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 1875 (30 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
January 1, 1875	119	The year opens uncomfortably, with illness in the background, yet she still pushes through correspondence, housekeeping, and the ordinary business of beginning well. The day also brings social card exchanges, R.'s annoyance with Voltz and Batz, and an evening of Schopenhauer and philosophical reading, capped by the arrival of her pearls from R.	Friday, January 1: I begin my new year with a headache. I write in this book and attend to business matters, some letters, and also room tidying, in order to start the year well. Exchange of cards with our acquaintances here. R. has trouble with Voltz and Batz. I find it very strange that he should try to recall the theme of the scherzo of his symphony at the very time I am trying to put my hands on this lost symphony for his birthday. In the evening we read the conclusion of the chapter on apparent deliberateness in the fate of an individual, and also Personality, or What a Man Is. The pearls arrive, a present from R.
January 2, 1875	99	R. wakes from troubling dreams and spends the day wrestling with orchestral work and the difficult business of Batz, who has proven untrustworthy despite a binding contract. Amid this strain he also shows generosity to a poor peasant woman, while news arrives that the Wagner lottery has brought in 6,000 marks and the children enjoy the ice.	Saturday, January 2: R. had all sorts of bad dreams. He is working out the composition of his orchestra. Very great trouble with Batz, who has turned out to be a thorough rogue, but who has a watertight contract. R. goes for a walk and again encounters a poor peasant woman, to whom he gives generous alms and with whom he has a conversation. Letter from Frau Schott: the Wagner lottery has realized 6,000 marks. In the evening we read Schopenhauer, What a Man Is, Has, Represents. A long time on the ice with the children in the morning.
January 3, 1875	80	R. suffers with eczema on his fingers and is restless for productive work, already turning his mind to an overture by midday. She stays home with a toothache that has bothered her since New Year's Day, and the evening closes quietly with visitors and music, including Beethoven's F Minor Sonata.	Sunday, January 3: R. is much tormented by the eczema on his fingers. A very nice letter from Dr. Standhartner, asking us to stay with him and his family. R. is in a bad mood, longing for productivity. I come upon him at noon already thinking about his overture. I stay at home while he goes out, I, troubled by toothache since New Year's Day. Some visitors in the evening; Beethoven's F Minor Sonata, and again some of the Variations.
January 4, 1875	49	Her toothache becomes severe enough to drive her to drastic remedies, while R. reads aloud from Gfrorer's book and delights in its account of how different peoples imagine God. The day is marked less by comfort than by endurance, with illness pressing in on the household.	Monday, January 4: Bad toothache. Nice letter from Frau Lucca, also from the conductor Klughardt. R. reads me something from Gfrorer's book, his definition of how various nations visualize God, which is really excellent. My toothache torments me so much that I resort to drastic measures, leeches, Kelosal, etc.
January 5, 1875	94	A blinding headache keeps her in bed all day, though she takes some grim amusement from Schopenhauer's notion that suffering can be educational. Meanwhile R. deals with a godfather request from a master cellarman named Wagner and with demands from Vienna and Berlin for Tristan und Isolde, which he is willing to grant only on his own terms.	Tuesday, January 5: Spent the whole day in bed with a severe headache; great amusement over the fact that I am the first casualty of Schopenhauer as Educator; he recommends spending two hours now suffering! R. has received a letter from a master cellarman in Deidesheim, asking him to be godfather to his child (his name is Wagner). Herbeck requests Tristan und Isolde for Vienna, and Niemann requests it for Berlin; R. is prepared to give it to the latter on condition that he himself be present at rehearsals, but the former he refuses.
January 6, 1875	89	R. continues his engrossing reading in Gfrorer, spinning out bold reflections on the Trinity and the relation between sexes, will, idea, and world. She writes to Baron Hofmann about concerts, and the evening is brightened by the company of the mayor, whose conversation she always enjoys.	Wednesday, January 6: R. tells me a lot more about what he is reading in Gfrorer's book, which he finds of endless interest; among other things, for example, the definition of the Trinity made shortly before Christ's birth: God the Father, masculine; the Holy Ghost, feminine; the Redeemer as the world stemming from them; will, idea, and world, the world emerging from the division of the sexes. I write to Baron Hofmann about the concerts. In the evening the worthy mayor, with whom conversation is always a great pleasure.
January 7, 1875	87	The Swedish singers who are performing that evening visit in the morning, and their concert leaves both of them deeply pleased. R. especially responds to the rich lower voice and the later lullaby they sing at home, which fills the hall with a solemn, almost blessing-like atmosphere.	Thursday, January 7: R. is occupied with business matters; in the morning there is a visit from the Swedish ladies who are singing here this evening. We go to their concert in the evening and are highly pleased with it; R. calls the deep voice the woman of Dalecarlia, the province whose peasants gave support to Gustavus Vasa. Later in the evening they come to the house and sing a lullaby, Sujiro, which sounds extraordinarily lovely and solemn in the hall, like a blessing on the house.
January 8, 1875	91	Hans's birthday is observed amid a flurry of musical news: Tannhäuser succeeds in Lucerne and Lohengrin triumphs in Boston, prompting her to write across the Atlantic about possible casting. The day also includes social calls, reading from Gfrorer, and a pleased search through R.'s old manuscripts, where he discovers a rapturous poem.	Friday, January 8: Hans's birthday. Lohengrin has had a tremendous success in Boston; I write across the seas to see whether the Elsa there, Frl. Albany, might be won for Sieglinde. Tannhäuser performed in Lucerne, the conductor writes very enthusiastically about it. Paid calls. In the afternoon with Baroness Aufsess, the widow of the former director of the Germanic Museum. In the evening we read together the chapter in Gfrorer's book on angels and devils. R. searched through his old musical manuscripts, smiling over a rapturous poem he finds among them.
January 9, 1875	321	A letter from Baron Augusz brings an affectionate anecdote from her father about Rubini's devotion to Wagner, while she and R. each shoulder their own tasks. She makes the painful decision to send her two eldest girls to boarding school when she leaves, and the evening moves between literary discussion, tears over Kabale und Liebe, and tender surprise when the girls are heard praying for their loved ones, the king, and all people.	Saturday, January 9: Nice letter from Baron Augusz, containing a few words from my father, who relates that Rubini, when asked in St. Petersburg whether he would sing in a concert given by my father, replied that for Liszt he would even dance, if that is what he wanted; in the same way, says my father, he would be ready to do anything for Wagner. R. has a wide variety of things to attend to, accounts, concert, orchestra, circular for the singers, etc., while I attend to outfitting my two eldest girls, whom I shall now send to the boarding school when I go away. This is the outcome of long reflection, painful recognition... In the evening we discuss with R. certain French expressions which are so absurdly imitated in German, thus laying bare the whole sad state of German standards in earlier times. R. searches in Kabale und Liebe, the scene in which old Miller returns from prison, with Luise sitting in a corner. We are moved to tears by it. 'When one thinks,' R. interposes, 'that the whole generation of today laughs at that' - complaining that the intrigues in the play are so full of flaws. While R. is changing his clothes I hear him say from the top of the spiral staircase, 'Yes, my dearest wife, the slightest flaw can spoil the effect of even the greatest strokes of genius.' Going down, I ask him with whom he had been talking. 'As always, with you, and still about Kabale und Liebe.' Thoughts of Othello, the terrible effect of Cassio's dream as related by Iago. Later R. wanders out on the balcony, and through the open door of Fidi's room he hears the three eldest girls praying slowly and earnestly for their loved ones, for the King, and for all people on earth, as I have taught them. This moves and pleases him greatly. We continue reading Gfrorer.
January 10, 1875	86	R. reports a mean-spirited episode from Mendelssohn's past, and later they receive yet another godchild from Detroit, to whom he sends a warm, religiously earnest reply. The day ends with a crowded table of guests at lunch and more company in the evening, leaving R. somewhat overtaxed.	Sunday, January 10: In the morning R. tells me about strangely malicious traits in Felix Mendelssohn, of which he recently read in Meinardus's autobiography: how he had amused both himself and the other examiners gathered around by caricaturing the pupils who were playing to them, one of whom was deformed. Another godchild, from Detroit in America. R. replies nicely, wishing the child a sincere religious faith. At lunch Baroness Aufsess, Frau Muncker, and Prof. Fries; also several friends in the evening. Somewhat too much for R.
January 11, 1875	57	R. is laid low by a cold and spends much of the day resting in bed, while the children skate before and after lunch. The evening stays quiet, and after they examine Tausig’s Tristan transcriptions, they are disappointed by how weak they seem.	Monday, January 11: R. unwell, goes to bed around noon; he has a cold. Yesterday evening we went through Tausig’s transcriptions of Tristan and were astonished to find them not very good. The children were on the ice before and after lunch. R. was still not well; we read nothing in the evening, and he went to bed early.
January 12, 1875	71	R. remains so unwell that even small efforts leave him drenched in sweat, and the children again go skating with me. I spend time weighing whether the eldest girls should be sent to school during my absence, write to Mathilde Maier, and read Buckle while R. prefers Gfrorer.	Tuesday, January 12: R. still not well; he can scarcely do anything without breaking out in a violent sweat. The children were on the ice with me. Much reflection as to whether I should send the eldest girls to school when I am away. Wrote to Mathilde Maier. Read some more of Buckle’s History of Civilization; R. finds it little to his taste and continues with Gfrorer. Tried on a dress under R.’s supervision.
January 13, 1875	284	Lenbach’s portrait of Schopenhauer arrives and fills me with admiration, not only for its likeness but for how deeply it seems to capture the philosopher’s spirit and even his kinship with R. The day is shadowed by financial anxiety and business dealings, yet also by R.’s loyalty, his relief at Feustel’s support, and an intimate evening of music and tenderness.	Wednesday, January 13: Arrival of the picture of Schopenhauer, in which Lenbach has wrought a real miracle! He saw Sch. once in Frankfurt, without knowing who he was; when he was later shown a photograph of the great man, he recognized the face, which had made an impression on him, and now he has reproduced its character in a unique way. Resemblance to R.: chin, the relationship of the head to the face, one eye half closed, the other wide open, the sorrowfully acute gaze which is peculiar to all geniuses. But one also finds Sch.’s whole character in it: his energy, purity, even the methodical business sense of the merchant’s son. The gift downright oppresses me. How am I to repay it? Spent the morning looking through bills, a dismal look at our tremendous spending. R. drafts a fine circular to the singers. In the afternoon I am invited to a ladies’ party; during that time R. has a conference with Feustel and the lawyer Skutsch. Feustel says he understands that Voltz has sold everything to Batz. When R. tells Feustel about my occasional astonishment over the choice of rogues with whom he always seems to come into contact, F. replies with tears in his eyes that it is probably always the fate of a genius to be abused and deceived; but he declares that R. can rely on him, that he is completely loyal and at R.’s disposal with everything he possesses. R. is very moved as he tells me this. In the evening, when he is already almost asleep, he says to me, “You have never betrayed me, you are the only one!” A few guests: the D Minor Sonata, E-flat, etc., and Beethoven’s Eroica.
January 14, 1875	99	Though still not fully recovered, R. works through letters, books, and accounts, and later dictates his circular to the singers. A report about London schools leads him into a fierce denunciation of English cruelty toward the poor, especially after he recalls police driving homeless people from shelter to shelter.	Thursday, January 14: R. is still not completely well. He writes several business letters, reads Gfrorer, and looks through the bills. In the evening he dictates to me his circular to the singers. A statistical account of the incredibly small number of schools in London, compared with this country, rouses R. to a long discourse on the wickedness and heartlessness of conditions in England. In London he had seen how the police chased the poor people from one courtyard to another, never directing them to a place where they might find shelter. Among these people was a woman with beautiful features.
January 15, 1875	235	R. speaks with extraordinary fervor about our happiness, insisting that he has at last won a life worth keeping and that we are meant to grow old together. Music deepens the mood: Schubert moves us to tears, and his thoughts about French melancholy and German purity reveal how intensely he lives through song.	Friday, January 15: R. declared yesterday that now, having acquired me after his “beggar’s life,” he knew for certain he would live to a ridiculously old age, and we would both die by euthanasia on the sofa in his room, which he had furnished for that purpose. Early in the morning, when I go to him in the salon, he exclaims: “To think that I was permitted to win you for myself! But you are the only woman who would ever be right for me; she had to be high-minded and childlike as you are; and now I mean to live ridiculously long.” May Heaven bless him! He maintains that happiness like ours has never existed before and will not occur again. I believe that to the extent that he will never occur again! In the evening he sings “In mir gegrüßt” to me and declares it to be Schubert’s loveliest song as far as feeling and artistry are concerned; it moves us to tears; it is German, so pure and chaste, so heartfelt. R. recalls having first heard it sung by his sister Rosalie. Read Gfrorer. When we are going to bed, R. sings “Mad Margaret” from La Dame Blanche and says: “That has always been a peculiarity of the French, such graceful resignation, such a way of sliding over the miseries of life with a charming formulation and a melancholy smile. Their tragic emotions are repellent.”
January 16, 1875	102	The Schopenhauer portrait is finally to be hung, even as R. fumes over more dishonesty from Voltz and Batz in their wine dealings. Later, at Major Schäfer’s home, he meets Count Giech and reflects on the continuing importance the aristocracy might still have for art and life.	Saturday, January 16: Schopenhauer is now to be hung; on a previous occasion R. told me that his friend Hermann Franck, now dead, once declared, “Either Germany will become something, or it will not; if it does, Schopenhauer’s philosophy will be taught in the universities.” More trickery on the part of Messrs. Voltz and Batz: the former is charging R. 2 florins per bottle for some wine, 42 of which are being paid for by Feustel. In the evening made the acquaintance of Count Giech at Major Schafer’s house. R. talks about the significance the aristocracy could still have for art and life in general.
January 17, 1875	69	Bad weather keeps the day subdued, though there are visits and an evening session with Rubinstein over the F Minor Sonata. Amid that, there are practical matters too: inquiries about touring Die Walküre with a piano and notice that the King is sending a bronze bust as a gift.	Sunday, January 17: Lusch chosen by our groom as godmother. Very bad weather. Visits. In the evening the F Minor Sonata, which R. goes through with Rubinstein. A lot to tell him. A Herr Hofmann inquires about the possibility of a tour of Die Walküre with a piano. Letter from Councillor Dufflipp, saying the King is sending his bust in bronze as a present; no word about the provisos in the agreement.
January 18, 1875	109	R. suffers badly from his cold and an abscess in his gums, leaving him irritable and uneasy, though he still reads Gfrorer and handles correspondence. The decision to remove Schopenhauer from the wall sparks another of his grand arguments about the place of philosophy, and he ends by speaking darkly of possible losses he might not survive.	Monday, January 18: R. tormented by his cold, an abscess in his gums about to burst. Visits, letters, and in the evening reading Gfrorer. Decision to take Schopenhauer down from the wall, “because he does not belong with Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven; the philosopher must stand alone, translating into wisdom everything the others express emotionally.” R. gets very indignant about Beethoven’s being pushed into a corner: “Who can be compared to him? What is the equal of a melody, that direct gift from Heaven?” “I must assume that I am possessed by a spirit who wants something from me,” R. says, considering the possibility of losses which he would be unable to survive.
January 19, 1875	58	A miserable day is made worse by treatment from a clumsy surgeon, first leeches and then a burn from creosote, which leaves R. depressed and confined indoors. The children lift his spirits with singing, and he joins them in a three-part song with Lusch and Boni.	Tuesday, January 19: R. not well, has to have leeches applied, is scorched with creosote by a clumsy surgeon, has a bad day; since he has not been out for several days, he feels depressed, but the children cheer him up with their singing, and he himself sings “Den Herrn meine Seele” with Lusch and Boni in three voices.
January 20, 1875	217	R. wakes shaken from a nightmare in which I had abandoned him, fallen ill, and collapsed as he tried to bring me home, the scene crowded with people and anxious confusion. The day continues in that unsettled mood, with talk of Paris opera openings and an evening reception where the district president and his wife pay him great attention before the entry breaks off.	Wednesday, January 20: R. wakes from a horrible dream: again I had left him after a quarrel and did not wish to return home, saying there was no place for me there; he met me with my mother in a hotel, wanted to take me home; my face and body were covered in boils, my eyes swollen, like a sort of plague which, so it seemed to him, I had deliberately contracted. While he was looking for me, he was jostled by people who wanted to attend the rehearsals and addressed him as “dear master”; at last he seizes hold of me, I stagger, throw him a questioning look, and collapse; he wakes up. Among the figures jostling him was Marr from Hamburg, whom he did not recognize, so grand had he become. He falls asleep again in the morning and wakes up with an image of Rus having been run over. I dreamed, as I frequently do, of Marie M. We read yesterday about the opening of the Opera in Paris: La Juive, Les Huguenots, Tell - how miserably low has this great nation fallen! In the evening a ball at the district president’s house; he and his wife both paying very great attention to R. Home around 12 o’clock, R. and I, we sit down for a while and...
January 21, 1875	47	Feustel’s birthday was marked by a quiet visit from me, Eva, and Fidi with our congratulations and presents, while R. stayed home, slightly improved but still too fatigued to go along. The mild foehn wind weighed on him badly, and the day ended with a performance of Samarow’s "Die Komerfahrt der Epigonen."	Thursday, January 21: Feustel’s birthday. R. a little better, but he does not go to Feustel’s, feeling very tired; I, along with Eva and Fidi, carry our good wishes and gifts. Foehn weather, which has a very bad effect on R. In the evening Samarow’s Die Komerfahrt der Epigonen.
January 22, 1875	90	R. passed a miserable night, and the day brought more strain as Herr Glatz arrived as the expected Siegfried and brought troubling news about Richter’s fiancée. A consultation with Skutsch suggested the legal path would hardly free us from the gentlemen, making the whole affair feel more threatening than before. Glatz then gave his first demonstration in the evening, leaving R. facing a great deal of difficult work ahead.	Friday, January 22: R. had a very bad night. At noon Herr Glatz, our future Siegfried. He brings news of Richter, whose fiancée is of Jewish origin. In the afternoon the lawyer Skutsch. There is little hope of getting rid of the gentlemen by legal means, and thus the situation is almost worse than it was before. In the evening the first demonstration of Herr Glatz, the Richter method, as we had anticipated. R. will have a lot of trouble. He must grind down to the stones he needs for his building.
January 23, 1875	81	Another sleepless night left R. exhausted, though Skutsch went off to Leipzig for further legal advice and Sergeant Schlickau’s lessons showed real improvement. Herr Glatz appeared again, educated and pleasant, but the cost of his training was evident, and Elisabeth Nietzsche’s letter brought welcome relief by agreeing to stay with the children during my absence. That promise lifted a weight from me.	Saturday, January 23: R. again had a very bad night. Herr Skutsch is going to Leipzig to consult a lawyer there. Sergeant Schlickau continues his lessons, and significant progress is already to be seen! In the evening Herr Glatz, a very well-educated, pleasant, and good-looking man. His voice is powerful, but the consequences of the training he has undergone are dire! Letter from E[lisabeth] Nietzsche, who accedes to my request to come here and look after the children during my absence, a great relief.
January 24, 1875	86	R. was still haunted by bad sleep and alarming dreams, and woke with a plea to keep Eva with him after imagining my departure with the children. He later dined with Karl Kolb and came back impressed by the man’s individuality, while an evening gathering introduced Dr. Bovery as someone intriguing. Glatz tried to sing, though a cold kept him from doing justice to it.	Sunday, January 24: R. is still unable to sleep, or tormented by wild dreams. “At least leave Eva with me” — with these words he woke up after seeing me depart with the children. Before that he felt himself to be an object of scorn and contempt! He lunches with Karl Kolb and returns very satisfied with the individuality of this gifted man. In the evening a small party. A Dr. Bovery is introduced to me: he seems interesting. Herr Glatz attempts to sing, but he has a cold.
January 25, 1875	62	R. spent much of the day absorbed in Gfrorer, especially the mystics’ image of a silent stretch before judgment, which deeply moved him. I handled the children’s lessons and some visits while he dealt with business, all under harsh wind and snow. By evening Glatz had lost his voice, and I remained worried about the elder children.	Monday, January 25: R. reads a lot of Gfrorer: the seven-day silence before the seat of judgment in the books of the Jewish mystics makes a great impression on him. I give the children lessons and pay some calls. R. deals with business matters. Very bad weather, wind and snow flurries. In the evening Herr Glatz is voiceless. Much worry about the elder children.
January 26, 1875	73	R. finally had a somewhat better night and resumed study with Herr Glatz, though much still remained unsettled. My day was taken up with a coffee visit and then the discouraging news from Skutsch that the Voltz and Batz contract could not be undone. In the evening I sent a telegram of good wishes to Richter in Hungarian.	Tuesday, January 26: R. had a better night and starts to study with Herr Glatz; there is still everything to be done, but he is not without hope. A coffee party for me; for R. the visit from Herr Skutsch, who was in Leipzig seeking advice. It turns out that nothing can be done about the contract with Voltz and Batz! In the evening Herr Glatz. Writing a telegram of good wishes to Richter in Hungarian.
January 27, 1875	196	On Richter’s wedding day, R. spoke at length about religion, insisting that faith for ordinary people must remain simple, childlike, and consoling, and that once such belief is broken it cannot be restored. The rest of the day moved between study, errands, and an improvised outing: the children skated, R. took Evchen to Rollwenzel, and I went with Fidi to the theater, which impressed me deeply. The evening culminated in Haydn and then the final act of "Tristan," with Isolde’s lament moving me beyond words in R.’s singing.	Wednesday, January 27: Richter’s wedding day! In the morning R. says to me: “I am becoming more and more convinced of the truth of Voltaire’s saying that religion cannot be too absurd for the common people, and that Christianity cannot be separated from its Jewish roots. The Father in Heaven belongs to that idea, and a religion must remain naive, childlike, and simple; the benevolent god who has arranged everything properly, even when we do not understand it, is for the common man the only consolation, the only inducement to resignation. Of course, once this faith is shattered, it can never be restored.” R. studies with Herr Glatz, and after that we pay a call together. After lunch the three eldest children on the ice, R. with Evchen to Rollwenzel, I with Fidi to the theater, all done on the spur of the moment! The theater makes a great impression on me. In the evening a Haydn symphony, then I ask for something from Tristan, and we have the third act, from Tristan’s vision to the end. Indescribable impression, most of all today from Isolde’s exclamations of grief immediately after Tristan’s death, which are inexpressibly moving as sung by R.
January 28, 1875	111	R. and Glatz were both unwell, so study gave way to tense arguments that left us feeling a possible hope had collapsed. We wondered where to find our Siegfried, while my father’s "Die Glocken von Strassburg" arrived as a strange but forceful work, and I spent time reading Gfrorer and Buckle, though Buckle struck me as shallow. The mood remained unsettled and disappointed.	Thursday, January 28: R. not very well, nor is Herr Glatz. No study, but instead arguments, and not very pleasant ones. The object is to prove to the good man that he has learned nothing from Frau Richter and will learn nothing. R. and I are very melancholy at the thought that probably a hope has been destroyed! Where to find our Siegfried? Arrival of my father’s Die Glocken von Strassburg, a curious work, done with great effect, but so alien to us... In the evening read Gfrorer’s book. I read for myself Buckle’s History of Civilization, and, stimulating as the book is, I cannot help being astonished at the superficiality of its outlook.
January 30, 1875	129	R. worked on his "Albumblatt" for Frau Schott and received friendly responses from several singers, but his own health remained poor and the rash on his fingers tormented him. Glatz was still ill, and with him the prospects for Siegfried seemed dim. I continued reading Gfrorer and was especially struck by the Jewish saying about praying for a good eye, humility, and a desire-free soul.	Friday, January 29: R. despondent on account of the hopelessness of Glatz. “I need savages,” R. says, “not cultivated barbarians.” I write to Baron Normann to inquire about a tenor, Herr Schwab, who has approached us. I am now reading Lessing’s Nathan der Weise with the children and once more find much of it very moving; the voice of Assad, which rests in Saladin’s soul, moves me particularly. One forgets the voice of the dead, but it can be recalled. Truth, paid out like a coin in the monologue of Nathan, reminds one of the businesslike attitude of the Jews toward their God. Conference regarding a restaurant to be built, one difficulty after another, but R. is still satisfied with the people on his management committee. In the evening read Gfrorer’s book.
January 31, 1875	88	The day was bright and cold, with the children at church and later on the ice while I turned to preparations for the journey. In the evening I read "Nathan der Weise" aloud to the children, then guests came, and the day closed with the E-flat Major Quartet and the E Major Sonata. The household felt calm and orderly after the anxious preceding days.	Saturday, January 30: R. works on his Albumblatt for Frau Schott. Several singers reply to the circular, and in a very friendly way. But R. is still not very well; the rash on his three fingers is a great torment to him. In the evening read Gfrorer. Herr Glatz still unwell, little hope for Siegfried! In the evening Gfrorer’s Primitive Christianity, in which a saying of the Jews makes a deep imprint on my mind: “One should pray for a good eye, a humble spirit, and a soul free from desire.”
No diary entries found.