Cosima's Diaries

Thursday, January 1:

We did not get to bed until 2 o’clock, in consequence of which R., very tired, decides against visiting the studio. I am there at first by myself, then with the children. R. has an inflammation of the eyes. Dr. Bezold is not worried by it.

For me and the children, a performance of Tannhäuser. Very good in many respects, and for me overwhelmingly impressive; the first scene blissfully relaxing. I do not miss R., inasmuch as a few things would have vexed him greatly, and he was glad to avoid the ovation which would certainly have been given him here in the Munich theater.

Friday, January 2:

R. did not have a good night, and I stayed awake with him, talking about Tannhäuser. He gets up for lunch, which we have with Lenbach and Levi. Much bother about the carriage he wished to order, dissatisfaction with the hotel.

Friend Lenbach is kind enough to send us his Bismarck, a wonderful portrait. R. exclaims: “Terrible! Such a strong will and such narrow-mindedness! For a man like this, you, my dear Herr Lenbach, and I are mere nothings; we can understand him, but he does not understand us.” The singer Gedon is also received; today I was in his studio, experiencing once again how talent is ignored in Germany. It is disgraceful.

In the evening to the theater with the children; when we return home, he tells me that Dr. Bezold also examined his eardrums and considered a slight cleaning necessary. An uneasy procedure, but R. is very pleased with the results. Early to bed. R. relates his Munich experiences to friend L.

Saturday, January 3:

Departure at 9 o’clock; R. not interested in the scenery, the Brenner bores him. Trouble in Ala, where one has to pay again, trouble in Bologna (4 in the morning), trouble in the carriage, where the lighted stove gives off so much heat that we have to open all the windows, thereby letting in the severe cold; all the same,

Sunday, January 4:

a fine, sunny day. Whether it is the scenery or the fact that the greater part of the journey is now behind us, all of us are in good spirits anyway, and it seems no time at all before we are in Naples, where friend Gersdorff comes to meet us. First trouble, the trunks not there, second and greater, a whole floor spirited away and all kinds of sharp practice, but on

Monday, January 5:

bright sunshine and an indescribable view make up for it all. R. insists on having all the furniture moved around at once, and he supervises the rearrangements with great energy. Much vexation unavoidable in the course of it, but our spirits continually restored by our surroundings.

Tuesday, January 6:

A good night, but the erysipelas reappearing, and in Eva the acute rheumatism! So once again confined to our rooms; in the evening I read aloud passages from Chancellor Müller’s Goethe, which I started on the journey and which I recommended strongly to R.; he also takes pleasure in it, and we are particularly delighted by the remark about the worthlessness of other people’s ideas.

Wednesday, January 7:

R. had a good night, but the erysipelas is spreading, and Eva has severe pain in her knee. Nothing to do but be patient!

R. reads The Conversations of Goethe and Chancellor Müller and enjoys many things in it; he mentions the “consolidation of errors” and says that in Egmont Goethe went against his own nature, which was one of lofty forbearance; this could sometimes look like coldness, but great benevolence was in fact at the root of it. The remark about newspapers delights R.: “I shall even stop reading the Tagblatt.”

In the evening he gets me to read the book aloud right to the end, and all he regrets is that G. never managed to rid himself of the idea of God as a part of Nature concealed by Nature, whom one should not seek, although He is there; in consequence of this, one is obliged to look upon Christ, God’s son, as a problematical being. “It would be well worth the trouble to define what we mean by God, but who can do that?”

R. is much amused by the idea of finding world history on the Seifengasse. Otherwise, however, he is vexed with the ill luck that prevents him from enjoying this magnificent spot in all its glorious light. He explains the mysterious figure of Dr. Schrön by saying that the Germans are such donkeys: in foreign lands they set store by pretending to elegance. “They want to be like the others, but remain stuck in their shabby ways.”

Thursday, January 8:

R. had a good night, and the erysipelas is disappearing; Eva is also somewhat better and much more lively. Sunshine in rain! In the afternoon I stroll for the first time in the garden, absorbed and oblivious, accompanied by the melody of the three graces from Tannhäuser, which R. described to me as “sensuousness transformed into beauty.”

R. is reading a book, Thalysia, by a French vegetarian, Gleizès, which has been sent to him; he likes it very much.

He cites to me the story of the two Arabs; one of them ate dates and scattered the stones around, the other ate a lamb and threw the bones away; through the one a palm grove sprang into existence, through the other decay was spread. “World history begins at the point where man became a beast of prey and killed the first animal.” R. somewhat disgruntled by his illness, his cotton-wool mask: “I know exactly when the weather will turn bad, when I am allowed to go out of doors again.”

Friday, January 9:

A good night for both patients. At breakfast, when we mention Goethe’s remark about the absolution which one should administer daily both to oneself and to others, R. says: “That is the only true religion, and I should like to know how anybody could ever do without it, without communing with himself and asking himself truthfully whether he has harmed another person. These days people go off to bed and pat their stomachs when they have ruined someone. But what I can well do without is the priest with his ruff and his bands. The Buddhists atone by making public confession.”

R. continues reading the book on vegetarianism and is pleased with Gleizès’s “charming and elegiac” appearance; he orders the book and says it fits in excellently with his present project.

I take a long walk with the children, since R. and Evchen are both well on the road to recovery. R. has a serious talk with our friend Gersdorff and tries to extricate him from his confused and unhappy position by pointing out to him the only two ways open to him, that “either-or” confrontation from which everybody flinches, apart from himself.

Cheerful meal and quiet, harmonious evening after I have told R. all the things we experienced and met (a camel, monkeys, donkeys) on the heavenly path to the Gulf of Baia.

Saturday, January 10:

R. feels unwell; though the erysipelas is clearing up, his stomach seems to be upset. When will he be able to get out into the air? He is depressed, and I am beset by gloomy thoughts which I will not allow to come to the surface, and which I seek to disperse by forcing myself to be optimistic. I spend the whole day with him; the children go looking for shells on the beach and return home entranced with everything.

I talk with R. about Thalysia, and he agrees with me when I say there is something peculiarly French about this man Gleizès; there is a quality in him he shares with Saint Vincent de Paul which recalls Saint Francis of Assisi. He says: “It was finding something of that in Renan which attracted me to him.”

Nice letter from a woman in Züllichau, thanking R. for having given her inspiration through his works.

In the evening much discussion about the Italians, the French, and the Germans. I tell R. that what attracted me to Germany was a sense that it was the only country in which people prepared to devote themselves to idealism could be found. R. says, “Yes, in their youth Italians live for pleasure, and in consequence they turn in their old age into completely withered, mean, and dried-up fellows.”

Sunday, January 11:

R. got up once; he fears dysentery, but in the morning he is feeling somewhat better. We listen with pleasure to a cock crowing. I sing Tristan, and he laughs and says, “We are a hardy lot.”

Much about Germany and Italy: “That woman’s letter yesterday did me a lot of good; we must hold on to this sense of the almost religious power of music. I have so few hopes of a German revival.” Whereupon I: “Yes, but one must do one’s work, and your mission in life is art.” He: “Yes, and in Germany there is so little art; it is as if Schiller and Goethe were, or might have been, something other than artists, philosophers, scholars, and so on, and then one day they asked themselves: might one perhaps also write poetry in the German language?” He praises the 18th century, Rousseau’s and Voltaire’s sympathy with animals, and he feels that our present age, with its vivisection, can only be described as barbarous in comparison. “But they knew nothing about Christianity; all they saw was the church, and they did not understand how that came about historically. Schopenhauer was the only one; and before him Kant, but in a foolish way.”

Then he observes that one cannot get into a gloomy state of mind in this place: “We should have built Wahnfried here. Though in time we should probably become sad at having no purpose in life, not even for the children.” Last night in bed he said, “I’ve just been thinking of the theme of the Andante in the C Minor Symphony; there is nothing else either composed or written to compare with it.” Around noon a visit from Dr. Schron, who speaks quite interestingly about the talent of the Italian people. R. agrees with him when he says that the Germans have never produced political martyrs like Poerio and others.

Toward evening R. feels so unwell that the gloomiest of pictures is imprinted on my mind; should I keep silent about it, or should I talk about it? I do not know. But I have nobody in whom I could confide except for this page, and I have the feeling that soon I shall have nothing more to say even to this page.

Monday, January 12:

R. looks somewhat better, has slept well, and is at any rate in better spirits than yesterday evening. It is a consolation to me that a cold wind is blowing, for this would have prevented his going out even if he had been in good health.

Arrival of our friend Herr von Stein, a happy reunion; he tells us about Vienna, Richter and the 9th Symphony, Salvini; we tell him our troubles. When Herr v. St. tells us that he heard the Faust Overture in a concert hall in Dresden, R. says: “Have they really turned that into a concert hall? I suggested it thirty years ago and was refused.” Prof. Schron talks about the Camorra, with which he claims to be in touch.

R. is reading Düntzer’s life of Goethe with great interest, and remarks how fine the Weimar period was, on account of all the practical activity; he says the Weimar state undoubtedly owed to him all the things which Carlyle praised so highly, and all done under conditions of great difficulty, hated by the Court, forced to throw out most of the administrators; he had persevered only for the sake of his relationship with Frau v. Stein, which he would otherwise have had to give up: “It must have been quite a splendid relationship,” R. says.

Tuesday, January 13:

R. had a good night, but he is worried by a possible return of the erysipelas. All the same, he is cheerful and exclaims to Herr v. St., “I am only serious once a week.”

When, toward midday, Herr v. St. talks about the performance of the Euryanthe Overture, R. takes up the subject of tempo and the need in Weber’s overtures to play the allegros with great fire, holding back somewhat the middle theme, which is usually a cantilena; of course, if one overdoes it, he says, one is lost, and that is why he would have liked to have an orchestra, so that he could show how these classical pieces should be played. We have been sent some reminiscences of the first performance of Tannhäuser by Max Weber, all of it untrue. So much for the testimony of contemporaries!

In the evening talk about socialism, arising from a remark by Lassalle about the press; R. remarks how absurd he was to believe that the state could encourage socialism by recognizing the common right to vote; the state implies a guarantee of property, he says. Then our conversation turns to the Moravian Brothers and their way of life, and when Herr v. Stein expresses the opinion that, having shed transcendental faith, philanthropy will one day become even more powerful, R. flies into a rage; it is always the same, he says, people think only of the church and confuse this with Christianity. The true task is to glorify the pure figure of Christ, so that his example provides an outward bond. Humanity runs in two parallel lines, he continues; the one is concerned with nothing but plunder and murder, the other can be regarded as a reaction against that; no figure is more sublimely moving than that of Christ, and all the rest who affect us have been his imitators.

He speaks very agitatedly and without all his usual clarity, and when, as is his habit after speaking at length, he goes out and then returns, he looks very pale, his hands are cold and damp, and he is coughing. He tells me the thought he has written down: “The path from religion to art bad, from art to religion good.” He feels that I will not understand it expressed with such brevity; I do understand it, but worry, and with it the swarm of superstitious ideas which at times slumber in one’s heart like the Furies in the temple are disturbed, creating a condition which is indeed worthy of pity.

Wednesday, January 14:

R. dreamed that Beethoven came to invite him to attend the performance of a symphony. “Good Lord, is he not dead after all? No, this was a dream that he was dead.” He went toward him; each attempted to kneel before the other, and they stood there, arrested in the act of genuflection. Then I came in, dressed in a pink-and-red morning dress, and Beeth. said, somewhat in the manner of Goethe, whose stature he had, “Ah, a lovely woman!” R. went to prepare a seat for him, turning Herr v. St.’s bed into a divan by quickly concealing the bedclothes, and his vain exertions woke him up.

He tells us this at lunch, then reverts to our conversation of last night, saying that it was the word “transcendental” which had so upset him. “It always seems to descend on you!” he says cordially. Splendid weather, R.’s first outing as far as the palm tree, with me, which enchants him. Roses and carnations are in bloom, and Dr. Schron, whom I had summoned, calms all my fears.

In the afternoon R. walks to the pavilion and returns home enchanted, though the penetrating cry of a beggar-woman had pierced him with its piteousness: “One can call it play-acting, but it is terrible that such play-acting is necessary; need has turned this woman’s cry into her second nature.” We talk about folk songs; R. feels they scarcely exist here, for years ago he discovered that opera arias had already usurped everything else; he remarks on the extent to which Italian opera alienated the French from themselves; Boieldieu, Auber, they all paled before Rossini.

Thursday, January 15:

R. did not have a very good night; he got up and read in Goethe’s life the episode of his departure. He often talks now about this life, and recently, referring to the mark of eternity in Goethe, he said, “He was like an outstanding pupil, and the conditions in Germany, which constitute complete anarchy, are to blame for that.” He also discussed the present rules of orthography, finding them absurd. “Who are the people responsible for that?” He feels one could very well take the Middle High German style of accentuation as a starting point; the new measures will lead to endless confusions.

Sirocco all day, rain and storms; it is really very sad that R. should be prevented from going out, when he is so much longing for it. At breakfast he tells us about his childhood, how in the house beside the old Dresden gallery he was afraid to go upstairs alone, because in the corridor where Herr Mattei, the director of the gallery, lived, there was a huge picture: “Nobody on earth could ever have got me to pass by that naked old figure.” So he used to ring the bell downstairs, and the maid, or in her absence one of his sisters, would come down with a light. “Wretched boy, did you ring the bell?” “Did it ring? I was just sort of playing with the bell.”

After that he was always asked teasingly. The cries of the people remind him of the alpenhorn, which he heard in the market place in Lucerne and which sounds like the cry of a wild goose. “I listened very intently, that is to say, in an abstract way, but then I wanted to write it down. I wanted the man to come down to me, but he was too shy, and some years later, when I wanted to hear it again, he was dead. So I had to do as best I could in Tristan.” In G.’s life he has reached the friendship with Schiller, and he says it is the only heartening aspect, for despite the “distinguished” people with whom he had to do, one is conscious that Goethe always felt himself a stranger among them. “They shook their heads over Egmont, they scarcely understood Tasso, but then he is rewarded with complete understanding from a man who is his equal; indeed, Schiller, with his ideality, was much surer of himself, whereas Goethe remained an experimenter all his life, always curious, like a child with his testing and trying out, but with a tremendous love of Nature.”

When I express my amazement that Empress Eugénie, even though she has the corpse of her son, can still visit the land of the Zulus instead of entering a convent, R. says: “It just shows that there are no longer any wholehearted and genuine people left. Someone like Cromwell would be unthinkable, they are all hollow; look at Bismarck.” Then he tells me the anecdote about Cr., how he asked whether it was possible to fall from grace.

Regarding poets, he says a poet is a visionary, and he tells me how Herwegh always needed a framework for his thoughts: “He grew lazy and, like all idle people, sought refuge in science, dissecting frogs. I wanted to get him producing again and suggested the subject of reincarnation, 9 cantos, three figures with 3 cantos for each, the same type recurring at different times, what I mean by God, who runs parallel with Nature up to the point where the parallels meet. But he didn’t do it. The same with Freytag, to whom I suggested Julian, a tragic and interesting figure in whom one sees the whole ancient world rising up in protest against the abominable church, and himself a restless man of action. But Fr. thought that the person who had such ideas should express them himself, and it is true we lack a form for treating such subjects.” The newspaper prints an article about the kindergarten schools here, which do not seem to be flourishing, and R. says: “What can Neapolitan children learn there? They know without being told how to pick a pocket!” Then, more seriously: “The idea of teaching children through play is a splendid one, and Fröbel was undoubtedly an excellent man, but we lack the power, and let us not think we can carry our cause by such means, any more than by vegetarianism!” He relates humorously how he came upon Fidi in the kindergarten.

Friday, January 16:

R. had a disturbed night, but the sun is shining again; I stroll into the town with our friend Gersdorff, from whom we take our leave sadly, for in his present position he cannot be helped. R. tries to overcome his feelings in his own way, by saying jokingly to Dr. Schr. that Gers. has “a divorced bride.”

I order a carriage and we go for a drive at about 1:30, R. bursting into ecstatic exclamations: “Naples is the city for me, the D------ take all ruins, here everything is alive! I know only two cities which reflect their countries, London and Naples; Paris belongs to the cosmopolitan rabble.” First of all we visit a barber and have many amusing difficulties, then to Prof. Schron’s, Corso Vittorio Emanuele. I fear the open carriage is too much for R. and notice his difficulty in climbing stairs, but he wants the carriage to be kept open and takes delight in everything; all of it interests him, the man adjusting his cap, the ugliest of people, all these tell him something, he says. He is also pleased with Prof. Schron’s accounts of the Camorra: “The way such people get by!” He buys cheese from a merchant he got to know 3 years ago; when he gives his name, the man exclaims, “Mais vous êtes mort!”

Start on Sismondi in the evening, but R. does not care for its fluent French; he looks for the passage which gave him his conviction about the present decadence that is leading us into barbarism, after which the founder of a new religion may perhaps emerge. But this new outlook would not be confined to the Old World, though it would probably start from there; like the Jews, it would be scattered everywhere, and we should probably fight our battles somewhere in the South. Everything belonging to our civilization, down to the very names, would be wiped out, he says, for it is all too evil and mendacious. Putting his finances in order, he says all this arranging and calculating arouses a sort of gambling urge in him.

In the evening he exclaims to me with tender passion that things between us have been different from Goethe and Frau v. Stein. But he finds the choice of Christiane Vulpius horrible; he had imagined her to be a brunette, but no, she was fair with blue eyes, and he shows me her portrait. He is particularly pleased with, and remarks on, Goethe’s explosion over “humor is nothing different” in Chancellor Müller, saying it is splendid and so apt; today the whole world expresses itself in that fashion. He comes to the subject of Nietzsche, who, out of sheer malice toward him, distorts the passage he wrote in his Beethoven about the way B. listened to folk melodies, and he did it just in order to denigrate R., “ignoring the fact that Beethoven was the greatest melodist who ever lived. The way he took a folk tune and gave it back to the people, transfigured, it was like the condescension of a god, like the unknown maiden appearing to the shepherd. And to rank him on that account somewhere below Schubert! What Schubert was, B. had long known all about. Disgraceful, and so stupid!”

Saturday, January 17:

R. slept well, and when worry woke me up during the night, it was like balm to gaze upon his tranquil features. What we had been reading in Schop. about the physiognomy came into my mind; he had never looked as fine as he did then.

He read this chapter to us, and at first he was struck by the repetition of something already said; but afterward he says how right that was, for Schop. wanted to deduce something from it, and if he had simply written “the fore-mentioned,” it would have conveyed nothing. He also reads us some of Sch.’s poems, to our delight; they remind one somewhat of Goethe’s epigrams, which R. says he would like to have in a special edition. This morning he answers the enclosed postcard from W., concerning editorial difficulties, Dr. Bernhard Förster’s views on the Gospels. Less and less can R. tolerate mocking references to Christianity. Yesterday he exclaimed, in connection with the idea of people’s being made happy through education, “How can one speak of such things, with beggars stretching out their crippled hands?”

He quotes to us several things from Düntzer about the education of Goethe’s son August; the sentence beginning with “Only,” following from what has gone before, is incomprehensible and unsuitable for reading aloud; even in this good and simple book R. finds traces of those affectations which nowadays disfigure the German literary style. In the afternoon he takes the streetcar into the city for the first time and returns very content, except that an encounter with a German headmaster somewhat spoiled his mood; he remarks how improper it is for a person he does not know to address him just because he recognizes him; it would be much more proper for people who do not recognize him to speak to him simply as a fellow countryman.

In the evening to see La Juive, pleasure in the San Carlo, a genuine opera house, pleasure in the many beauties of the work, pleasure in the orchestra, outstanding, and in the two English-horn players, but dismay over the singing and acting and the production; continual discrepancies between music and theatrical presentation, continual shouts from the prompter’s box. Grand opera, it seems, is now dead, surviving only as an object of study by specialists. R. remarks how this work, originating in the school of Méhul and Cherubini, is full of life and refinement and is not at all Jewish, even in its treatment of its subject; it is just correctly observed. He says of the circuslike duet between the Cardinal and the Jew, “This had to be a bold sort of march theme; since the time of La Muette something of that sort had been obligatory in the third act.” He says that La Juive belongs to the same period as Notre Dame de Paris, when so many significant things were produced. When I say that this work seems the most significant of them all, he replies, “Yes, that is because of the power of music.” Halévy, he says, was the first musical genre-painter, and he had more feeling than Cherubini: “I liked him very much; he was a yearning, sensual character, but lazy.”

When I tell him, in the morning, that I cannot get Brangäne’s theme in the first act out of my mind, ‘Vo lehte der Mann’, and sing it to him, he says, “This work has now been published, yet nobody really, no musician, has recognized what kind of music it is.” I observe that musicians are too limited in outlook for that, but in their place Tristan has won many fanatic admirers.

Sunday, January 18:

R. slept well. Since I am still tired after last night’s events, to which I am not used, I do not attend the family breakfast. R. then comes to my bed and reports rain, which persists all day. He reads Düntzer and talks about Goethe’s life with his mistress in Weimar, saying it was incredible in its nonchalance, and it reminds him of my father. R. describes Karl August and says, “A talented dolt, who really cared for nothing except French literature.”

R. goes into the city by streetcar with our friend Stein and Siegfried; the former is causing us some concern. R. is looking for a barber, and he tells us very funny things about his experiences. A merry late lunch; I talk about what I have read in the newspaper, among other things that England now seems to be going through a great crisis. R. expresses his annoyance with the Queen, the silly old frump, for not abdicating, for she thereby condemns the Prince of Wales to an absurd life; in earlier times, he says, sons became their mothers’ guardians when they came of age.

Prof. Schron paid me a call, and while carrying on quite an interesting conversation with him, I thought of what R. had said recently: “I have put him in his place, and now I get on very well with him.” In the evening we are visited by Herr v. Joukowsky, and conversation flows in a pleasant and lively way, causing R. to observe later, “The Slavs are the people most closely related to us Germans.” Telling us of a remark made by V. Hugo to Turgenev about Goethe, “My attitude toward G. is the same as Joan of Arc’s toward Messalina,” R. says, “Such stupidities lurk in every Frenchman; with all of them one can expect a remark like that on some point or other.”

R. unfolds his views on Russia, beginning, “I know how to help Russia, but nobody is willing to buy.” The Emperor, he says, should set fire to St. Petersburg and, to start with, set up his residence in Odessa, moving on from there to Constantinople. That is the only way of showing what the Slavic race is capable of. But for this one would need a great man, and there are none left. It is just the same as in North America, where they will have to take over the central territories before they can show what they are. We Germans will never become a world power, having no sea, but our task is a different one, to spread culture by colonization; I was very pleased to hear that the workers most sought after and treasured in America are the Germans.

I am alarmed by R.’s appearance late in the evening.

Monday, January 19:

R. had a good night but is very nervous at breakfast; afterward, however, he shows me the portrait of J. Schopenhauer and says she is the most significant and sensitive person in the whole book. He continues to read it with great interest.

After breakfast he suggests a walk into town; we set out, but my appointment with Princess Ouroussoff, who is going to call on me, induces me to turn back. R. walks on with the children, returns home worn out, which comes to my notice most dismally when he decides to read Don Quixote to us and his voice sounds quite thin. And so the scene which years ago so amused us, Sancho’s fabrication of his meeting with Dulcinea and his monologue, leaves no impression.

But the town enchants him in all particulars, and what delights him most is a trattoria opposite our house. “Lord, to have had something like that in one’s youth! I remember an inn in Magdeburg where we went to drink wine, Graves; even that, in the wretched state of our lives then, raised our spirits. And now this one here!”

Tuesday, January 20:

Very cold, Vesuvius covered in snow, R. run down, and on top of that unpleasantly affected by a letter from the poor singer Jäger. He writes at once to Richter.

A walk into town, R. visits a barber and returns very worn out; to distract him, I talk of various things I read in Pungolo, including news of unrest in Hungary. R. remarks that one should not imagine that the days of the Junkers are past; they are still powerful and very sure of themselves.

In the evening I ask him to read to us the “Cl. Walpurgis Night,” which he does. When we are discussing it the following day, he mentions the cranes and the dead heron, and how the plutonic emergence of such a mountain means the beginning of covetousness and tearing to pieces, whereas in the action of water Goethe saw the elements of gentleness and beauty.

Today he said that one is not bound to assume that mankind was born evil; it became that only with the beginning of history, the killing of the first animal.

Wednesday, January 21:

R. slept well and attributes his good nights to the climate here. It is now fine again, though very windy. A visit from the San Carlo theater directors, to whom R., in his expressive French, outlines the damage caused by present-day opera, telling them how Rossini always demanded the best from his singers and how his strictness was feared in Vienna, whereas Meyerbeer ruined it all, for the first time in his life.

In the evening he has once again to resort to this language for Princess Ouroussoff, and he does so quite amiably, although today, when I was glancing through a preface by A. Dumas the younger to a translation of Faust, I swore never again to read a French book.

R. tells us several things from Düntzer's book, and when we talk about the conversation between N[apoleon] and G[oethe] and wonder why we know so little about it, R. says, "Because it was nothing, and certainly not worth reporting." Regarding Nap., he goes on to say that one ought to regard him as a bandit to whom the French Revolution gave tremendous power; his task was to wage war, unlike Fr. the Great, for instance, who was a man of culture and resorted to war only under pressure in an emergency.

We are alarmed by Siegfried's health; jokingly, but concerned, R. says to him, "You look like a cretin, goodhearted, but monstrous!" (Here a sentence in parentheses has been obliterated in ink by an unknown hand.) It turns out that he has boils again. Dr. Schr. prescribes a great many medicines. He also examines R. thoroughly and says he is like a young man.

Thursday, January 22:

R. slept well; he returns to me in the morning and reads to me the account of Goethe's death, which has much moved him: "So beautiful, with the knowledge of a completed lifetime; what was wrong about it was the time, his country. And how beautiful this dying head! Thus does a great and noble man die."

Of his relationship with U[lrike von] Lev[etzow] R. says, "It was a terrible strain on him; it was a farewell to life." We go for a walk together, R. and I, very, very slowly, up as far as the vineyards; everything delights him, the brooms of laurel leaves used for sweeping, a magnificent sheep, workers calling to one another ("Man as a bird," says R.), the view, the air; his slow pace worries me.

When I talk about the unrest in Ireland, R. says, "Yes, from there, from England, something may one day come, not from those in power, but perhaps from the indignant common people." In an economic discussion with friend Stein he says, "The mere abolition of property will do no good; the Jews will gladly give up estates and everything else, as long as banks and stocks remain." Going on to Bismarck, he says, "If he had had any ideas, something could have been done after France's defeat, an alliance with the smaller states aimed at disarmament, forcing France to disarm by threatening to prolong the occupation. But that would have called for a Periclean spirit."

Whist in the evening.

Friday, January 23:

R. slept well, the weather is fine, and he begins a letter to the King which, he tells me, will contain many complaints. The complete work, Thalysia, has now arrived, and he is reading it with enjoyment. In the afternoon he rides into town and returns, as always, rather worn out.

In the evening Herr Joukowsky introduces his servant to us, a Neapolitan folk singer, who delights us with his singing and his passion; among other things, R. admires his breath control, and the things he sings are unique in their wild tenderness, their ingratiating gaiety, and their seductive sensuousness. But what feelings come over me when the singer tries to remember the Rhinemaidens' theme (he has seen the Ring)! R. plays it, and all the beauty of Nature rises before us; where before we had seen the lustful animal, now we have the innocent human being. Pepino himself is very remarkable, sturdy, thickset, simple, and proud: a lovely experience! R. observes that it is true that Italian opera is based on folk song, but it has been so terribly spoiled.

R. has ordered and received Renan's Les Eglises, but he does not wish to read it, saying he knows it all already; Lecky has instructed him very nicely. The only thing that interests him is the mention of Marcion, that he wished to separate the New from the Old Testament. Before bringing in his servant, Herr J. mentioned the French people who hissed R.'s work; this put R. into a great rage; it was not the French, R. said, but the German Jews: "And never mind the Jews, it is we ourselves, we weaklings who can only sigh over all the horrible things going on."

Saturday, January 24:

R. slept well, but still feels run down; he continues writing his letter to the King. In the afternoon we go for a walk together in the garden; it is windy and we soon return indoors. At 6 in the evening dinner at Prince Ouroussoff's.

A great variety of new acquaintances; the Prince, the most significant of them, reveals that fact by not talking to R. about music. At table R. causes some surprise by observing that he has no idea why Russia does not grant him a pension, for he has always maintained that Russia should have Constantinople. Instead, the Sultan took out certificates of patronage. "That was to win you over," says the Prince.

The others ask him about Raff, etc., until he says at last that he is no musician. And when they praise the pleasant sound of Italian music, he plays the theme from Norma, with its accompaniment of thirds, to show that here, too, one can be quite happy with terrible ugliness. But R. is unusually lively and friendly, till he tires of the many introductions and calls for our carriage.

Sunday, January 25:

R. slept well, but cold, rain, no sunshine. He finishes his letter to the King, while Lusch and I go with Princess Ouroussoff to an Italian lecture; discussion of its utterly un-German character fills our conversation at supper.

We then play whist, R. constantly without luck, which puts him out of humor; he is also upset by the news that never within human memory has there been such a severe winter here; he says he feels everything is telling him to get out of the way, for he succeeds in nothing any more. He thinks of Wahnfried, of the hall, and regarding his work he says he knows it has all been in vain.

Were I to point out what, beyond the general sufferings of existence, is particularly painful, it would be the necessity of keeping some sort of contact with the world. Oh, Tribschen, oh, childhood days of the children, oh, the time of complete withdrawal from the world! Then came fame, then the children grew up, while we two were armed for only one thing, the tranquillity of love and creative work.

Monday, January 26:

A good night; at breakfast R. tells me of Helios's oxen, the roasted flesh of which still spoke to their companions, and he is more and more convinced that men began to be evil when they began to eat meat. A gray day; R. rides into town, returns in an open carriage. At lunch he has no appetite, and at about [blank] o'clock he takes to his bed with a shivering fit. For me, many letters putting off visits.

Tuesday, January 27:

R. has erysipelas and remains in bed in a state of lethargy, broken only by expressions of ill humor. His condition deteriorates in the evening to the extent that he can eat nothing, but the doctor is not worried.

Wednesday, January 28:

R. had a bad night, and his discomfort is very great. Dr. Schron does not seem worried, but what help is that?

R. tells me something about the Roman Senate in connection with Regulus's widow; all I hear is what gives me pleasure, namely, that his thoughts are unaffected. He has a repugnance toward all medicines: "I see all these boxes, but what I lack is faith," he says. He gets up for a while in the evening but returns to bed again at once.

Thursday, January 29:

A somewhat better night, but the trouble now spreading across his forehead. Great weariness. Yesterday was a glorious day, 23 degrees [Celsius], the children to S. Martin; in all this sunshine R. lying exhausted in bed, I in suspended animation.

This morning, at almost the moment he awoke, he asked me the name of the last conqueror of Asia, about whom Corneille wrote a play; I cannot think of it; in the end he: "Bajazet," whereupon I mention Racine and ask him what brought it into his mind. "Because at the moment I am so interested in the nomadic peoples." He goes back to the vegetarian book, then mentions Elohim, who actually demanded animal sacrifices, as can be seen from the story of Cain and Abel.

R. remains in bed; I tell the children about his illness in Paris (typhus), and how in delirium he always spoke French; after that I spend a long time looking at the photograph from England. How strange I feel when he tells me late in the evening that he has had two dreams, in one of which he saw me with a photograph of him on the back of my hat beneath the veil. The other dream was in Paris, at the performance of Tannhäuser, where he saw me sitting with a pale face in a box and came to me, saying, "Comment as-tu osé avoir le courage et le mérite de venir ici seule?" ["How did you manage to find the courage and virtue to come here alone?"] And he says this talking in French woke him up.

He tells me that when he is feeling unwell this, the most terrible time of his life, always comes back into his mind; and the perfumed smell of the ointment also reminded him of Royer's idea of suddenly flooding the opera house with the scent of roses, an idea which at the time he found as repulsive as the scent itself was otherwise attractive.

Friday, January 30:

R. had a very restless night, but the rash seems to be subsiding, and he gets up and spends the whole day in the salon. In spite of his weariness he becomes lively and tells us of what he found interesting in Renan's Eglises, namely the preface, and he thanks God that the French still possess some men of intelligence.

When we were having our late breakfast, we heard him playing the chorus of the young pilgrims from Tannhäuser, and I was completely overcome. Was it the fact of his recovery, conveyed to me by these sounds, was it the exalted exhortation always to keep the Redemption in mind, or was it just the sounds themselves? How shall I decide? When, weeping, I thank R., he says, "Yes, people ought to respect me for having expressed the spirit of Christianity in this and, what is more, freed of all sectarianism." He is very cheerful with the doctor, but that does not cheer me.

Saturday, January 31:

R. had a better night, and the rash is subsiding more and more, but he remarks sadly that, though it is going away, the catarrhal rheumatic troubles are returning with renewed force. He counts up the days since London and notes that we have been permitted not a single good one, as far as weather is concerned, apart from our stay in Heidelberg. Yesterday he spoke about our isolation, the fact that nobody belongs to us; it was not a complaint, or an expression of arrogance, but a quiet statement of fact. “We have behaved reasonably enough.”

R. dictates to me his letter to Herr Jauner, since he is coming down with an inflammation of the eye. After breakfast he talks about philosophy and says that Kant found something eternal in his quiet avenue in Königsberg, an ideality of time and space, like Jesus in Galilee: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” I leave him in a fairly tranquil mood to pay a call, but on my return find him very agitated.

A conversation with Prof. Schrön over conditions in Germany, our army is being increased by between 60,000 and 100,000 men, made him so aware of the wretched state of things that all he can think of is emigration. I am made sadly aware of the depth of his depression through the way he chides me for wearing the dress he gave me at Christmas; he says it distorts my gait, which he loves. Though hurt, I say nothing, and soon see how far his thoughts have taken him. “Our rulers are not just stupid, they are bad; they know it all, the Jewish problem and the rest, but that is how they want it, for they know that if something genuine and good were to come along, it would be all over with them.”

He whispers in my ear that he will tell me his plan, and he tells it to me in detail when we are alone.