Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of February 20, 1872

Overview

Wagner remains worn down, despite attention from the Illustrirte Zeitung and its coverage of Bayreuth and the Nibelungen dramas. He reflects again on how German towns imitate greatness and jokes about dividing people by two ritual cries from Das unterbrochene Opferfest. His illness weighs on her as well, and the evening is spent continuing a dull novel that neither of them finds rewarding.

Content

Tuesday, February 20:

R. still very run down. (In the Illustrirte Zeitung a nice picture and an article on Bayreuth and the Nibelungen dramas.)

R. always comes back to the small towns, for, he says, “we have no real large towns, it is always - in Berlin, for example - as if they were masquerading as large cities.”

“People can perhaps be divided into those who cry ‘Evoe, Evoe’ and those who cry ‘Kohe, Kohe’ (from Das unterbrochene Opferfest).”

R. works, but is still not well, which in turn robs me of all my strength. In the evening continued reading Frau Wille’s very insipid book.