Cosima's Diaries

Diary Entry of March 22, 1872

Overview

Although R. was not feeling well, he still managed some work while letters came in from Feustel, Neumann, and Raila. Fritz and I talked at length during the day, and the weather turned strange with a darkening over the lake and starlings moving together like a single force. R. reflected on that scene as an image of species life joined with individual distinctness. Later he told us a comic story about trying to ride a stubborn horse in Paris and being forced to turn back, ending the visit with Fritz on a lighter note.

Content

Friday, March 22:

Letters to R. from Herr Feustel and Herr Neumann, also from Herr Raila in Bayreuth. R. is not very well, but he does some work. In the morning I converse with Fritz. In the afternoon a curious darkening over the lake; a flock of starlings comes over from the opposite bank and hurls itself at the tree as with a single wingbeat. “There one sees the life of a species,” R. says, “and yet each one is a complete entity in itself.”

R. tells us about his attempts to ride, in the Bois de Boulogne, on a pitiful nag which did not wish to advance; in the end he had to turn back, and that in Paris, at the time of Tannhäuser! Farewells to Fritz.