Cosima's Diaries

Saturday, April 1:

After a good night we take the early train to Catania and are utterly entranced by the journey. The handsome town, through which we are conducted by Marquis S. Giuliano, pleases us greatly; at lunch the Marquis quotes “The Landgrave's Address” in Tannhäuser. The little excursion does R. good; he is impressed by the sight of the Gravina tomb beside the royal ones.

In the evening the children sing, R. accompanies them, and we play whist.

Sunday, April 2:

R. had a good night. Our breakfast conversation revolves around the children, mainly Blandine, with some apprehension! The laconic tone of Hans's telegram says a very great deal! In the Bund, which a Swiss maid here receives, it is reported, to R.'s delight, that on the left bank of the Vierwaldstätter Lake a parkland is to be leveled as far as Tribschen, “for some time the residence of R. Wagner.”

The weather is uncertain, we abandon a coach excursion and take the 5 o'clock train to Giarre and Riposto, returning with the 7 o'clock train. When we get off at Giarre, R. calls out, “Herr Schnappauf!” The urchins surrounding him repeat “Schnappauf” like an echo, amid much laughter; we go down to the sea in very gay spirits, sit on the terrace of the little tollhouse and watch the moon rising. A splendid journey, which we greet with cries of delight. On our return we see Etna free of clouds for the first time, shining in the moonlight.

A game of whist, made very merry by R.'s humorous vexation with his bad cards, ends a day on which R. has felt very well. He decides on a journey to Taormina tomorrow. [Added in margin: “On our return from Taormina he asks Fidi how much smaller than the earth the moon is, and he adds, ‘A dreadfully big thing, this earth, much too big!’ ”]

Monday, April 3:

R. had a good night. He gets up early, and we feel pleased to be so favored by the weather. He writes to Feustel on account of the Batz affair (yesterday Herr Neumann wrote that the theaters were allowing him to give his guest performances on condition that they retain 10% of the performance rights) - now the question is whether Batz also has rights in Tristan und Isolde.

The beauty here could drive one out of one's mind; we visit Taormina and are rewarded with a unique view! Before leaving, R. took Fidi for a walk in the garden opposite and told him how lucky he was compared with other children, and this obliged him to be particularly good! In Taormina R. is particularly delighted by the columns. On the homeward journey he says how dreamlike is the sight of such things, one is not in fact moved by them at all. I understand this feeling only too well: when one's gaze is directed toward the depths, the surface no longer has much effect. Yet even in this lack of effect there is a peculiar feeling of well-being. We met S.'s Latin teacher, Herr Toussaint, in the Hôtel Timeo, concerning which R. says we should have fled there in 1858 and spared ourselves many, many torments. The children could have lived on prickly pears!

But the meeting with Herr T. and also a letter from Stein bring up the education problem again. R. is against high school and says that what might have been all right for the Grand Duke's heir is not suitable for Siegfried. He believes that at school he would lose his innocence; he feels that everything will turn out all right for him; having in our home become sensible while still remaining childlike, he requires no further education. We play whist and go to bed early. Saying good night to me, R. remarks, “How little pleasure the Will takes in itself we can see when we remember how silly loving couples always look in real life, how little sympathy is aroused by the exchange of yearning glances, whereas on the stage we find these things so interesting.”

On arrival in Taormina R. catches sight of a little island; he says that in earlier days he always longed for something like that, in order to cut himself off from the world. “If only Wesendonck were to give me such an island,” he had thought to himself, “and Minna had no great desire to go there with me!” And he adds, “It was the thought that there was much I could still do.” As the children are singing the “Shepherd's Song” from Tannhäuser, he tells me that he heard it sung by a shepherd in Schreckenstein, near Teplitz - though of course in a completely different form. The feeling of strangeness, even when contemplating something as sublimely expressive of a national culture as this theater, the sight of the many citadels piled one above the other, arousing our laughter at such a display of caution - all this causes R. to repeat his remark that all these civilizations were robber civilizations. We review other possibilities.

“Oh,” he says, “I am becoming more and more Gobinistic,” and this is why he is annoyed by Malwida's criticism of the book on race. He calls her views optimistic and justifies the grim veracity of his own by virtue of the serenity they induce in him.

Tuesday, April 4:

R. feels worn out from our outing yesterday. Our conversation turns to Hans, whom R. criticizes severely; against this I see the blame attached to me for marrying him and thus perhaps exacerbating his tendencies. Then we talk about emigration, which is assuming extravagant proportions in Württemberg and Baden in consequence of the tariff policies. “And it is the best part of the population which is emigrating”; what remains is fodder for the Jews. I also tell R. my idea of a Wagner dictionary, touched on by Stein in his letter, and we talk about it.

At lunch he seems somewhat worn down, but he has a good rest in the afternoon, and the two of us set out for the Cyclopean Islands, with the idea of catching up with the children. However, they are not there. We go in the dirtiest of boats, rowed by three constantly chattering boatmen, in order to see the curious lava formations, and we resolve to return in the evening. The boatmen demand payment during the journey and then demand it again from our coachman, who - un peu d'insolence, as R. remarks while telling Gravina about it - gives them what they ask, laughing cheekily at us, and on top of that cadges a pinch of snuff from R. [Added in margin: “On our return from Taormina he asks Fidi how much smaller than the earth the moon is, and he adds, ‘A dreadfully big thing, this earth, much too big!’ ”]

We return home in laughing vexation, visit the splendid garden opposite, admire Etna, and give up our evening drive. In the evening whist, during which R. explains to Gravina why he always likes to play with me: because then he can bear both good and bad luck. He reads letters to Daniela about Hans, declaring himself completely indifferent to this correspondence. He tells me about the minister Gerber's edict, which so delights him that he has half a mind to write to the minister.

He is pleased with Fidi and feels he will be a better person than we are since the things we achieved only through difficulties and torments he is receiving without suffering.

Wednesday, April 5:

R. had a good night, even though he woke up once with the words “I am dying - oh, how beautiful!” There is a heavy thunderstorm, and he sees a flash of lightning which, he says in describing it to us, drew “passionate” signs in the air, and he then dreams he saw the name “Nadar” in the sky (the well-known Parisian who wrote his name in zigzag letters on all the walls).

At breakfast he mentions that he is expecting royalties for this quarterly period, but they will be small; Carmen is providing him with competition. Yesterday he expressed surprise that his old works were still bringing him in so much money, and he wonders whether the new ones will follow the same path. Before lunch he goes for a walk in the garden opposite and is amused by a “scuffle” among the monkeys.

Then at lunch the question of upbringing is discussed; R. feels that punishment is quite unnecessary - either the child has a bad heart, in which case nothing matters, or one is born a good child of love, and then everything rights itself of its own accord. Then he speaks of male and female; since he calls it “boy and girl,” I ask jokingly whether I fare well in it: “Yes, in the second part of your life, but not in the first, for in a woman's love for a man I see the first breaking of the Will, in the longing - as Schopenhauer so magnificently puts it - to produce the Saviour.” I recall Diotima being born again in beauty. “Certainly Plato knew it,” R. says, “but he made the mistake of wanting to be constructive.”

Over coffee we plan our homeward journey, then R. tells us things from the world of politics, that Bismarck is making concessions to the Clerical party in order to win their support for the tobacco monopoly, and that in France ras bon sens [plain common sense], bonnets de coton [cotton bonnets], and les sabots [clogs] now prevail, which heartens him; for example, they did not wish to dissolve the concordat. We go for a little walk, first in town, but we find it unpleasant on account of the ugly, crippled people, so we go into the garden, which always delights us.

In the evening whist, and then between R. and me a long conversation about love and, from there, the realization of ideas. It begins with R.'s pointing out to me the moonlight on the sea and adding how little such a sight now means to him; he mentions Schopenhauer's similar remark and stresses how wise he was to confine himself to criticism; invention leads to foolishness. We then go on to Christianity, which in its pure form was too fragile to gain ground and, in accommodating itself to the world, could only give rise to inconsequentiality. We come to see how this realization - that an idea cannot give rise to a corresponding deed, that such a deed can only be released by an urge - which appears to be such a bitter one, can nevertheless lead to serenity: it draws one away from the outside world and bids one dig deeper within oneself. We see that the Saviour had no community in the true sense of the word, and that he allowed himself to be crucified for the few who committed themselves to him. “That is sublime,” R. exclaims. But the need to inform, to show others the truth one has perceived, that exists, he says - but it means monasteries! Feelings and thoughts pass to and fro between us, until it is just glances we are exchanging, and we go off to bed.

“I did the right thing, another the wrong,” he says in our bedroom, thinking of Hans and his marriage. He mentions often during the day that, on account of the wrong done to him, Hans now expects to be absolved from responsibility. Stein's enthusiastic response to the school idea, which R. has already more or less abandoned, leads him to ask: “Why does our son need other boys to play with? Isn't he getting to know the world best in this way? Let's leave it to Fate. Schools are for creatures who ought never to have been born!” he exclaims, and says that he must expect only an absurd response to his high-minded appeal, if he ever makes it. Support for his works comes only from Jews and young people, he said recently. An exclamation from Cervantes which he frequently uses - “Oh, you persecutor of God and all his saints!” - again makes him laugh today and leads him to say that he can clearly see the facial resemblance between those two, Shakespeare and Cervantes. R. concluded our evening conversation with the remark that Parsifal ought certainly to be his final work, since in these Knights of the Grail he has given expression to his idea of a community. Die Sieger could only repeat this in a weak and insignificant way.

Thursday, April 6:

R. had a good night, but he tells me he is still feeling down in the dumps. All the same I can be pleased with the way he is looking; yesterday he seemed so youthful-younger than everybody else! The children go to church, Siegfried wishes to stay for the whole 4-hour service and comes home with strange reports! The lawyer Gilio comes from Palermo to give me a report on the property situation. It is complicated, not very encouraging, and my fears increase! A drive with R. and Fidi; before that, a visit from Marquis Giuliano. Since, talking of the Semitic problem, he pointed out Italy's advantage in having absorbed them, R. becomes greatly agitated, and he then, through Herr Gilio, sends the Marquis a copy of Know Thyself. He jokes with me about it and says that the only way to treat such people is to make them mad, as Röckel once said about his brother Albert, to whom he had described the extreme consequences of the revolution as unavoidable necessities. In the evening we play whist in earnest; the table separated him from me, but after a while I ask to be allowed to play with him.

Good Friday, April 7:

A good night, but bad weather; R. complains humorously of having nothing but the B. Blätter to read, and he reads Wolz.'s article Present and Future. He says he understands Jouk.'s remark that it looks as if it had been written under the influence of hashish. When I told him recently I objected to this remark, he said, "Women always prefer hypocrisy," but he then added that one is in fact always a bit to blame for such things oneself. We go to church, the children and I, in very bad weather; it is quiet and empty, I am able to read the Gospel, and through its veil the cross speaks to me. And today I was in need of it. After an hour we return home; meanwhile R. had been reading The Classical Walpurgis Night with great delight, he then plays parts of Parsifal and finally the new melody. But when I go to take a rest, Lusch shows me a letter from her father which in offensiveness transcends everything so far experienced. However, under the influence of my hour of prayer and R.'s playing, I am able to accept it calmly and to dictate to Lusch a good letter to her father; I then try to forget it. R. visits me, opens the Shakespeare, and reads me various bits from Polonius in Lulu's presence. P.'s Farewell reminds R. of the Fahr wohl scene of the griffins and sphinxes. I am able to respond to this, but when we are alone I give him a summary of the scornful attitude Hans is adopting in the matter of Blandine. Supper is announced, R. jokes about our fasting, a curious story is told about the Bishop, and then we play whist! After a few games we leave the table to the children and talk about Hamlet, which on stage has an enervating effect, so awesome and magnificently truthful is it. And the same with all Shakespeare's tragedies-one leaves them exhausted and overwhelmed. The spirit of theater yearns for music, I observe, for the consummate ideality of sound. R. says in the modern theater that is certainly so, but things were different on the Shakespearean stage. The children say good night, we are left alone, and Hans's behavior is our topic, and what to do about it; R. wishes me, in the name of the children, to repudiate everything he has set aside for them and to forbid any further interference, and he wants to dictate it to me right away. I hesitate and promise to do it tomorrow, and we continue to reflect on it-for a long, a very long time! R. is violent in his expressions of repugnance and contempt, I tell both him and myself that, if I am to blame for such a deterioration, then may God protect me! We go off to bed. (R. thought today of Good Friday in the North, which is often very beautiful and touching with its emerging buds and little flowers-in the Asyl in Zurich, for instance, where the first thoughts of Parsifal came to him.) Along with this most serious of matters, the mail also brought the news that L. Lehmann has declined to take part, something I do not tell R., but which affects me greatly, for she is all but indispensable.

Saturday, April 8:

R. had a somewhat restless night, I compose in my mind a letter to Lusch, a copy of which I would send to Hans; but today R. is for "letting it go," and so let it be forgotten and-to the extent that I have the right to say it-forgiven! Then I write to the Tascas, before that to L. Lehmann, with all the warmth I am capable of expressing. Weather still gray and overcast. We receive Marquis San Giuliano and Prince Ramacca, Blandine's future father-in-law. R. very, very charming and kind. In the afternoon he reads to me an anecdote, which he finds touching, about a shepherd who, after getting tickets for himself and his dog, leaves his seat and goes to join his animal. Then he reads parts of The Classical Walpurgis Night to me; he much admires Erichtho's speech, but almost above all else the scene of Mephisto with the griffins and sphinxes, then Chiron-everything, in fact, in this most wonderful of conceptions. Talking about Goethe and whether he can be regarded as the sum total of the German spirit, R. says, "I think he can, if one considers how he absorbed all the revivals and discoveries of the 18th century in this free manner; and in the ultimate things he was always full of prescience." Speaking of Helen in Faust, whom he does not much care for, R. says he can see Goethe standing in Rome in front of the antiquities. In the evening whist, and Italian arias sung by R. Then some more talk between us about H.

Sunday, April 9:

Christ is risen! But here in Sicily in bad weather! Talk of leaving; R. enjoys moving about. Pleasant lunch with 10 at table; at one point R. loses his temper in earnest over the Catholic clergy. Then a joke from him about his interest in education brings from me my solemn assurance to Gravina that he did in truth educate the children. He tells me that he can well believe it, since they would have seen R. expressing only noble and great feelings. Since this answer pleases me, I repeat it to R., and he, asking in protest how I could possibly justify my claim, says, "It was you who preserved my life, and it was this act of preservation which gave dignity to my life." In dull weather we go for a walk in the garden; since many of the citizens are there, R. quotes Wagner's words about ten-pin rolling, fiddling, etc., and Faust's fine answer, "One impulse art thou conscious of, at best." "That," he says, "is the Faust who grips us"; later we return to Mephisto. He intends to complete his work in June, and he says it will be more significant than he himself first thought or others expected; he says he will connect it with Gobineau, start with him. The rest of the day R. finds thoroughly unpleasant. Dr. Strecker inquires whether the specifications for Parsifal are all right as they are, after R. returned the corrected proofs weeks ago! Then he finds the weather a trial, and he comes to supper in an irritable mood. But as soon as Pasquino's performance, which Gravina and I arranged, begins, he cheers up, and he is completely won over by the talents of these good people. Gr. had arranged a fee of 30 francs, R. raises this to 100 and then goes up to 200 lire, and is touched by the solemn expression of gratitude on Pasquino's face. The rest of us are pleased as well, I in particular by his delight in it all.

Monday, April 10:

R. had a good night, but he is vexed by the gray weather. Our morning conversation concerns yesterday's show, R. says he was fascinated by the first entrance of the two women, since they took no notice of us, the audience, at all, but just spoke very earnestly with each other! Excitement at lunch over Isolde's birthday, R. sings two themes from Tristan, then proposes her health with warm delight; but then he is embarrassed by the presence of the Prince, and our departure for Messina takes place in unfavorable circumstances. But he gradually recovers his good spirits, and in Messina, while the children are enjoying themselves on the sea, we two go for a splendid drive to the top of Mount Cappuccini, then to the cathedral. The sky is bright, and who could hope to describe all the rest? When I tell him how much I enjoy not seeing beautiful things before he does, that is to say, never without him, but always with him, he replies, "And I am glad to see nothing after you!" We return home, confine ourselves just to swapping reports with the children, have a short game of whist, and go off to bed.

Tuesday, April 11:

R. had a good night, but he is not well, and his indisposition gets so bad that he avoids going out and wishes to be left alone. I go with the children to look at the Antonellos, then accompany Fidi into some churches; R. takes a walk to the cathedral square, which pleases him very much. Our lunch is uncomfortable, and after it R. feels very indisposed and cannot make up his mind whether to go out or not; after a few changes of mind we decide to remain at home. R. reads some Turgenev stories and is particularly affected by one about a lame woman, since he is reading it at a time when he himself must avoid movement as much as possible. We spend the evening alone together; I have begun reading Sophocles's Philoctetes with the children, and I talk about it to R. But Faust remains our principal topic. At lunch the day before yesterday R. said he could not really understand why, after depicting Faust's shattering experience with Gretchen and intending to have Faust redeemed by Gretchen, [Goethe] then leads him through all these inappropriate happenings, leaving him at the end with such a paltry field of activity. With considerable clumsiness I indicate that this seems rather fine; for a moment he is annoyed, but his view of the nature of Faust does not prevent his showing the utmost admiration for the way the plan is carried out. He reads the scenes with the Emperor, I likewise, and we admire the original and popular style in which it is all expressed. The character of the Emperor is so striking in its combination of weakness and integrity. He observes that it is still a little-known book, but the book! Recalling Schiller's Die Braut von Messina, R. says: "One shouldn't hide dignity behind a mask; if it does not arise naturally out of the prevailing culture, as among the Greeks, where every appeal to the gods has so awesome an effect, one should leave it alone."

Wednesday, April 12:

R. had a restless night, and we learn that the ship we were counting on has no room for us, since the ex-Khedive, turned away from Alexandria with his wives, has taken it over. R. says he wishes to see the ship! I finish Philoctetes with the children, while R. reads the book of short stories, maintaining his interest in it to the end, and saying in its praise that the Russian people still provide a writer with naive subjects, whereas French books have only repulsive things to offer. In the afternoon R. and I set out on a drive to the temple of Neptune; the sea is showing the most remarkable colors, mauve and green, and the shores are beautiful. But rain forces us to turn back. Issues of the Fliegende Blätter, discovered in the hotel, keep R. amused, and I tell him of a report in the Polnische Zeitung about a German in Strassburg who has suggested the monopolization of electricity, since a nation can only assume control of an industry with advantage when it is in its initial stages, not once it is already flourishing. R. remarks that this is a peculiar idea and asks why we must always imitate what other nations have done a long time before us. In the evening we play whist, and since I feel certain that R. prefers to be alone with me when he is feeling somewhat run down, and also that he does not care for all the Italian and French, even though we two always speak German, I soon send the children away, and we chat together, about Philoctetes, about Faust.

Thursday, April 13:

After a somewhat restless night the sun shines on us again, and we start our day with a conversation about Faust. After I have quoted to him a few things, such as "We made him rich, and now we must amuse him," in which Schopenhauer's saying about neediness or boredom is summarized, he points out how much superior this poem is, on account of its freedom, to that of Dante, who was free only in his personal judgment, but otherwise completely bound by church doctrine. I ask whether it was not the time he lived in that worked to G.'s advantage, and R. replies, "Of course, as I remarked in The Public in Time and Space"-there has never been a greater poet than Dante. He also said, before this, "G. could die in peace after having given us this portrait of the world's triviality and this glorification of love and the Christian idea." "He worked on it long enough," he replies jokingly when I say that without apparently ever having thought much about it, he had absorbed everything down to the smallest detail of Christian symbolism. "And one does not need to search for long-what one needs comes into one's mind of its own accord, one doesn't quite know how. I know something of that from experience." Departure at 5 o'clock after a few difficulties and worries, of which R. tells us at lunch, saying humorously that he had wanted to inquire about the ship but in the end had gone to beer halls with Gravina. The weather is bright, but very windy, and after a few glances at the coast R. withdraws to his cabin. (He told me before this that he has been reading Sophocles's Ajax, and he criticizes the bad habit of bandying maxims about, calling it a mannerism. But he does say, "If only a few MSS. of Aeschylus and Soph. were dug up, instead of all the many statues!") I remain on the upper deck, first with the children; then at last alone, gazing upon a starry night beyond compare, softly glittering, and a phosphorescent sea, till my gazing turns into a prayer. Sailing past Stromboli, Loldi even sees flames. It is after 10 o'clock when I join R. in the cabin; he is not actually sick, but feeling the strain, and he sleeps with interruptions.

Friday, April 14:

We arrive in Naples at 8 o'clock, in somewhat gray weather; it is to Pellegrino that R. gives the honor of a salute, since he can raise no great interest in the cliffs of Capri. Naples itself, however, as unique as ever! Dr. Schramm to greet us; parting from our friend and son [Gravina], made very moving by R.'s words. "Soyez un homme, et vous nous aurez pour amis" ["Be a man and you will have us as your friends"], he says, and expresses his appreciation of his good and honorable character-and what lies in its power to achieve-in such a wonderful way that all pain is dissolved in blissful melancholy. We leave the city, which R. declares to be the loveliest of all (we had once more enjoyed the drive down the Posillipo), and now hasten away. The countryside beyond the Naples coast does not interest R. very much (I am fascinated by the sunset over Monte Cassino).

Saturday, April 15:

Tuscany enchants us with its cultivation; when we come to Lombardy, R. explains to me the origin of alluvial ground. "That took quite a time," he says jokingly, whereupon I: "It must surely have happened before the calendar was invented"; he looks at me with a twinkle in his eye, then earnestly, and says, "I have you, and you are all I could or should have, everything else is a masquerade." Yesterday, as I was going to sleep, I heard soft words of blessing being spoken over me and felt his dear hand, grasped it as he said quietly, "Now we can say that we are happy." And when all is silent, all that exists is a prayer from me to him, a blessing from him to me-yet how many things come between us! In Naples an unpleasant business letter (Batz), during the journey inquisitive people, and how much else! In Mestre he is vexed by a completely inexplicable delay, also by the fact that it is raining when we arrive in Venice, whereas in Naples we had the brightest weather, as always. R. very tired, can scarcely eat a thing, goes straight off to bed, and, as I am writing these lines, sends me a message to say that he is feeling all right again, whereupon I go upstairs to greet him. Soon afterward he comes to join me, and we chat for a while. (In the train he thought of Beethoven's quartets and told me that they are the equivalent of Faust, playing with the theme in a completely free way, but in music this is more transfigured, a playing with sound!) Then he considered the masculine and feminine names of the various rivers, believing first of all that the German rivers were masculine, Donau [Danube], etc., being Slavonic, but he satisfied himself that this view is untenable.

Sunday, April 16:

Following a good night, delight in Venice, our curious apartments please us, and a walk he takes to San Marco around midday utterly enchants him; we are in no doubt that this is the loveliest place of all. Just one incident annoys him: the son of the American impresario Strakosch asks him how much he earns from the performance of his works, whereupon R. rebukes him severely for his impertinence. "If only I could say such things with biting coldness, but I always get emotionally upset, and I felt my spasm again." In the afternoon we return to the square and go into the church, which R. was unwilling to enter in the morning, since a service was being held, then as far as S. Zaccaria, delighting in everything. The hotel, too, with its long anteroom on each floor, pleases R. In the evening he reads to us three acts of Gozzi's The Raven with enjoyment. When we are alone, we talk again about Sophocles; R. tells me various things from Ajax, regretting only the way maxims are bandied about, but full of admiration for its other qualities, and particularly for the vividness of Odysseus's character; he agrees with me in my praise for Philoctetes and the aftertaste of racial feeling in it.

Monday, April 17:

R. had a restless night-we believe as a result of his second glass of grog! He began to read an article by Hans in the Musikzeitung, then set it aside, disliking its witty tone; however, when he takes leave of me, he picks the paper up again, saying, "Now that we have laughed over it together, I can continue reading it." Yesterday R. took the news of L. Lehmann's desertion very calmly, but something from Batz has annoyed him. I go out in search of palazzos, but without success today. On my return I find a letter to Lusch from Hans, from which I see that my mood of resignation has been rewarded, for he writes in a very proper manner, to Gravina as well. R. went out, but returned exhausted, and a ride in a gondola, which he takes with us, cheers him up, without, however, removing his feelings of discomfort. He is also vexed that the piano score of Parsifal has still not been published. In the evening I write at his request to Herr Neumann, saying he will not be coming to London, and to a Herr Schulz-Curtius, who has inquired whether R. would accept an honorary doctorate from Oxford, saying that he considers the time for his accepting such honors is now past. His Gondolier's Song of '63, which I have now got hold of, amuses him. The children are with Princess Hatzfeldt; we spend the evening chatting quietly in between the letters, which I am writing on his behalf, since he now feels very disinclined to write!

Tuesday, April 18:

R. did not have a good night, and since the weather is wet, he does not go out; he passes his time with Homer, talks to me about it, and says that in spite of all its great qualities it seems to him, with so much talk and the sham battles, frivolous in comparison with certain succinct German sagas, particularly the conclusion of the Nibelungenlied. Delayed by my house hunting, I keep him waiting for half an hour and find his remarks on “Hunger” and also the melody [see notes] on my desk. The latter touches me all the more in that I had just been thinking of using it for his birthday!

After lunch we visit the Palazzo Desdemona with Hebrew occupants! Perhaps! Then Santa Maria della Salute, whose cold interior utterly disgusts R. He cannot understand how the warm style of Byzantine churches could ever have been abandoned in favor of this imitation classical whiteness. We return home, and I write to M. Meysenbug, giving her my reasons for accepting Gravina as a son-in-law.

R. feels that my confiding in her goes too far; he says she is not so loyal to us as she should be, has other interests besides, is not permeated with our ideas! He thinks she is somewhat like Bakunin, whose biography he has just been reading in a newspaper, astonished by all the things he did as a conspirator and the people with whom he had dealings. R. also talks about the dominance of Jews in this country as well, and he is astonished that nobody is apprehensive about it - but of course all the rest are already Israelized. Recalling these two curious people, he said: “No real life of their own - ghosts! Nothing there but profit-seeking and a pinch of voluptuousness!”

Wednesday, April 19:

R. had a good night, and it is a glorious day! I set out on my searches, and R. goes on his own to the Belle Arti, says he discovered me there in the first room: others might not recognize me in it, but this is how I look when I have been weeping. He is still enchanted with Venice.

When I return home, I find on my desk his reply to Herr Forster, who has deployed all of what R. calls his “play actor’s” eloquence in an effort to persuade R. to go to London, holding out the prospect of an invitation from the Duke of Edinburgh - showing, in short, his complete ignorance of R.’s character. R. replies that it is very unfortunate that there is so much lying in the world, for no truthful man will be believed when he says that his health does not permit him to go. R. and I visit the Palazzo Morosini, look at Loredano, go inside S. Marco, stop at a jeweler’s, where R. buys a necklace for Boni, having given fans to Loldi and Eva.

Our supper is overshadowed by the news that Prince Scalea’s young son, whom Gravina discovered lying mortally ill and neglected in an institution in Naples, is being left there abandoned by his parents, in spite of Grav.’s urgent entreaties to be allowed to bring him home! R. wants to adopt the boy, at all costs to rescue him from the hated institution, but then, realizing his powerlessness, he relapses into melancholy and inveighs indignantly against these families. With the children we go to the Goldoni Theater and see Scribe’s Bataille des dames. The weak and wordy exposition annoys R.; he wants action, but he is interested in the way the story is developed.

Thursday, April 20:

R. had a good night. In the course of the day we return to a reply Fidi made to me yesterday; I had observed that I would like to die in Venice; Fidi: “I in Bayreuth, for, lovely as it all is, one likes best to go home.” R. praises this home-loving spirit and says, “Woe upon those who do not possess it!” I thank Fidi in my heart for understanding so well how to please me.

R. talks at breakfast about the Iliad, and he says the garrulous prolongation of the narrative is out of proportion to the cruelty of the legend, and from this he deduces that the latter is much older than the former. The narrative has a real Oriental breadth. The famous description of Olympus shaking as Zeus bows his head finds no favor in his eyes; as a dramatist he sees the foolishness of it, the lack of proportion. Then our thoughts turn to that poor boy, abandoned in Naples. In connection with him R. said yesterday that night was not dark enough to hide in, and today he quotes M[ephisto]’s terrible words, “She is not the first” - that, he says, is the consolation the world offers! He enlarges upon the chapter on marriage with which he is now much occupied, this urge of Nature: “At any rate,” he concludes, “it is always wrong to do anything against it.” He goes out and brings Boni a necklace, with which the girl is very pleased. Before that he informed Herr L[evi] that he would be passing through - he feels there is now much to be done at home.

After lunch we pay another visit to the Palazzo Desdemona, then we go on a lovely drive to S. Giovanni e Paolo. Delighting in the blue sky, we think of the North; he feels the weather will get worse and worse, since everything is moving toward the end of the world. At lunch we mentioned those friends who often reproached us for finding all other people dispensable; R. says, “What they are demanding is a sort of being in love, for we have shown them that we can be friends.” Turning to the children: “There is only one person who has ever been indispensable to me, without whom I should find it impossible to live, and that is your mother. I was mad about her,” he adds jokingly. At supper, in connection with the appalling pictures of the Madonna which one sees here, too, our conversation turns to Cath. and Prot., and R. solemnly and penetratingly explains the difference to Siegfried. Then he reads to us the conclusion of The Raven, without much enjoyment.

Friday, April 21:

In the morning R. recalls yesterday’s play and remarks how curious it is that after G[oethe]’s and Schiller’s works had already appeared, such rough and vulgar language could still be printed as that used in the translation of this play. At lunch he says to me that all one can do in our time is to practice criticism, confine oneself to exposing the lie; and apart from that promote the work of art! I observe that criticism serves to prepare the ground for this art.

In connection with a mulatto, custodian at the Palazzo Loredano, he tells me, half in jest but all the same very much in earnest, that he no longer finds human beings at all pleasing, even to look at, and he shares Schopenhauer’s feelings in finding no pleasure in the skin’s whiteness. We visit this Palazzo Loredano, and R. feels attracted by it anew. From there we go to St. Mark’s Square; R. asks the military band for [Rossini’s] Tadra Overture, which is then played, and very prettily.

In the evening he has some unpleasantnesses (Batz-Neumann, performance rights of T. and L.); at about 9 o’clock we go to Princess Hatzfeldt’s; the singers are awaiting us below, and they lead us there amid singing, moonlight, and Bengal lights, and also take us home. With the friendly Princess, R. is in very lively spirits, though, it seems to me, somewhat on edge.

Saturday, April 22:

Sirocco and a certain amount of confusion today, various letters and requests; but it is a great delight, when I return with the children from the photographer’s (Boni for Gr.), to be met by R. under the arcades. After lunch I negotiate with the agent for the Palazzo Loredano, which belongs to Don Carlos. Then we all go for a walk, R. wishes to make some purchases for the children, and finally we accompany Lusch home, to the Princess.

During our stop at the confectioner’s, R. tells me how desirous of rest he is. “Actually,” he says, “we should now have all the children married off, and the two of us should be sitting for hours on end in a bower on the sunny banks of a river - that is the picture I have in my mind! We found each other too late - we should have been united much sooner.” He also tells me the news of Hans’s engagement. Is this perhaps the resolution of the discords Hans hinted at in his most recent letter? I feel very apprehensive on the children’s account. Since I am rather worn out, the evening is spent looking through the Bayreuther Blätter. R. is satisfied with his writing.

Sunday, April 23:

R. has remembered a Verdi theme which he heard sung yesterday on the Grand Canal as a duet; he sings it to me, laughing at the way this outburst of rage was bellowed out yesterday; he made a note of its broken rhythm - “And that one is asked to call a natural line!” - there is nothing like it in Rossini. He reads the Blätter in the morning and feels that Stein’s “Luther and the Peasants” is rather sketchy and bombastic.

Then he goes out, once again intent on finding presents for the children. He tells me humorously that in Giarre, the village we gave up in favor of Riposto, a lawyer from Palermo was taken prisoner and released only against a payment of 75,000 lire - now they are about to clean up Etna. R. asks what priests are for; they are supposed to represent Christianity. Judas has triumphed, he says sorrowfully, and he speaks of Christianity, the relation of man to man - this will be his last work, he says. He reproaches Gob. for leaving out of account one thing which was given to mankind - a Saviour, who suffered for them and allowed himself to be crucified.

Over coffee we come to G[oethe]’s last letter to Frau von Stein, with Chr[istiane] Vulpius in it, and R. observes that Christiane’s amiable disposition was a blessing for G. after all the “lovesicknesses,” and as he was becoming increasingly serious, he surely wished to get rid of these excitements “with nothing behind them”; we talk about the moral courage required for the curious relationship with Christiane in that little town; R. asks how Schiller described her and then, going on to talk of Schiller’s wife, he says earnestly and exaltedly, “I have fared better.” My heart overflows at the thought that I have been permitted to share his life!

At 4 o’clock we go for a drive, wish to visit the Giardino Pubblico and hear something from Lohengrin, lose our way, however, and go on to the arsenal, a photograph of which attracted R. One of the ancient lions enchants him: “An ideal creature such as I have never seen before; that’s how my Fafner and Fasolt should look.” And back at home, reading Baedeker, he exclaims, “That lion is my Wotan!” He is staunchly and firmly convinced that it once stood in Marathon as a triumphal monument; it is symbolic, he says, and is pleased that he felt so drawn to it, even in the photograph. As we are returning home, a glorious sunset illumines the buildings opposite. Fidi asks regretfully why the monasteries were dissolved. R. replies to him earnestly, telling him what a pitiless power these magnificent buildings served, what symbols of arrogance they had become, though built for a completely different purpose. It is true, he continues, that the power which is attempting to take their place is not promoting the cause of sublimity, either, and so the situation is serious, and we are probably experiencing the last days of a pleasant illusion. “But we should strive to preserve, to see history as a great teacher, and not to begin again from the beginning, tearing everything down,” he says, having been much moved in S. Marco by the thought of how much work had been done on this noble building over many centuries.

As he speaks, the lovely bells of Venice toll solemnly, the shadows lengthen, and the sun sinks down, gilding the other side. “You have one advantage over others - you keep me company,” R. said to me before this; I scold him for expressing what I only tell myself. “But what I think about it - that you don’t know,” he replies. Once again I am struck by the way he expresses what I so fervently feel inside me, as also at times much more trivial matters. For instance, I had been thinking for a moment of Der Dorfbarbier [The Village Barber] for his birthday, and he says, “I must find some village barber for Fidi.” (Fidi had been unwilling to let Schnappauf cut his hair.)

In the evening R. reads Signor Formica aloud, to the enjoyment of us all.

Monday, April 24:

Today at breakfast R. says jokingly, but seriously, “Truly, if there were no pope, there would be no Christianity left at all, not even sects” - to such an extent its spirit fled from the world. I visit some churches with S. while R. is reading Homer. (The report in the Bayreuther Blätter about vivisection in the Reichstag has once more aroused his greatest indignation.)

The weather is not very favorable; we decided to stay at home, just going out in the evening to the Teatro Rossini, where once more there is a great deal of garrulity, but very good and natural acting, and a farce at the end amuses R. greatly. R. tells us of Darwin’s death.

Tuesday, April 25:

R. had a good night. In our morning conversation we decide that one should only concern oneself with the very great or with “gifted eccentrics” such as Hoffmann, Carlyle, etc. Then we discuss Italian melody, and I tell R. that here it seems at times to be curiously effective, in spite of all its banalities - in some way in harmony with the air and the sky. R. agrees with me and says, “In our country everything must be locked in, and that produces a sound which has nothing to do with the visual world; it must all be locked in.”

While the children are in church at S. Marco I go to the Belle Arti, spend an hour there in great delight, and am discovered by R. standing in front of M. Marziale’s Supper at Emmaus, in which the man with the big hat makes a great impression on him, too - indeed, the whole picture, though Christ is handled rather conventionally. The small Bellini Madonna hanging next to it also gives him great delight, and then we rest in front of [Titian’s] Assunta, and it makes a glorious impression. When I say that it is a totality, rather like the 9th Symphony, R. says, “Oh, we have nothing so perfect in music - that is all experimentation.”

The glowing head of the Virgin Mary recalls to him his idea of the sexual urge: this unique and mighty force, now freed of all desire, the Will enraptured and redeemed. He is unable to do justice to God, the “bat,” though he feels he is finely painted. However, he is captivated by the apostles. What blissful moments do we spend there! Every time he regards the head he gives an exclamation of delight. Then we stroll through the other rooms; a picture I find very attractive, Thomas Touching Christ’s Wounds, has little appeal for him, but [Bonifacio’s] History of the Rich Man and the one Bellini Madonna please him greatly. We end as we began, contemplating the old altarpiece (Annunciation) in which, R. thinks, the Madonna looks like me when I have been weeping; he says she has the expression which only he knows in me. And in contented and exalted spirits we return home.

Over coffee R. talks about his future work, his greatest, in which he will loudly state what will become of a race which uses the most important, most powerful force of all, the sexual urge, merely as a basis for marriages of rank! I have some house affairs to attend to; R. goes to the Church of S. Marco with the children, and then once again with me.

Added two pages later but referred back to this point: “When we left S. Marco, R. went with Eva and Fidi to the beer hall, saw there the man who once before delighted him with his imitations of animal sounds, asked him to do them, gave him a lira, but with instructions to thank him in his own way - whereupon the man bursts into the most grotesque ringraziamenti [expressions of thanks].” A strange and inspiring impression, watching the surge of people making their way to the Lord’s shrine; the crypt, brightly illumined, presents a similar view, but in the midst of the crush, not leaning against a picture of Christ but as if merged, kneeling, into it, a woman praying! Amid all this unheeding, yet all the same pious bustle, such fervor! Was it despair, like Gretchen before the Mater Dolorosa, or passionate adoration? We could not see her face. But the image gripped our hearts: this was love, this was holiness. Much did R. say about the need to preserve churches as houses for the poor, places in which love feasts would be celebrated, but without the false pomp of the clerics.

In the evening he finishes reading Signor Formica to us, which unfortunately suffers somewhat from being too long. (A telegram from Neumann produces vexatious thoughts.)

Wednesday, April 26:

A restless night for R., caused by the telegram. When I greet him at breakfast, he is reading a conversation in Die Serapionsbrüder, and he says, “The worst German book means more to me than the best French one - in German some mystical chord is touched of which others show no trace.” But then he observes I should not take this too literally. All the same, we read with interest the remarks on quietism and the awesome quotation from Father Molinos.

Yesterday R. remarked that in his opinion the only consummate masterpiece is the Oresteia, though it is true that the Athenian people are in part responsible for that. He dictates to Boni his reply to Herr Batz, whose dropping out makes him very glad. But unfortunately he suffers another chest spasm on going out. Lusch tells me of a letter from her father which fills me with mournful alarm; the manner in which he announces his engagement seems to me worrisome; I tell Lulu what to reply.

The weather is bad, we stay indoors and play whist, and R. reads another story by E. T. A. Hoffmann. In the conversation in Die Serapionsbrüder he found something which interests him greatly in relation to “Male and Female.”

Thursday, April 27:

R. slept well; he continues reading Hoffmann. He no longer feels like reading Turgenev; a passage in Prosper Mérimée’s preface to his novel Smoke shows that the famous Rachel possessed all the Jewish bad habits of declamation in her French.

In the morning we come to the subject of Marie Hohenlohe; R. says he can understand her utter hatred of her mother, but not her sudden hostile silence toward him. We talk of the King’s entrance into his life; before that his (R.’s) life had been an utterly rootless existence, he says. The weather today is stormy. R. returns from the Belle Arti with photographs of the drawings there, and these truly delight us, many by Leonardo and a splendid one by Carracci (R. calls the latter “a drama”). Later we give it to Jouk.

Friday, April 28:

Today we are once more led to the subject of the Classical Walpurgis Night, and R. calls it a veritable cathedral, so beautifully is it constructed. A fine article by Dr. Schem. in the Blätter brings us to it, but R. deplores the lack of humor in all these pieces. Singer news and difficulties, R. calls Vogl a bit of raw gristle! In the evening a farewell soiree at Princess Hatzfeldt’s, at which R. feels ill at ease. He is embarrassed by Lusch’s having gone somewhere else, and he tells me of his tendency to be jealous of his loved ones.

Saturday, April 29:

A good night, nice weather, packing. R. goes out around noon, and tells me he went to visit K. Ritter, whose address he came upon by chance in the bookshop; given at first a wrong direction on the Riva, he sees a gray-haired gentleman at the window, asks himself, “Has Karl really altered so much?” Then, led into a room in which a lot of pictures are standing, he again asks himself, “Does he paint, too?” At last he sees his mistake, makes further inquiries, and comes to the right door, where a woman with a baby in her arms tells him that Herr Ritter is not at home; whereupon R.: “I think he is at home.” The woman, embarrassed, asks if he is indeed Herr Wagner. “Yes, I am,” R. says, writes on a scrap of paper, “What sort of a person are you?” and goes away. All the same, he is greatly upset by this experience; even before it, the feeling that he would have to take K. R. more or less by surprise in order to see him had brought on a prolonged chest spasm. We also learn that our old friend Gersdorff is here and has not visited us! We leave the hotel at one o’clock, accompanied by the singers, a sight which draws people onto all the bridges, and we leave Venice, after having once again inspected the entresol of the P. Vendramin. We greet Verona and much else, and arrive unnoticed on

Sunday, April 30:

in Tirol. At one of the stations R. is greeted joyfully by a Herr Gehring, a violist in the Dresden orchestra whom he appointed! Concern over Boni’s reserved manner. Looking at the clean houses, “this is our way of doing things,” he says. The country around Munich disheartening, as always! Arrival at 2; the conductor comes to meet us; Herr v. Biirkel calls on us; it is uncertain whether the King will attend the performances. To the theater with the children. Around the World in 80 Days, bad play, badly acted. Lenbach is with us, and R. finds him pleasant company, while to me he remains as invaluable as ever. Springlike air.