lusch’s dream about her father reassures Cosima that she is preserving the child’s attachment to him. Richard gives her the first penciled pages of Götterdämmerung, making the day feel ceremonially important, even as he shields her from further conflict with his sister.	Friday, January 14: Better again, R. too; he works, I go into town, make purchases, and visit Countess Bassenheim. Lusch tells me that she dreamed of her father and felt such joy at his arrival that she almost fell out of the window. I feel glad that I am succeeding in keeping her feelings for her father alive. R. works and, when I return home, gives me the first penciled pages of Götterdämmerung, with which I consecrate the little bureau in the corner. In the afternoon played with the children, read them fairy tales. In the evening R. writes to his sister Cäcilie, to my relief making no mention of the business between her and myself; but he forbids me to write a single word to her, he says she is not worth it. In the evening Theaetetus. Sunshine.
January 15, 1870	139	Cosima and Richard reflect on ancient and medieval images of death, linking Lessing, Isolde, German imagination, and Greek feeling. The children’s better health permits an outing, though Richard remains physically limited and unable to work much. The springlike weather and the completion of Theaetetus give the day a gentler close.	Saturday, January 15: I tell R. that Lessing's essay on the way in which the ancient Greeks depicted Death had been very vivid in my mind during the morning; it had reminded me of his Isolde, who, as she puts out the torch, appears to us in the smiling guise of loving heroine and goddess of Death simultaneously. Talked of the medieval skeleton; R. observes that the Germans had managed to give even this gruesome image a cheerful and homely aspect, which is what makes "the Germans so original and closest in kind to the Greeks." The children in better health, I can take them for a drive, Boni and Loldi. After lunch went out with R.; he is not well and was not able to do much work. Springlike weather. In the evening the conclusion of Theaetetus. Letter from M. Maier.
January 16, 1870	82	Cosima’s spirits rise with the children’s recovery, and the day is filled with play and household sorting with Richard. A remembered performance of Beethoven’s Ninth leads her to think about the difference between naive faith and ordinary belief. The evening turns to Shakespeare as Richard reads King Lear aloud.	Sunday, January 16: In better spirits because of the children's improved health; games with them; in the afternoon sorted the files with R. Yesterday R. played me the last movement of the Ninth Symphony, and we were once more quite overwhelmed by the naivete of the faith which blows through Schiller's poem as well as Beethoven's music. Who could teach himself that? Certainly my father, for instance, is a believer, but I do not call this faith. In the evening R. read me King Lear.
January 17, 1870	190	The day is intellectually lively, with Richard revising the Norns’ Song while Cosima teaches the children and writes to Nietzsche. Richard uses Gervinus, Shakespeare, music, arithmetic, Goethe, Schiller, and Calderon to unfold a broad theory of art and ideas. Domestic reading with the children and the completion of King Lear sit alongside his practical effort to obtain the Berlin diploma.	Monday, January 17: Letter from my mother, good and friendly; worked with the children while R. was revising his "Norns' Song" for the second sketch. Wrote to Prof. Nietzsche. He has sent me Gervinus on Handel; when in this connection I tell R. that Gervinus's book on Shakespeare is still selling well after thirty years, R. says, "That's because of the subject. If Shakespeare were to write a book about Gervinus, it would probably not sell at all." "Arithmetic is to music what words are to an idea." "The musician who does nothing but write music from morning till night, entirely ignoring the world of ideas, must be an ox; he is missing far more than those who, knowing nothing of music, observe the rest of the world." "Everything in Goethe and Schiller tends toward music. What alienates us here and there in Calderon is the Italian element, which brought forth opera; in our poets we sense the basic element of music drama." R. goes for a walk, then writes to Baron Werthern, asking him to send him the Berlin diploma. I with the children, Grimm's fairy tales. In the evening finished King Lear.
January 18, 1870	64	Cosima’s sleeplessness comes from renewed agitation over her mother’s question about Hans, but she composes herself enough to teach the children. Richard works while the household settles into relative health amid snowy weather. Public events in France dominate the newspapers, and the evening begins with Timon of Athens.	Tuesday, January 18: Sleepless night; reason: my inner agitation about my mother's asking how Hans is. I pull myself together, however, as much as I can, and give the children their lesson. R. works. Everyone fairly well, snow outside. I start on my embroidery for R. Nothing from outside; the newspapers are full of Rochefort, Prince Bonaparte, Ollivier, etc. In the evening began Timon of Athens.
January 19, 1870	237	Richard’s comic dream of political rank opens into one of his most explicit declarations of happiness with Cosima. His words overwhelm her with gratitude, making the house itself feel like the center of his desired life. Letters, a child’s visit, and Loldi’s imaginative remark fill the day, but Richard’s fall on the steps brings a sudden fright before the evening closes with Timon.	Wednesday, January 19: R. tells me that last night he dreamed he had been a minister at the court of Queen Anne of England and had quarreled with a Lord Evans. Aha, R. had thought to himself, he doesn't yet know who I am, he still thinks I am a musician! Much amusement from his description. R. then tells me how happy he is with me, because of me. "Yes, if only I knew of just a single person who could be in the least compared with you, of whom I could say: 'Ah, that was the first draft, that has been brought to fruition in C.' The only things I fear are change and illness. I do not appreciate anywhere near enough how happy I am. I do not enjoy it nearly enough. I never want to leave this house again." How I thank God for this happiness! Who could estimate what such words do to my heart? Letters arrive: from a man in Bremen, who thanks him for having so thoroughly drubbed the so-called conductors; from his friend Pusinelli; one from Claire, very nice. Lusch is driven to Countess Bassenheim's. R., accompanying her to the carriage, falls on the steps in front of the house, a great shock. Thank goodness he soon recovers and feels nothing but negligible pain. In the evening, conclusion of Timon. In the afternoon the three children downstairs; Loldi says, "The wind talks so much."
January 20, 1870	121	A letter from Lusch’s father responds tenderly to the Christmas celebrations, while Richard works despite pain from his fall. Cosima enjoys the children’s restored health and considers sending a final message through her father to Hans before falling silent. Evening conversation centers on estrangement, differing perceptions, family obligations, and a possible Paris sale of the old French songs.	Thursday, January 20: A letter to Lusch from her father; he was touched by our Christmas festivities. R. suffering from his fall, but working. I with the children, then lunch with them, glad that all are in good health. In the evening R. writes to C. Frantz regarding the care of Daniel's grave. An evening of conversation. When I tell R. I intend to write once more to my father with a message for Hans and after that to keep silent, he says, "That's right, for people are divided not by what they are, but by how they see things, how they express themselves." My mother has written to R.; the publisher in Paris wants to purchase the old French songs for 500 francs.
January 21, 1870	424	Richard’s work on the Norns’ scene gives him vivid natural images, and his confidence in his future with Cosima spills into reflections on fate, family resemblance, and artistic form. The day mixes practical correspondence, comic memories, delight in Fidi, and aesthetic judgments on Homeric illustrations. After Richard plays the Norns’ music, Cosima’s own illness darkens into thoughts of death and a solemn imagined appeal that her children remain united after she is gone.	Friday, January 21: Letter to R. from Baron Werthern: he did not send the diploma at once, but first sent an inquiry, so as to obtain an autograph from R.; at my request R. writes him a little verse. See notes. R. at his spinning loom, I with my children; R. pleased with his work: "It sounds like the fluttering of night birds; everything depends on impressions of Nature, and here in the Norns' scene I can see the tall fir tree near the rock and hear the nocturnal rustling." At lunch, in connection with the wine, he tells me about a hunchbacked wine merchant in Königsberg named Tiplowski, in whose cellar he had first encountered the good Château d'[unreadable]. This man had said to him, after a curious excursus on something or other, "Remember that I told you this today, on December 2, on the day Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor, in the Blutgericht." That was the name of the wine cellar, because it stood on the spot where the scaffold had previously stood, in an old castle. Later, when Louis Napoleon introduced his December 2, Richard was always reminded of the hunchback Tiplowski. Much joy in Fidi, and, gazing on him, R. talks about Nature, which cares only for the species, never the individual, which is why it sometimes makes children so unlike their parents and develops some particular family predisposition; since it is so stupid, it attempts to produce creatures of intelligence. "Here a small instead of a large nose might perhaps help; for it seeks everything in form, which in turn shows us how aesthetic its methods are." At lunch he says, "Since my union with you I have gained an incredible confidence in myself and my fate; I know I shall live to be old; my life is just beginning." After lunch he plays the Norns' scene to me, an inexpressible delight. In the evening I show Loulou Genelli's illustrations to Homer; no particular pleasure in them. R. says, "Homer is Homer and Genelli is Genelli"; beauty is lacking. In the evening I feel very unwell; thoughts of my death. Concern for the children. Listen to me, Lusch and Boni, Loldi, Eva, and Siegfried, should you after my death be divided against and alienated from one another, keep your love intact in your hearts, do not forsake one another, seek one another out again and unite in the memory of your mother; this bond will hold firm, do not forget my warning. In the evening R. reads me passages from König's Hohe Braut, a very nice novel.
January 22, 1870	288	Cosima remains unwell and reads an archaizing Siegfried drama that irritates her because lesser works now cluster around material Richard transformed so profoundly. A lawyer’s letter renews anxiety over the stalled divorce and Hans’s necessary role in completing it. She accepts the hardship as the cost of happiness with Richard, while the evening’s Faust reading and political news widen the day into questions of poetry, church controversy, crime, and French government struggles.	Saturday, January 22: Still unwell, R. gives me Sigurd to read, a drama by Ettmüller, a friend from Zurich. It is very archaic in style and irritates me. Since R. welded the Edda myths into his Ring, everyone has been making plays out of them; their work is discussed and praised, while R.'s unique and eternal work, but what does it matter? Wrote yesterday to Frau Schuré. At lunch R. informs me that he has received a letter from the lawyer, from which it seems the divorce is being held up; Hans has given no sign of life, and his presence in Berlin is required to complete the matter. I write to Hans's lawyer. Concern that Hans might be upset. I am willing to bear the wretched situation into which I have brought myself, and even the difficulties which arise for Fidi out of the uncertainties, as payment for my priceless happiness! Then I wrote to E. Ollivier, who has been attacked in the most despicable manner in the Lower Chamber; thus he will not think it is his advancement which has tempted me to approach him again. In the evening R. reads me passages from the first part of Faust; on reaching the verse "I am too old to be content with play," R. says, "Goethe discerned this highest wisdom in his early youth; so one sees how stupid it is to assume that poets must first live through what they write." A lot of news in the papers; first, the very remarkable protest by the cathedral provost Döllinger, signed with his own name, against the infallibility speech; then, so R. tells us, the execution of Uncle Traupmann, who murdered a family of eight people; then the Ollivier government and its struggles.
January 23, 1870	110	The day is centered on domestic warmth, with Cosima absorbed in the children’s games and Wagner affectionately casting her as the household’s mother hen. A shared encounter with Beethoven’s Eroica stirs Wagner deeply and leads him to place Beethoven beside Shakespeare in greatness. Evening reading from Schopenhauer turns from philosophical provocation into emotional elevation, ending with Wagner’s stark claim that love is fulfilled through children.	Sunday, January 23: Children’s games day! R. calls me the good old mother hen; and truly my whole day is spent in entertaining the children. Only during the afternoon do I take up the Eroica with R.; at one point in the first movement he gets to his feet, much moved: “The only mortal who can be compared with Shakespeare!” In the evening he reads me passages from Schopenhauer on love (“Kant spoke of it without practical knowledge”). R. thought it might perhaps repel me, but, on the contrary, I am very moved and uplifted. R. says, “Love without children is a sham.” The final essay on conducting arrived today in print.
January 24, 1870	167	Cosima remains unwell while the household takes comfort in news of Hans performing privately in Florence. Legal and religious anxieties intrude when Wagner hears that a priest is claiming Fidi for the Catholic Church. A frightening fall by Fidi resolves into laughter, and Wagner draws from the incident a tender lesson about children’s innocent responsiveness.	Monday, January 24: I am still ill, the children well, however; R. works. Yesterday we felt some sort of comfort in reading that Hans had played several times to small gatherings in Florence. “[//] tempo e gentil uomd”—perhaps it will bring him some balm. On his walk R. meets our lawyer, who tells him the priest is claiming Fidi for the Catholic church. We hope it will all turn out right eventually. In the evening The Arabian Nights with Lusch. (In the morning a retaliatory poem from Baron Werthern.) R. reads something to me, for we had a great fright. Fidi fell from the sofa with a loud bump. R. in great agitation; Boni, who was there, laughs; afterward I ask her why, she says the way he snatched his cap from his head (she shows how). We all laughed a lot, and R. pointed out to me that one must always be gentle with children, for they very seldom poke fun vindictively, but simply yield to immediate impressions.
January 25, 1870	167	News that Wagner’s objections have failed and Die Walkuere will be performed plunges the household into anguish. Wagner’s inability to work opens into a confession of dependence on Cosima and despair at being fundamentally at odds with the world. Nietzsche’s letter, Semper’s drawing, Cosima’s gift-making, and readings in Gervinus and Hartmann all orbit Wagner’s renewed reverence for Schopenhauer.	Tuesday, January 25: Letter from Düfflipp; R.’s suggestions have not been accepted. Die Walküre will be performed. Great anguish. At lunch, after having tried in vain to force himself to work, R. says: “If I did not have you, I should not know why I am on the earth at all. I think I should go mad—on the one hand unable to be other than one is, on the other, being not at all to the world’s liking.” For me a letter from Professor Nietzsche and arrival of a Semper drawing. I work unceasingly on my purse for Saint Richard’s Day, which I manage to finish. Great cold, we have to give up the upstairs salon. In the evening I read Gervinus to R. (Shakespeare, Handel), great dismay over the style (not to speak of the contents), he writes like Eduard Devrient! Prof. N. also sent me a philosophical book (Hartmann), which arouses feelings of great repugnance. Time and time again R. harks back to the greatness of Schopenhauer.
January 26, 1870	93	A gentle morning at breakfast gives way to ordinary work, childcare, and social visiting, but outside pressures remain unresolved. A warm letter from Marbach praises Die Meistersinger and anticipates the Nibelungen with visionary enthusiasm. Yet the impending Walkuere performance and Cosima’s delayed divorce overshadow the day, while Schopenhauer offers evening refuge and a lens for judging lesser writers.	Wednesday, January 26: Amicable morning mood, we have breakfast in my bedroom. Afterward R. works, I as usual with the children. In the afternoon with Lusch to Countess Bassenheim’s. A letter to R. from Prof. Marbach, who, delighted with Die Meistersinger, says that to hear the Nibelungen will be for him like the first sight of an alpenglow. The Walküre performance casts its long and gloomy shadow over our lives. R. is also concerned that my divorce is dragging on so. In the evening passages from Schopenhauer on books and reading (in connection with Gervinus!).
January 27, 1870	86	Official scrutiny of Cosima and silence from Berlin deepen the sense that external forces are hostile. Wagner experiences the unauthorized Walkuere performance as a heavy threat, declaring that only art and love keep him alive. The day closes with children’s music, Arabian Nights reading, and piano duets whose poor arrangements leave both adults dismayed.	Thursday, January 27: The police making inquiries about me, the matter is referred to the lawyer. No reply to me from Berlin. So the constellations from outside are evilly disposed—Die Walküre clouds all our thoughts of the world! “If the fires of art and the warmth of love did not sustain me, I should no longer be alive,” says R. Piano practice with Lusch. In the evening The Arabian Nights with her. After tea played piano duets with R., much appalled by the poor quality of these arrangements.
January 28, 1870	64	After a bad night, Cosima pushes herself into the day through care for Fidi and breakfast with Wagner. Illness interrupts the children’s lessons, and she turns instead to preparing a poem for Lusch to recite to Prince Wallerstein. A walk with Wagner and evening Schopenhauer reading frame a subdued day marked by fatigue and domestic duty.	Friday, January 28: Not a good night, but I got out of bed swiftly to bathe Fidi and then to have breakfast in comfort with R. Then to the children; Lusch unwell, no lessons, I write down my poem for Prince Wallerstein, which Lusch is to recite to him on Sunday. In the afternoon went for a walk with R. Unwell; in the evening read Schopenhauer.
January 29, 1870	69	Cosima passes a sleepless night filled with anxious imaginings but rises in unexpectedly cheerful spirits. Wagner continues working, humorously addressing the Siegfried statuette as if it were demanding his labor. Legal news about the divorce suggests deliberate delay, and the day ends quietly with Ali Baba, exhaustion, and an early retreat to bed.	Saturday, January 29: Awake the whole night, plagued by anxious imaginings; but rise in the morning in cheerful spirits. R. is still working. “You are keeping me busy,” he tells the statuette of Siegfried. Our lawyer comes to see us, he thinks that Simson, the lawyer in Berlin, is delaying the divorce out of malice. In the evening finished reading “Ali Baba” with Lusch. Early to bed, feeling very worn out.
January 30, 1870	160	Cosima uses the children’s absence to begin writing the first scene of her comedy, then returns to family life with lunch and a puppet show. Loulou’s recital moves the old Prince to tears, giving Cosima’s poem a tender social success. Schure’s letter prompts Wagner to contrast kinds of French cultivation, but the Walkuere affair darkens everything and leaves Cosima brooding on the sacrifices demanded by the world.	Sunday, January 30: Dressed the children so that they could accompany Loulou; during their absence I write down the first scene of my comedy. Lunch with the children, without Loulou; afterward puppet show, very well played by Boni. Loulou returns home and tells me that the old Prince had wept a lot as she recited her poem to him. Nice letter from Schuré; R. praises his simple disposition, in contrast to Mendès: “In the French, education is not a liberating factor, but a shackle,” R. remarks. He works, but is in a very gloomy mood because of the Walküre affair. It makes me melancholy to think that he has to buy the possibility of completing his work by sacrificing the earlier parts of it. The nature of the world seems to me to stand revealed thereby. Letter to the children from Aunt Isa. At such a time a veil descends on my soul; or rises from it and clouds all my thoughts.
January 31, 1870	132	A cherished Geyer-Wagner cup is broken, and Cosima converts the loss into gratitude that no harm has come to the children. The old Prince visits and speaks movingly of Lusch’s recitation, his childhood, and the long arc of his life. Wagner remains agitated over his sketch and speaks with characteristic self-doubt, minimizing his identity as a composer despite the scale of his ambitions.	Monday, January 31: Geyer-Wagner cup, which I gave to R., broken this morning by the maid; sorry as I am, I thank God that misfortune strikes in this way, leaving the children unharmed. R. works, I working with the children. In the afternoon a visit from the old Prince, who tells me he wept with emotion and pleasure when Lusch yesterday recited my poem to him. He speaks of his childhood—he has served under three Bavarian kings—his father a reigning prince, and now he ends up in Lucerne. R. in agitated mood, much in his sketch is not yet as he wants it. “I am no composer,” he says, “I wanted only to learn enough to compose Feubald und Adelaide, and that is how things have remained—it is only the subjects which are different.”
No diary entries found.