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 May 1880 (30 total)

Date	Word Count	Subject	Content
May 1, 1880	160	R. is unwell and frustrated that he was denied a private reading of the play with the narrator, while a renewed invitation to the Conservatoire adds to his irritation. The evening finally brings calm in their quiet solitude, but the narrator remains inwardly shaken and clings to faith for strength.	Saturday, May 1: R. not very well; he explains to me the reason for his vexation yesterday: he had wanted to be alone with me, to read me the play, and we had been prevented. On top of that, an invitation for a second visit to the Conservatoire; R. instructs me to inform the old librarian of his feelings about the operetta, and to say that he would regret having written his letter if he were obliged to represent it in person. I do so. However, when I return, I find R. worried about a recurrence of his erysipelas. We spend the evening alone together, in silence and in quiet conversation, and I have the satisfaction of seeing the gradual return of a mild tranquillity. How often these days does my soul cry out, “Io ti vedo” [“I see thee”]! The noble countenance of our crucified Lord rises suddenly before my eyes when my inner strength wavers. Dear God, do not abandon me!
May 2, 1880	156	After a better start, R. tires again and the day is filled with visits, political talk, and contrasts between aristocratic memory and modern society. A walk through the villa offers a brief moment of humor, and the Liechtensteins' farewell leaves behind a plaintive sadness that echoes in a cry from the street.	Sunday, May 2: R. is well again in the morning after a good night, but later he unfortunately feels somewhat indisposed. Our friends the Liechtensteins to lunch; Prince Rudolf talks vividly about the former aristocratic world. R. says, “Now the Jews are the grands seigneurs!” Via Bulwer-Lytton, we came to talk about the English and Germany’s shame in connection with the Berlin Congress. Some visitors, including professors from the Conservatoire; R. comes back to his letter and says on the one hand they have the most rigid form of pedantry and on the other utter dissoluteness. Then, beneath gray skies, R. and I stroll together through the villa; when we come upon a cactus of unusually rugged appearance, R. says, “That looks like an ox, which is really what it wanted to be.” In the evening farewell visit from the Liechtensteins, sad in many ways. As they depart, I hear from the street, hoarse and high-pitched, a prolonged sorrowful cry.
May 3, 1880	128	The narrator completes the final sitting for her portrait while R. works on his lines in good spirits. In the evening he reads key scenes from Measure for Measure, and the couple is overwhelmed by the play's justice, mercy, and emotional beauty, unable to bear much distance from each other afterward.	Monday, May 3: Fine weather, a good night for R. I have some business to do with secondhand merchants in the morning. On my return I find him ruling lines and in good spirits. Final sitting for my picture. In the evening R. reads to us the three main scenes of Measure for Measure; an indescribable impression, the noblest and artistically most perfect of works. R. and I in tears, justice and mercy in their fairest forms; the Duke’s transition to mildness, his unspoken love for Isabella (Isabella herself divine, as R. exclaims), the two scenes between Angelo and the virgin, the final scene, with its polyphonic construction: how to count up and point out all the many details which enchant and move one? We can scarcely leave each other’s side.
May 4, 1880	189	Their morning conversation returns again to Measure for Measure and to the dignity that religious forms can lend a poet. R. then pushes himself too hard on his score, is annoyed by official attention from would-be patrons, and jokes bitterly about a place full of misunderstandings rather than honor.	Tuesday, May 4: Our very first words in the morning concern the advantages to a poet of solid religious forms; how lovely it sounds when Isabella speaks of the strict God who chose nevertheless to intercede! And how seriously Shakespeare took the idea of majesty! Again and again we come back to talking of this most glorious of works. I have again some things to do in town, and I find R. completely absorbed in preparing his lines, so that he cannot at first eat any lunch, having overexerted himself. He says, “I could be like the young men of today, not bother my head about the outward appearance of my score, but it leaves me no peace; I must set it out so that it is nice to look at.” Three dukes approach R., wanting to make him an honorary member of the Philharmonic Society; R. says, half joking, half vexed, “One thinks one is strolling in an orange grove here, but it turns out to be a grove of misunderstandings.” More sittings. R. recently introduced our friend Joukowsky to someone with the words, “A genius who paints with his emotions.”
May 5, 1880	170	R. entertains the household with dream images that mix absurdity and menace, then spends the day through the final sitting and a cheerful lunch that collapses into anger. News that vivisection has been accepted in Berlin drives him to despair, and he speaks of leaving Germany altogether, only to be lifted later by a playful outing and a game of whist.	Wednesday, May 5: R. had some amusing dreams: that my father, in Indian costume, desired to have homage paid to him and said to R., “Kiss my hand.” Then that Dr. Schron fell off a chair and broke into pieces like a doll, the head divided from the trunk, and Frau Schron treated it as something quite normal. He still takes his walk in the morning and enjoys the garden. Today what is now really the last sitting, after it lunch, which starts very gaily but ends on quite a serious note, when R. relates what he actually intended to keep to himself, that a decision has been made in Berlin on the question of vivisection: that it is a necessity. R. wants to leave the Reich and take out American citizenship. He asks what his art has to do with these cruel and indifferent people. Deep distress. Drove into town in the afternoon, separated from R., kept meeting him again, and drove home, merry on account of it. Whist in the evening.
May 6, 1880	151	A poor night gives way to a better morning, and R. works steadily on his score while the narrator's town errands amuse him. He sends off the biography to the printers, endures a stiff visit from English Wagnerites, and the household stays awake for the second act of Tristan, which prompts amused comparison of English seriousness and ignorance.	Thursday, May 6: Not a good night, either for R. or for me, but he goes for a walk in the morning and returns for breakfast in good spirits. My journeys to town and the friendly encounters I always have there amuse R. when I tell him about them. He spent the morning on his score. In the afternoon he writes to friend Wolzogen and sends the biography off to the printers. In the evening a curious visit from three English Wagnerites, whose imposing manner permits no conversation. The second act of Tristan played by Rubinstein; R. sleeps, Joukowsky and Stein too, only the English people and the children and I awake: Lusch and I moved, the English people holding out nobly. Much amusement about it and discussion of the English character in all its steadfastness, enduring things in the assumption that they are special, but without in fact having the slightest idea.
May 7, 1880	216	R. reconsiders Tristan, thinking about cuts for general performances while reserving the full work for Bayreuth, and he also plans children's arrangements from Parsifal. The evening turns light with readings from Shakespeare, where he laughs over Falstaff and marvels at the sheer mind that could write such scenes, before a thunderstorm finally breaks the heavy air.	Friday, May 7: Yesterday evening brings back to R. the idea of making some cuts in Tristan; he says it demands too much of the audience as well as the singers, and he would do this in both the second and third acts, reserving the full work for performances in Bayreuth, for he wishes Tristan to be staged there too. At lunch he announces that he intends to arrange the choruses from the first act of Parsifal for our children; he says he will not be able to prepare it as a surprise for me, for it would have to be practiced “mercilessly.” Otherwise, only dismal remarks about the present mass emigrations from Germany. However, delight in Siegfried, his cheerful temperament, which will make things easy for him. In the evening R. reads the scene from The Merry Wives of Windsor in which Slender is unwilling to come in for the meal, to our great amusement. “What I find so wonderful,” says R., “is how he wrote it all down, stuff like this, what a tremendous mind!” He quotes Falstaff’s “No quips now, Pistol,” with much laughing delectation. From Much Ado About Nothing the constables’ scene, with less enjoyment, on account of the verbal jokes. A violent thunderstorm, which does us good after the closeness which almost ruined our morning walk.
May 8, 1880	339	R. reflects on how childhood hardship shaped Fidi and W. into adults whose liveliness could seem capricious from the outside. He praises the diary writer’s portrait for its childlike quality and grows animated in political talk, denouncing vivisection, false science, socialists in Hamburg, and Bismarck with sharp anger.	Saturday, May 8: Harking back to our conversation yesterday about Fidi, I tell R. I am convinced that in his own childhood he was equally cheerful and gay, and that it was only his life which prevented this cheerfulness from finding expression, giving him this apparent frenetic quality which many people interpret as capriciousness. He admits it, but says that even in W.'s childhood the poverty of his home did not permit his gaiety to unfold to its full extent, as with Siegfried. We discuss what we read yesterday, and R. says it is remarkable how rich in characters and situations he made his Merry Wives, for which he had no previously existing story; he says it is all done with great artistry, but it is precisely this absence of an existing story which gives it a slight air of artificiality. Then my portrait. R. praises its sublimely childlike quality. But his favorite picture of me is the photograph with the veil; what he adds in telling me this shall, however, remain my secret, which I can hardly admit even to myself! Letter from a clergyman in Hesse about vivisection, R. pleased by it. We talk about the subject, and R. says: “We are too stupid, like the dodo, which was condemned to extinction! If one disturbs an anthill with one’s foot, the ants come together again and rebuild what was destroyed.” Joukowsky: “But we have no instinct.” R.: “Knowledge should take its place and help the human race to restore what was brought into disorder by blind force, earthly convulsions. Moths fly into the lamp because Nature is imprudent, whereas for human beings the task is to extinguish this light, not the light of knowledge, but that of a false science, a science which the princes foster while at the same time they continue building up their armies.” The socialist elections in Hamburg, Bismarck’s idea of taxing vaudeville, provoke R. into violent expressions of indignation: “We are governed by bulls and oxen.” [The last seven words obliterated in ink by an unknown hand.]
May 9, 1880	247	A rainy Sunday brings talk of Daniel’s unhappy childhood, several visitors, and an evening reading of Faust that is deeply moving but awkward aloud. The day turns to religion and art, with R. arguing that art carries dogmatic truth in emotional form and speaking admiringly of Christ while rejecting doctrine as doctrine. He also thinks aloud about earning money through Parsifal concerts to secure independence.	Sunday, May 9: A rainy day. Daniel’s birthday. R. recalls the way in which he was abandoned and says that in a certain sense this is what has made him so cold and utterly unable to make allowances for individual qualities. Some callers. A Duchess Ravaschieri impresses me as a woman of sensibility. In the evening R. reads Faust, Part One, overwhelmingly beautiful and moving. But we feel that the poem lends itself as little to being read aloud as to dramatic presentation; R. says he needs to assume an almost artificial tone, and the scene with Mephisto after the meeting with Gretchen comes close to offending me. In the morning we talked at length about religion and art. R. describes how art works in metaphors and allegories as such, but at the same time conveys to the emotions the truth behind the dogmas. Aeschylus’s Oresteia, he says, is undoubtedly more profound than all the Eleusinian mysteries. He also speaks of the godlike qualities manifest in Christ and says it is understandable that the birth of such a being should be presented as a miracle, the Immaculate Conception repulsive as dogma, but wonderful as legend and in art (painting). We were talking recently about the year 1857 in Switzerland, and he said, “I was truly like a good seed: if the earth in which I was planted was at least reasonably good, I would start to grow.” He talks of making money with Parsifal, giving concerts, in order to gain his independence.
May 10, 1880	58	The morning is pleasant, and the writer has a rowboat ride home after a sitting at the Villa Postiglione. She walks with R. in the afternoon, then loses at whist while Herr von Stein fares better, all under a glorious sunset.	Monday, May 10: Quite a nice morning. R. slept well. I have a sitting in the Villa Postiglione, return home in a rowboat, and my pleasant journey gives me something to relate. For a walk with R. in the afternoon. Whist in the evening, somewhat upsetting, for R. has no luck and I bring luck to Herr v. Stein! Glorious sunset.
May 11, 1880	109	R. announces an excursion to Vesuvius, but illness soon derails the plan. The party struggles through a silent, anxious outing to the observatory, finds no room, and returns home early while the children continue to the crater with guides and come back exhausted late at night. What remains is not sightseeing but a dreamlike day ruled by worry.	Tuesday, May 11: R. announces at breakfast that we are to make an excursion to Vesuvius. Swift preparations, hasty lunch at Figlio de Pietro’s. R. sends word that he is unwell, and he does not join us at lunch, but nevertheless wants the outing to continue, feeling it will do him good. Silent journey. Arriving at the observatory, we seek a room, none to be had. The children off to the crater with some guides; R., feeling worse, I suggest returning home. We do that, home at 9:30. R. to bed. The children, exhausted, do not return until close on 11. Strange, dreamlike day, saw nothing, just experienced the reality of worry!
May 12, 1880	71	Everyone is unwell, though the children seem protected and beyond harm, which brings the writer comfort. Rubinstein visits, plays the Don Giovanni Overture on the pianino, and is gently corrected by R. for rushing the allegro. R. spends time reading Schopenhauer’s Parerga.	Wednesday, May 12: Much indisposition, even I laid up; the children splendid, however, God is with them, and when I can do no more, He takes over! They are under His protection, so how can there be trouble? Visit from Rubinstein, cheerful conversation. He tries out the pianino and plays the Don Giovanni Overture; R. interrupts him, saying the allegro is too fast, it should not be rattled off. He reads Sch.’s Parerga.
May 13, 1880	53	R. appears fully recovered, while the writer reports a reassuring visit to the foundlings’ home. Later they take a walk in the garden before a violent thunderstorm breaks, and she notes that he has written out the Parsifal voices.	Thursday, May 13: R. appears to be completely recovered. I visit the foundlings’ home here and receive a reassuring impression, of which I speak at lunch. In the afternoon a walk with R. in the garden, the sky looking whitish all day, and in the evening a violent thunderstorm. (He has written out the Parsifal voices.)
May 14, 1880	159	R. recounts a dream involving his uncle Adolph, Mozart, his sister Luise, and the writer, ending in tears. After a low mood at lunch, he brightens over coffee and reflects on Schopenhauer’s ideas about time and inner perception. The afternoon brings a cheerful garden walk with the children, a dash into a cave when rain interrupts, and an evening of tedious political reading.	Friday, May 14: R. tells me of his dream: in it he saw his uncle Adolph, was surprised that he looked so young, then with him listened to a Mozart symphony, and his sister Luise stupidly exclaimed, “Ah, the name Mozart is hovering over us!” but then he was weeping with me. R. somewhat depressed at lunch, but over coffee he becomes very cheerful again. He relates various things from Schopenhauer regarding time, the reflected image of which lies in ourselves; in the same way that one can discern a moving object only by reference to a stationary one, so within ourselves we carry the reflected image of time. A walk in the garden with R. and the children; he takes great delight in the hills with their vineyards. Surprised by rain, we flee into the cave amid much laughter. In the evening R. reads to us a very tiresome speech by Bismarck and what seems to us an unsatisfactory reply by Windthorst.
May 15, 1880	198	After a good night, R. starts the day cheerfully with an early walk and admires the embroidery on his cloak. He talks about color, painting, and portraiture, then spends part of the afternoon walking into town while the writer and Loldi watch him go, waving as he passes the palm tree. By evening he is tired but gentle, pleased with his letter to Wolzogen and the moonlit sky.	Saturday, May 15: R. had a good night, goes for an early-morning walk with the children and is cheerful at our breakfast together. He likes the embroidery on his cloak, and he tells me once again how strong lines make work impossible for him, whereas the dreamier colors, and the refraction of light from the material, have a pleasantly distracting and concentrating effect. I drive to the Urbild, as R. calls my picture, to have my fingers painted. We talk about painting, about the gallery in Leipzig, Delaroche’s picture, and R. says, “Napoleon on the Mount of Olives.” Then he tells us about his cousin Kühnlein. He makes some corrections to the biography. And in the afternoon he goes to town on foot; Loldi and I watch him for a long while, he frequently turns to wave, and all the blessings of love follow his rapid steps! He walks as far as the palm tree and returns home in somewhat less than an hour! He has written a cheerful letter to friend Wolzogen, greetings from Haus to Maison, and in spite of his tiredness is in a gentle and cheerful mood in the evening. Delight in the starry sky and the moonlight.
May 16, 1880	60	R. is restless in the night but still manages to compose a little verse for the portrait he is sending Joukowsky. At breakfast he is affectionate and tells the writer she is indispensable to him, then the day passes with callers and another evening of stars and moonlight.	Sunday, May 16: R. had a somewhat restless night, and he works out a little poem to attach to the picture of himself which he is giving to friend Joukowsky. He is in good spirits at breakfast and says to me, “Without you I am nothing; now make use of your comfortable position.” Some callers. In the evening starry skies and moonlight again.
May 17, 1880	59	R. sleeps well but is not comfortable, complaining of abdominal trouble after being careless with soda water. He works on the biography, receives Malwida, and then has too much Wagnerian company in the evening with Corso del Monte Virgine and the Knights of the Grail. He ends the day in a bad mood and goes to bed irritated.	Monday, May 17: R. slept well, but he still does not feel quite at ease. Since his lack of caution with the soda water he is complaining of abdominal catarrh. He works on the biography. Arrival of Malwida, Corso del Monte Virgine, in the evening the Knights of the Grail; too much for him. He goes to bed in an ill-humor.
May 18, 1880	111	After a bad, washed-out night, R. remained agitated by political obligations he resented. News arrived from Feustel that his son had died, casting the house into melancholy; after an afternoon walk with Malwida, a doctor was summoned because R. kept complaining of his suffering.	Tuesday, May 18: Not a good night, skies still white, he still retrospectively vexing himself over the obligations of partisanship, having to concern himself with people who can do nothing whatever for him. Telegram from friend Feustel, he has lost his son; R. tells me about it and asks me to write something; all I can think of is, "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." R. incorporates it in the telegram he has already begun. Melancholy atmosphere. In the afternoon a walk with R. and Malwida as far as the belvedere. Since R. is still complaining of his sufferings, I send for Dr. Schron, who comes late in the evening.
May 19, 1880	184	R. slept better and woke lively enough to jot down an idea for his article, then spent lunch in high spirits, making everyone laugh. The family took comfort in nearing the end of the biography, and by evening he was reading Don Quixote aloud after tenderly rehearsing Parsifal choruses with the children amid constant laughter.	Wednesday, May 19: R. had a better night, though he was up once and wrote down an idea for his article. At lunch he is much more cheerful, and he himself says, "Wit has returned: the Earth takes back her child." The whole company has to laugh heartily when he says, "It would be my greatest triumph if I were to make you all laugh, in my final hour." We reflect gladly that in the biography we now have only 4 more years to write down, and R. earnestly resolves to write these, so as to throw light on our personal destinies. In the evening he reads to us the episode of the marionettes in Don Quixote, in which the figure of the Showman particularly fascinates and pleases us. Before that he rehearsed the choruses from Parsifal with the children, already begun yesterday, so lovely, so touching; his dear hand strews blessings over them with every movement indicating rhythm and stress. Much rehearsal necessary, and intertwined with it the delight of the children, every moment an outburst of laughter. R. says, "Now the children are unhappy again!"
May 20, 1880	454	The day began merrily with jokes, memories, and shared laughter over Schopenhauer, Loldi’s wit, and a childhood theater anecdote that had stayed with R. He also spoke about disappointed festival singers, mocked the public hunger for occult spectacle, slipped into town in playful secrecy, welcomed Stella Bonheur’s lively report from Rome, and ended with Timon of Athens and a story from the Ticino floods.	Thursday, May 20: Merry early breakfast; continued pleasure in the thought of the children. R. remarks on Loldi's sense of humor and how well she understands his witticisms. Yesterday, he says, he greeted Herr v. St. with the words, "Pardon me for not getting up, but I just sat down," and Loldi, sitting in the corner, laughed. Then he reads Schopenhauer to me on the subject of professors of philosophy, and we laugh heartily over the words, "who cannot live without theism, that is to say, eat and drink." After lunch yesterday he spoke about the festival, the fine spirit shown by his singers, and how disappointed they must have felt when, after such an unheard-of expenditure of all their powers, nothing happened. At lunch he addressed Siegfried as "obstinate innocence". Over coffee he told us how curious childhood impressions are: when he was ten years old, he and his sister Klara saw a play in which Mme Hartwig had to speak the line, "You can do it if you will." She said "whatever you will," the audience laughed, and R. asked Klara why, whereupon she explained, "It should be 'if you will.'" This made an indelible impression on him. Discussion about spiritualists, occasioned by an exposure in Munich. R. says: "How foolish to object to a person for that! It is like forbidding a poet to call his play King Lear." Speaking for himself, he would be delighted to see a person flying, whether in the dark or by daylight. "But the stupid public wants to achieve religion through hocus-pocus." To have a showman like that arrested, he adds, is too absurd, for his powers, like those of an actor, lie in some kind of deception. R. wants to go into town, creeps off, I catch up with him, and we drive in together; at Detken's we separate, and he says with a laugh, "So the bookbinder is making the triumphal arch?" Yesterday, when he saw the decorator taking away a carpet, he crept in to find out what was going to happen on the 22nd, to catch a glimpse of the triumphal arch. Toward evening a visit from Mme Stella Bonheur, the Ortrud in Rome; she tells us very pleasant things about the performances and our good, energetic Frau Lucca. R. says, when she has gone, "A complete lack of false modesty," always in this connection with a disapproving side glance at the Germans. Timon [of Athens] in the evening, the scene with the painter, the poet, and the cynic. R. says the play seems to him "very personal": "The material allows no chance of a reconciliation, the characters are observed in all their wickedness." Before Timon R. told the story of our journey through the floods in Ticino.
May 21, 1880	180	At breakfast R. was already thinking ahead to the next day, while gray, rainy weather framed readings from Schopenhauer and his joking sense that heaven owed him better treatment. Cosima was struck by the numbing contradictions of city life while shopping, then the day was consumed by repeated Parsifal rehearsals that stretched late into the night.	Friday, May 21: As we sit down to breakfast, R. says to me, "How different it will be tomorrow!" Then he reads to me Schopenhauer on beards and also the introduction to the "Apparent Deliberateness" chapter, praising Sch.'s hypothetical skill. The weather is gray and showery, and R. says the good Lord owes it to him to behave nicely, since he is taking so much trouble with him. Friend Gross sends me news of a death; I interrupt my little preparations to express my sympathy for him. Yesterday, while I was shopping in town, I was vividly reminded of the stultifying effect of a big city: at the cafe, where I was ordering champagne, beggars; in the carriage in which I returned home, flowers, put there for me by R.; while, as I get in, a funeral procession meets my eyes, and all of this accepted without reflection, my mind full of my shopping. And thus is life, day after day, for city dwellers. At five o'clock rehearsal of the Parsifal choruses, separation at last at 10 o'clock, after a day containing five rehearsals.
May 22, 1880	441	Noise from workmen threatened R.’s rest, and the writer’s anxiety deepened into prayerful devotion as she watched over his sleep. The day turned radiant with the children’s tearful morning greeting, an emotionally charged celebration in the salon, music, speeches, a moonlit outing by boat, and Parsifal choruses shared with family and friends.	Saturday, May 22: Wonderful night! The gardeners and decorators hammer and knock, contrary to all agreements. My concern for R.'s sleep expands into a conscious concern for his whole existence, into feelings of concern that I am unworthy of him and the task of caring for him, and my feeling, growing ever more intense with the outward noise, turns into a fervent prayer within me; with this it seems I might hope to overcome not only this night noise, but also all other disturbances, and I see the cherished reflections of this victory in his sleep, which lasts until the morning. A shining morning brings him my greeting. At about 8 o'clock the children bring him theirs, a greeting from the stars, and amid tears and sobs our souls intermingle, while the children hear from their father things they will never forget. He rests, we move the festivities from the hall to the salon and arrange roses, picture, and fabrics, so that R., entering the salon around 11 o'clock, is delighted; he spends an hour there, looks at Loldi's drawings, and when I go to greet him, I am permitted to see his happiness in his transfigured appearance and hear it in his very moving words. I had linked the Last Supper and Parsifal, the suns and the letters of his name, also the year '15 of this century; we invite a 14th guest and change the form. All spoke well and with deep emotion, and R. replied, repeating what he had already told me in the morning, why he is now superstitious, whereas previously he had always liked to think of himself as the 13th. He does not wish to spite his good fortune, he says, and he mentions 7 as the number which means everything to him, the children and the two of us, all that is well disposed toward him derives from that; about this relationship he says many things which you, my children, have certainly noted, and which were accompanied by the tears of all present. Over coffee we hear "Mignonne," sung by Pepino. Then a rest, a walk to the palm tree, and finally a trip on the sea. Five boats rock their way along the blessed shores, bathed in a moonlight which seems to wrap us in gentle warmth, Naples glittering in the distance, Vesuvius like a dream image behind it, yet more blissful than all outward appearances the harmony of souls binding us all together. We return home to the illumined salon, and the day and the evening are brought to a close with the choruses from Parsifal, sung by our children, our friends Plüddemann, Rubinstein, Humperdinck, and R.
May 23, 1880	165	R. slept well and fondly named the previous day the day of youth, though the gray weather matched the quieter labor of restoring order. Social calls wore him out, but the evening ended cozily, with sharp talk about people who admire daring ideas yet live conventionally and a flirtatious, joking exchange with Mme Minghetti.	Sunday, May 23: R. had a good night, and he christens yesterday "the day of youth". Now cleaning up and restoring order, gray and cold weather to accompany it. Friendly calls, which, however, tire R. because of the need to talk French. The sitting room is in order, and we spend a cozy evening together, R. remarking in connection with Mme Minghetti's visit how disturbing people are when they seem to respond to the boldest of ideas yet always remain in their wonted paths. With his very harsh remarks about the Italian theater, among other things, he said he could not understand how a lady of breeding could still go to the theater, Mme Minghetti was in full agreement, and took leave of him saying, "Je suis amoureuse folle de vous" ["I am madly in love with you"], whereupon R. replied jokingly, "Nous sommes au bord d'un abîme, mes devoirs compliqués à M. Minghetti" ["We are on the edge of an abyss, my complex respects to M. Minghetti"].
May 24, 1880	174	Fine weather annoyed R. because he had canceled the Amalfi excursion expecting rain, so a drive to the Villa Floridiana served as a pleasing substitute and ended in laughter when he abruptly decided they would go after all. The next day they left in some agitation but traveled splendidly in a reserved carriage to Amalfi, where the cathedral vexed him yet the terrace at the Hotel des Capucins restored his spirits.	Monday, May 24: Fine weather, which vexes R. inasmuch as, having reckoned on bad weather, he had canceled the outing to Amalfi. As a small consolation I suggest a drive to the Villa Floridiana, which gives us much pleasure, particularly when we go inside. In the evening a discussion of the outing, which ends in great laughter when, after the weather has been considered the deciding factor, R. declares, "Whatever the weather, we are going tomorrow!" Tuesday, May 25: Preparations; at noon departure from the Villa d'Angri in some agitation, since we are afraid of arriving too late. A saloon carriage awaits us, through the good offices of friend Joukowsky, to the delight of R., who sings, "When my master starts his travels, what things there are to see!" Heavenly journey to Amalfi, visit to the cathedral, which vexes R. somewhat, but the evening, spent on the terrace of the Hôtel des Capucins, restores his good spirits, which had already begun to emerge during the meal, when he teased me for my curiosity about Saint Andrew, "viewed by daylight."
May 26, 1880	115	A cheerful breakfast was followed by a drive to Ravello, whose beauty felt revelatory and suggested Klingsor’s garden from Parsifal. The rest of the day moved through villas, viewpoints, songs, and starry conversation, with R. noting in the visitors’ book that he had found something essential for the work.	Wednesday, May 26: Merry breakfast and drive to Ravello, lovely beyond description. Discovered Klingsor's garden in Ravello. Late breakfast at the Villa ... (?), then coffee with Mr. Reed's manager, whose wife, a Swiss, pleases us very much with her serious air, she reminds us of Vreneli. Drive via Santa Chiara to the little pavilion, the view from Santa Chiara the loveliest, in my opinion. Rest, with songs from Pepino. Meditative descent and lovely evening on the terrace, conversing about the stars, which glitter above us, and the moon, which looks down upon us, as it is claimed, "with swollen cheeks and foolish face." (In the book in Ravello R. wrote, "Have found the 2nd act of Pars.")
May 27, 1880	131	Corpus Christi processions filled the day with noise that seemed coarse and offensive despite Siegfried’s excitement and repeated visits to the cathedral. A magnificent sea trip and rail journey lifted R. into exuberance, and on returning to Naples he felt its overpowering energy so strongly that all else seemed merely pastoral, while Vesuvius flashed ominously through the evening.	Thursday, May 27: Corpus Christi Day, much noise and banging, brutish affair which would shock anybody of a humanitarian or religious turn of mind. Siegfried full of it, six times to the cathedral, back and forth! Sea trip to the grotto in two boats, really splendid, as also the return journey to the beautiful Vietri and after that the journey by rail, during which R. becomes increasingly exuberant. As we arrive, Naples exercises all its powerful and imperious magic. R. remarks that compared with this everything else looks like an idyll, and one feels here as if one were in the main center, he said "main city," of the world. In the evening, as if to celebrate our return, Vesuvius keeps sending up its flares, so regularly that one feels an eruption is nigh.
May 28, 1880	141	After a good night, R. spent the day writing letters and correcting the biography for the printers. Yet beneath the productivity lay a sorrowful mood as he contemplated leaving the South and taking her back north, insisting that since she had no wishes of her own he must wish on her behalf, before they ended the day quietly in the vineyards.	Friday, May 28: A good night and a cheerful day. R. writes today and tomorrow letters to Wolzogen, Lenbach, Schemann, and corrects the biography, which he sends to friend Wolzogen for the printers. A curious mood overtook him yesterday and overtakes him again today as he contemplates our surroundings: sorrow at the prospect of having to take me home to the North. When I try to tell him what pain he causes me by saying this, he observes that, since I have no wishes of my own, it is all the more important for him to wish in my behalf. And he adds that he himself is so completely finished with everything that this is now really all he cares about. We chose a spot up in the vineyards to settle down and spent a cheerful evening there, though cut short by our fatigue.
May 29, 1880	106	R. returned to his early morning walks, and later they took a boat to the Villa Postiglione to see Joukowsky, who despite a fever had drafted a sketch for Parsifal's second act. The ride back with Malwida was brightened by the children waving from the road above, though R. was tired by evening and dwelt on Bismarck's brusque behavior in a diplomatic quarrel.	Saturday, May 29: R. resumes his early-morning walks. In the afternoon by boat to the Villa Postiglione, where our good friend Joukowsky, kept indoors by a fever, has nevertheless managed to work out a sketch for the 2nd act of Parsifal. Return by boat with R. and Malwida; the children also returning from the Villa Postiglione, on the Posilipo road above, constantly waving to us. R. somewhat tired in the evening; he tells us of the interlude between Herr v. Rudhart, the Bavarian ambassador, and Prince Bismarck, continually remarking on the attitude of Bismarck, who had nothing to say except, "I do not have to put up with that!"
May 30, 1880	77	After a good night's sleep, R. walked with the children and then began a letter to the King. Visitors came in the afternoon, and although he seemed worn out from the steep climb from the sea, he spent the evening listening to Rubinstein play and then gave Joukowsky the outline for Parsifal's second act.	Sunday, May 30: R. slept well and goes for a walk in the morning with the children; later in the morning he begins a letter to the King. Some callers in the afternoon. R. looks tired; the steps from the sea up to the Villa Postiglione were a strain on him. In the evening he asks friend Rubinstein to play the second movement of III, after which he gives friend Joukowsky the plan for the 2nd act of Parsifal.
May 31, 1880	186	R. rose very early, walked with the children, and spoke warmly of the letter he had written to the King, wishing him a day like the 22nd. He amused himself with reading Flaubert, reminiscing about Spohr, and arranging folios in his improvised study, but the strain of the steps caught up with him by evening, when he masked his fatigue with jokes.	Monday, May 31: R. woke up very early; he goes for a walk with the children, tells me of his letter to the King, to whom he wishes a day such as the 22nd. He begins Flaubert's Tentation de Saint Antoine and laughs over the curiously prosaic tone of the opening, in which the saint talks like a secluded epicure. He admits that the peculiar use to which the French language has been put in German detracts from the effect of a French word, "charmant," for example. Over coffee he talks about Spohr and his last, so very childish, opera, sent to him for consideration; its rejection brought Spohr's anger down on his head, until he met him personally, and "I told all the lies I could." The bookbinder brings the folios, and R. excitedly enjoys himself setting them up; altogether he takes much pleasure in his "makeshift study." But in the evening he feels tired; ascending those steps really did strain him. But he gaily tells us a joke: "How to put a stop to the mass emigrations?" "Make America Prussian, then not a soul will go there."
No diary entries found.