Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of January 12, 1872

Overview

R. slept badly again, while a tailor in Milan pressed to work for him and the household received photographs from Munich that pleased him more than me. He stayed absorbed in the house plans and even voiced a dark fear that the King’s death could undo everything. Though I was unwell and still taught the children, the day was threaded through with a deep, almost aching sense of closeness between us, ending in a long discussion of Aeschylus and Shakespeare.

Content

Friday, January 12:

Again R. did not sleep; letter from our tailor Chaillou-Ghezzi in Milan, who really wants to work for R.; delightful Italian ambitiousness. R. works; I am very unwell, but give the children their lessons.

In the afternoon the photographs from Munich arrive; they do not appeal to me very much, but R. is satisfied with them. R. is constantly working on the plans for our house; he suddenly says, “And if the King dies, everything will be lost.”

Unutterable feelings of love for R. R. says, “I say nothing, I just feel very happy, don’t know whether I love you, only know that I take a heavenly joy in you, and my only vexation is having so much to do that I cannot enjoy my happiness fully.”

In the evening we talked a lot about Aeschylus. “The remarkable thing about this truly great being is that one hardly notices the way it is done! It does not appear to be art at all, because it is in fact something much higher: improvisation. With Schiller, one can imagine how things came into his mind and how he considered manipulating them; but not in Shakespeare or Aeschylus.” “I should like to die in you,” I say to R., a poor expression for my feelings, my longing to be nothing apart from him.